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Introduction
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David G. Messerschmitt
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Outline
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Motivation and objectives
Summary of course content
Student responsibilities
Grading
Administrative
Motivation
• Engineering students:
– Non-technical issues have become an even more critical aspect of the product positioning and design process
• Management students:
– Technology itself has some particular management challenges
– Technology is an ever-more-present aspect of business process design
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Motivation (con’t)
• Information students:
– Considerable overlap of information and software in management challenges
– Technology is a backdrop to information management
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Objectives
• Understand non-technical issues that
– Leave their imprint on the industry
– Impact product positioning and design
• Appreciate strategies for success in information and technology products
• Bring together engineering, business, SIMS, and other students to learn from one another
• Remain focused on the interaction of technical and non-technical factors
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Scope
• Information content
• Software
– Application
– Infrastructure
• Equipment
– Including bundled software
• Network and other service providers
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Importance of non-technical factors
• More attention to end-user applications, rather than core technology
– But no “architecture” profession, unlike civil engineering
• More commercial (market driven), less military
• Deregulation of communications
• Convergence of communications and computing, affecting both industries irrevocably
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Importance of non-technical factors (con’t)
• Economics effects:
– Information and software economics
– Network effects, lock-in, winner-take-all
– Open systems and standardization
• Changing role of government
– Regulation and antitrust
– Encryption, privacy
– Research funding
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Importance of non-technical factors (con’t)
• Changing industry structure
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Vertical to horizontal
Increasing fragmentation
Greater role of startups
Importance of intellectual property
Collaboration, consortia, standardization, etc.
• Changing nature of the job
– Everyone must be flexible, broad, and strategic in small companies
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Outline
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Lectures (tentative)
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Introduction
Industry players
Software industry
Telecommunications and networking industry
Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
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Changing industry structure
Buyers and sellers
Obstacles to change
Standardization, alliances, consortia
Intellectual property
Government intervention
Case studies illustrating these points
Impact of communication/computing convergence
Semiconductor and equipment industry
Obstacles to change
Selling content and software
Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
• Information economics
• Product versioning
• Application and infrastructure software
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Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
• Recognizing lock-in
• Strategies for lock-in
• Imprint of lock-in on the industry
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Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
• Recognizing network effects
• Strategies for network effects
• Imprint of network effects on the industry
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Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
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Lectures (tentative) (con’t)
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Network effects, lock-in, and design systems
The standardization process
Strategies for standards setting
Waging a standards war
Copyright management
Patent management
Do software patents make sense?
Government regulation and policy
Review
Case studies
• Drawn from current industry activities
• Purpose
– Illustrate fundamental points
– Integrate the wide range of issues
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Student responsibilities
• Participate in class discussion
• Group projects
– Case studies: relate to issues covered in class
– Investigate major issues
• Weekly homework and explorations
• Read texts
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Grading
• Class discussion
• Projects
• In-class quizzes
• Take-home midterm and final
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Administrative
• MBA class representative
• Web/email/newsgroup based class
• Fill out Web form to capture:
– Name, email address etc.
– Interest/background to form project groups
• Group project ideas welcome
• Speaker ideas (faculty, industry) welcome