The necessity of invention

Vice President Al Gore took his long-standing pro-technology stance to the extreme recently when he commented in an interview on CNN that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."

The Republican backlash was fast and furious: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott issued a sarcastic press release claiming responsibility for inventing the paper clip, and Rep. Dick Armey, the House majority leader, took credit for the interstate highway system.

No word yet on what the telecom set thinks of Gore's claim, but it's unlikely to ruffle many feathers (except, perhaps, those of Vinton Cerf, the person generally credited with Internet paternity). That's because Gore's comment matches the credit-craving culture that characterizes the telecom industry.

In these days of fast-paced change, short attention spans and fleeting glory, technology developments are nothing if they aren't first-even if they're really second, third or last.

At least that's what the developers themselves seem to think. New network infrastructure is introduced almost daily in this industry, usually accompanied by an announcement explaining how the equipment is going to significantly alter the course of telecom technology and services. Expressions such as "unprecedented," "ground-breaking" and "revolutionary" are commonplace, as though their usage provides real insight into what a development can accomplish or how it is unique.

The fact is that most vendor equipment is unique not because it is the product of a company's own invention, but because it is the result of a manufacturer applying variations to a common theme. That result is more properly marketed as a unique application rather than an original invention.

And it isn't just equipment vendors that are guilty of what has become, ironically, a cookie-cutter approach to marketing. Carriers typically tout new network designs and service offerings as industry firsts. A new fiber-based network in a given metropolitan region, for example, will finally allow area businesses and residents to experience high-speed network connectivity. No matter that seven other carriers are already offering it.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but I'm not certain what necessitates developers and providers of technology to be the mothers of everything.

Success in telecom hinges partly on marketing savvy, just as it does in so many other businesses. But after a while the peddlers of hype-and those that counter the hype by claiming they were actually first at something-seem only to be conveying tired, empty messages that lack any innovation.

I question the value of that because I give the ultimate buyers of technology credit for already knowing what they want, what they need and where they can get it. I look at telecom technology and service development as a single-albeit expansive-being that develops by feeding off itself. It includes various components, all of which contribute to the whole. When innovations are made, growth occurs; failure might chip a little something away.

Apply that concept to a business example: A carrier, competitive with so many others like it, is evaluating network platforms from dozens of vendors. In doing so, the carrier realizes that its competitors have equal access to the same technologies-even the same kind of equipment to carry it-that it is currently considering.

In mulling its decisions, the carrier doesn't pay attention to the wording of a vendor's marketing materials. It considers its own history with different vendors, its legacy systems and the various investments it has made, the level of service it receives from different suppliers and the cost and capabilities of the platforms. After processing all that, it makes a selection.

So what's the first thing that carrier does once equipment is delivered?

It puts the gear in its lab, applies its own test regimen and alters the equipment-perhaps with the assistance of the equipment supplier-to fit its specific needs. In other words, the carrier takes the vendor's innovation, matches it with its own and produces something even more innovative. The ultimate result is a further variation on an already varied theme.

We do business in a cut-throat world, but the real winners aren't the ones that wage wars of words. The winners are the ones that actually create something original-the ones that innovate by capitalizing on their environments.

Pioneering claims aren't likely to get Gore elected president, and they're even less likely to sell technology.