Unforgiven, Continued

In June of 2011 I asked “Does the phone market forgive failure?” Not much time has passed since but the answer still seems to be no. The trigger I was using for this point of no return when the vendor began making losses.

The list at the time consisted of 13 phone vendors who either merged, were liquidated or acquired after this trigger point was reached. There were no examples of vendors who recovered. Since then two more vendors reached the threshold (Nokia and RIM) and a third will do so this quarter (HTC). One vendor (LG) may be recovering but Nokia has just been acquired and RIM has put itself up for sale. Some Japanese vendors like Panasonic have also called it quits since then. So the score so far is about 18 triggers, 15 exits and three pending.

Some of this data is summarized in the following graph: Continue reading “Unforgiven, Continued”

The Critical Path #94: The Limits of Executive Power

We begin with a defense of Ballmer for preserving great things, continue by condemning him for not having destroyed those very same things and end by asking whether anyone could have done the right thing.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #94: The Limits of Executive Power.