ARTICLE: "Doctor Hopes Spinal Therapy Gets China Trial," by Mei Fong and Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2006, p. B1.The first story amplifies the post I had recently on Novartis' decision to go long on pharma R&D in China. You want to take more risks? China and the New Core in general are the places to go: volatile mix of rising talent, huge need, and looser legal rule sets.
ARTICLE: "How China's 3G Telecom Initiative Could Work Against Western Firms," by Li Yuan, Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2006, p. C1.
ARTICLE: "Wal-Mart to Enter India in Venture: Bharti Deal Gives Retailer Access to Consumer Frenzy As U.S. Sales Growth Slows," by Eric Bellman and Kris Hudson, Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2006, p. A3.
That alone is a new rule set, suggesting new possibilities that America can feed and benefit from but cannot exactly control.
Naturally, China sees competitive advantages in this trajectory, so what we see the Chinese trying to do in 3G cellphone technology is something we'll see time and time again. Leapfrogging technology just isn't about speeding things up. It's also a chance to move up dramatically in the race.
But yes, Western corporations will keep entering such New Core markets, because, as the India story's subtitle suggests, there's just too much of a potential profit delta to ignore. I mean, you want some of that "consumer frenzy" or do you want to try to squeeze it all out of America alone?
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Comments (1)
Sadly for Li and the WSJ, TD-SCDMA is *not* a step ahead, is not "4G", and *is* what will be deployed first.
Current maximum UL - 128 Kbits/s
Current maximum DL - 384 Kbits/s
Nonexistent outside China, trials only within. One chipset manufacturer (Analog Devices Inc), one infrastructure vendor (ZTE), two handset vendors (Datang and Holley). Scale: tiny.
Compare: UMTS w/HSPA, arrives Q107
1.4Mbits/s UL
3.6Mbits/s DL
Widely deployed and standardised, competitive market, many producers.
Mobile WiMAX, here now (there or thereabouts)
Up to 10Mbits/s
IEEE standard, many producers.
Posted by Alex | November 30, 2006 8:54 AM