A Force of Nature

Recent news of several high-profile mergers and acquisitions caused quite a stir among tech commentators and bloggers abuzz with the latest news. Though the deal is still pending, it has raised a good number of eyebrows and is indicative of a significant trend in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry: competitive consolidation. 

The proposed takeover, like many successful and unsuccessful consolidation deals before it, was a recognition by a market leader that consolidation of some kind would be necessary to keep up with other market leaders. This thinking has long been the norm in ICT worldwide.

I've spoken with many industry executives, journalists and analysts about the phenomenon, in which the 10-year trend toward carrier consolidation, coupled with collapsing service silos, has increased the purchasing power of a few major companies and significantly narrowed margins and sales opportunities for many vendors.  In many ways, the market shift has been like a tectonic shift in nature – slow, powerful changes over time creating a vastly different landscape. Where before vendors had a flat horizon over which spread countless opportunities for business partnerships, now they see a range of sizeable mountains, commanding attention, but also presenting new obstacles.

TIA members must squeeze water from these rocks, constantly providing innovative new services and features as price pressures move rapidly downward. The entities around the vendor community too must adapt – government's responsibility to advance research and develpment funding increases significantly, while the call to avoid burdensome regulation increases in equal measure. Standards and engineering efforts must now be redoubled to create industry consensus on ways to bring ICT into more areas of the consumer's life. TIA's business development efforts, centered around NXTcomm08 in Las Vegas this June but also including our international and domestic policy work and our market intelligence services , are now more important than ever, especially to small and medium-sized members looking to make an impact in an ICT market that increaisngly favors buyers.

The landscape has changed, but change is very much in the nature of our industry. It will take leadership from all quarters to assure we make it to the horizon unscathed, but based on my conversations with TIA's membership grassroots, I have every confidence we'll be the industry to scale whatever mountains rise in our paths.

Thank you,
Grant Seiffert
President
TIA