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- 1. MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu 15.912 Technology Strategy Fall 2008 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.
- 2. Ember Professor Jason Davis MIT Sloan School of Management
- 3. Value Capture: What should Ember do? How will we Create value? How will we Capture value? How will we Deliver value?
- 4. Ember & Zigbee: • OEMs and customers will not commit to proprietary standards from a venture capital‐ backed startup… • …so Ember does join Zigbee standard – Had to give away a lot of IP to the Zigbee standard…lot of debates about this! – TI & Freescale joined, but really were dragging their feet • Always late to pay the budget, so Ember is paying most of it. • Missed meetings; made Ember do advertising campaign – But Ember would develop one of the best Zigbee implementations! How?
- 5. Ember partners with Chipcon for Chip Design • Chipcon: Biggest chip designer in Norway – They split design costs, which are large – But Chipcon want rights to use chips and IP as they see fit… – ..a big debate about this inside Ember! – But they ultimately agree to a deal to share costs in developing the first robust integrated chip. – Few years later, Chipcon is bought by TI, who becomes a major competitor! – …but the joint venture did get costs down to ~$1 node.
- 6. Ember’s Competition • Zensys fades away… • TI and Freescale (who acquired Motorola’s assets in this area) become the major competitors – But Ember is winning 75% of competitive sales…because the product works well • Freescale: seems to be not paying attention to the business – Software won’t compile…big company problems • TI: – Ember better at bug fixing, and may have more software features
- 7. Which markets? …sales may be beginning to take off! • Markets: – Many of the niche markets in the case fail to grow dramatically… – Utility Home Market takes off! • Eaton’s market! – But Eaton couldn’t seem to release a low cost (integrated) solution…they may have lacked effective organization – Ember moved into the void: branded themselves as the ultimate Green Energy Solution! • Reading energy meters • In commercial apps: are the lights on? • Basically, can monitor everything, and save energy.
- 8. Looking Forward: • Competition in Standards‐based Industries: – Network Externalities and Increasing Returns: • Small vs. Large company strategies • Open or closed? • Public or Private? • Bring your reflections to class.