3GSM / MWC : Moving at Web Speed

The 3GSM has it’s own television channel here at the fair. One of their programs, the CTO pannel caught my attention since it featured the CTOs of HP, Telefonica and Nortel and I find technical discussions a lot more interesting than CEOs talking about numbers. John Roese, CTO of Nortel said that CAPEX and OPEX are not half as important today than speed. If you are late with a product by 12 months, he said, it doesn’t matter how cheap it is, it’s already too late. Good point. The other CTO’s agreed and the HP CTO called this ‘moving at web speed’. Interesting picture he draws there, I like the comparison. From my point of view turning companies with tens of thousands of employees into a different direction at web speed requires a lot of power. Imagine how a turn of a supertanker looks like vs. the agility of a yacht.