Friday, May 14, 2010

Shaw Communications - Getting Convergence Right

Earlier this week, I was on BNN TV talking about Shaw Communications and their pending acquisition of CanWest. Add to this their planned entry in to the mobile market, and Shaw is anything but a regional cable operator.

The more I thought about this, the more threads I saw related to the broader service provider landscape. Convergence has had more misses than hits, but with Shaw, I think the stars are lining up in their favor. I've explored these themes a bit further in my current Service Provider Views column on TMCnet. There's certainly a lot more to talk about, and I just might do that in future columns. For now, though, I'll leave you with this column, which is running now on their website. I'm all ears for some dialog around this, so please chime in if you like.

1 comment:

New Mountain said...

Shaw: Like all historic Canadian Regional Oligopolies from retail to real estate exploiting Innis-McLuhan "Corridors" and "Channels" they disappear. As 2nd Gen family businesses even faster. Eatons Woodwards - even a family own airline like Wardair not protected by change - why Westjet wins and Wardair fails also provides case study parallels.

Google.ca, Bell the future Canadian carriers as a Walmart and Costco that squeezed retail amd will squeeze "ALL-Play" in cable plus and all in. Both with varying forms of Chinese money.

The small IPTV game haunting Rodgers research people in Ontario is only months away in BC. Sask-Man power understated and grossly under valued and in both leadership in both management and tech? No-names and new "minority-effective control plays and their relative funding the big mystery and the commodity game of discounting for share. Ontario will be the first upset. Quebec has many added dynamics to even predict almost anything other than olive sales in Hull and 7-Eleven Dallas French-a-phobic.

Play Google, Bell, Sak-Man who all can throw up Satellites in a flash and have an array of smart bombs and wireless games no one can play against.

Also seriously make some time for a few Ontario IPTV rookies who will show outstanding promise and break from thepack early. Like horses in stable before a race the horses will tell you will be the first four over the line will be.

Avoid Quebec for a time and second generations leadership everywhere plus and any possible sibling stand-off. Appearances can be misleading.

The East will be forgotten until the New Quebec defined in next five years.

As the brilliant back-fire contracts expire send most of Telus people running some acquistion will happen or a desperaate Telus will use its one phone call and make a dramatic financial move it hasn't the leadership or marketing to do. Cute TV ads are dead.

For this sign off I'll use the name COCCI "Community Owned Content Carriers Incorporated" watching for click and brick with 7-Eleven (Southland Dallas) and Google shake Comcast, E-Bay and Disney with maybe a Hyper-Local IPTV franchise and what kind of wireless? Ask Canon and Motorola about the geographic broadcast footprint of 7-Eleven and from both the crown retail local ad dollar Google needs to complete the crown and from a national advertiser like Nike. What is internet radio in a youth market. The shelf space that Walmart has made effective 7-Eleven can exceed in ROI with cloud based JIT inventory and corner store delivery with old small town church credibility? Something in the new colas the kids are drinking.