[LINK] BT, MICROSOFT FORM BROADBAND ALLIANCE

[Chirgwin, Richard]

The Reg's take:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/27965.html
>BT (the UK's dominant telco) has teamed up with Microsoft 
>(the world's dominant software company) in a bid, no doubt, 
>to dominate the UK's broadband sector. 
[snip]
>However, the alliance between the two giants has been 
>lambasted by AOL UK. While it warns of the dangers that 
>face consumers if BT and Microsoft dominate the broadband 
>marketplace, it also claims there is little new in today's 
>announcement. 
>
>"Is it ever good for consumers when two monopolies get 
>together?" said a senior spokesman. 
>
>But he also said BT and Microsoft had announced a number 
>of strategic alliances in the past, none of which seemed to do very well. 

In Australia, of course, the World's Dominant Software Company doesn't need
to "team up" with Telstra. It just jerks the string, and Telstra trots
along. So a fortnight back, Telstra played lapdog for the Ballmer press
conference; and this morning, Telstra's there to endorse the launch of the
Tablet PC - even though it has no Tablet PC services, no apparent plans for
services based on the Tablet PC, and no apparent interest in Tablet PCs.

That last line - "none of which seemed to do very well" - is interesting
from an Australian point of view. Telstra's
alliances-with-major-software-companies include:
- Telstra as application service provider for Lotus Notes;
- Telstra as ASP for Lotus Domino (ie, its relaunch of the Lotus Notes
service);
- Telstra as partner for the pre-Internet MSN;
- Telstra as partner for mySAP;
- Telstra offering corporate Novell NetWare services (ha!).
- and many, many more, "none of which seemed to do very well".

>From this it may be reasonably inferred that:
- Carrier/software partnerships are a bad idea (and therefore justify the
swift execution of their analyst advocates); or
- Telstra can't operate software services to save its life.
(Circle whichever you prefer!).

RC



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Lean [mailto:m.lean@qut.edu.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 7 November 2002 09:03
> To: link@anu.edu.au
> Subject: [LINK] BT, MICROSOFT FORM BROADBAND ALLIANCE
> 
> 
> Interesting bit of news...
> Mike
> 
> >BT, MICROSOFT FORM BROADBAND ALLIANCE
> >British Telecom and Microsoft have forged a formal strategic 
> alliance to
> >develop more broadband Internet services, putting BT on an 
> equal footing
> >with Microsoft's other global telecom partners (Verizon in 
> the U.S. and KT
> >Corp. in Asia). The pact comes on the heels of two other recent deals
> >between the two companies -- one focused on developing 
> services that work
> >across a variety of Web platforms and the other a 
> partnership to offer
> >broadband connections to Microsoft Xbox Live game players. 
> BT and Microsoft
> >say the new arrangement will target high-speed Internet 
> applications for
> >multimedia home computing as well as for next-generation 
> mobile computing,
> >Web services and portals. (Reuters 6 Nov 2002)
> >http://shorl.com/jegrefabofuti
> 
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