Let the clarity prevail

….. so that chip makers can get down to business. The communications industry as a whole is undergoing a shift – from existing to new technologies. Developers and equipment manufacturers are testing various flavors that sometimes compete with each other. WiMAX or LTE; Softswitch or IMS; WiFi or Femtocell; etc etc. And all the while chip vendors are wondering what the heck is going on.

The customers of these chip makers are not clear about which way they want to go. There are all sorts of evaluation going on but no decision yet. Chip makers in turn are not committing whole heartedly to a particular technology. They have to offer a bit of everything. They don’t want to cut a sorry figure if the market goes a different way than what they had bet on. But that approach is not easy either. Catering to numerous technologies and meeting the equipment vendors’ expectations in the process is very difficult.

To add to their troubles, the consolidation in the industry brings another level of uncertainty. For instance the merger of Alcatel-Lucent ….The combined entity was busy all through 2007 in settling down the merger related issues and deciding the future course. With such vendors abstaining from actively pushing a single technology, the communications chip vendors see 2008 as another year of uncertainty in this regard.

So one of the things the communications chip vendors should be demanding in the year 2008 is the clarity to prevail. They should be pushing the forums and standards bodies and urging such entities to solve the bottle necks.