1. Industry analysis of Beeper/Pager
As an icon of 1990s technology, pagers had helped making the company Motorola one of the world’s biggest telecom giants. In 1942, Motorola was already the dominant leader of pagers, gaining as much as 85% market share. –For more than 40 years later on, the company was at the forefront of both the one-way numeric pager and two-way numeric pager markets.
1.1 Industry analysis during 1990s
The period of 1990s was the rise of the pagers. In the early 1990s, the paging industry demonstrated phenomenal growth. During this period, nine companies underwent IPOs, raising over $425 million. By 1996, pager service providers were considering network upgrades, hardware enhancements, and effective methods for ensuring widespread adoption by millions of new customers. Industry analysts were predicting that the number of pager users in America would top 50 million, or one fifth of the country’s population. 3 Hardware manufacturers like Motorola were partnering with the world’s largest pager service providers to bring customers the latest features in pager communication. The customer base for pagers had grown rapidly from medical and emergency personnel to parents and teens around the world..
1.2 Industry analysis from 2001 to 2014
After Motorola announced the end of its new pager manufacturing in 2001, many mobile carriers (e.g. China Mobile, China Telecom, etc.) in different countries had also closed their pager networks and services accordingly. And a number of smaller firms began to enter the market, Exhibit 1 indicates Pager Operators in the U.S. in 2001. Most of these small service providers provided both one-way and two-way paging.
Exhibit 1 – Pager Operators
Till today, pagers remain in use only in places where mobile phones typically cannot reach users, and in places where the operation of the radio transmitters contained in mobile phones is problematic or prohibited. One such type of location is a large hospital complex. Another is a facility handling classified information, where various radio transmitter or data storage devices are excluded to ensure security.
2. Motorola promotes the technology globally
The first successful consumer pager was “Motorola's Pageboy I” first introduced in 1974. It had no display and could not store messages, however, it was portable and notified the wearer that a message had been sent.
By 1980, there were 3.2 million pager users worldwide. At that time pagers had a limited range and were used mostly in on-site situations for example when medical workers communicate with each other within a hospital. This time period was the growth stage for beepers.
By 1990, wide-area paging had been invented and over 22 million pagers were in use all over the world. In early 90s, Motorola began to sell a paging service, called Embarc, which allowed users of portable computers to receive messages, electronic mail and other information over radio waves. By 1994, there were over 61 million pagers in use and pagers became popular for personal use, even in developing countries, such as China and India. This period was at the business zenith.
However, with the market shock of mobile phones, pagers became to step down from the stage of history. Pagers gradually vanished in the market and few companies still make pagers, only existing in some niche markets.
Overall, Motorola played a leading role in the new innovation of pagers but the trend does not go a long way from begin to end.
3 The environment/market influences (why pager? why Moto?)
Motorola started by producing radio systems for vehicles and later on mobile telephones for automobile. But these were large and heavy and, due to the amount of power they consumed, required the vehicle's engine to be running in order for the systems to be used. Also, although vehicles has some mobility, people still feel stuck with the cars just like with a wire beside the desk in their offices or home. The desire for real mobile communication, the freedom to be everywhere while communicating is the drive for paging technology (as well as the cell phones later on).
Walki-talkie is a portable two-way radio transceiver developed during the Work War II mostly for military use. Motorola is one of the earliest contributor to the technology. However, after the war, when the market called for portability, it is almost natural to combine the portable element of it and Motorola’s strong automobile radio technology to deliver the first generation of mobile communication tools. A pager is - if you think about it - a small portable private radio. Pagers soon gained popularity in the U.S. market especially among young people and became part of the pop culture.
Paging services were brought to China in early 1980s, when landlines are already somewhat popular. Pagers enabled people to be found anytime and anywhere. There is no longer the need to wait beside landline phones. This brought great convenience and make communication at work or with friends much more efficient. Motorola took its advantage in paging technology into Chinese market and gained great success during late 1980s and 1990s.
4. Technology forecast done by the company
In addition, paging systems use radio waves to transmit or broadcast one-way messages. The pager itself is small, allowing for accessibility at all times, and can be carried or clipped to clothing. Each pager has a number, like a phone number, which the caller dials. The pager is then contacted, and informs the user that he/she is being contacted, with a beep, a vibration, or other signal. They can work with voice mail capabilities, allowing a caller to leave a message that the user can pick up at his/her leisure. Or, as mentioned above, pagers can display messages across their screens.
5. How the industry was led to astray
The main reason of the failure of Pagers is that the industry (including company Motorola) failed to predict the huge competitive threat coming from the mobile phones, while the mobile phone technology was being developed very quickly. Therefore the pager industry missed the best time period to improve their technology to catch up with the new trend and as well as the user’s new need, and it has become more and more marginalized by the users.
6 Technical Opportunity should have been reached
1- Niche market.
Actually pagers are still useful in some certain places, e.g. pagers were once thought of as a tool for drug dealers, and initially were most commonly used by medical personnel for emergency services. And Runners can use pagers that clip to their belts.Amazon Inc.is still using pager in the workplace. There are three reasons leading to the anomalism. First, people tend to ignore the ring from messages of mobile phones since they normally receive tens of messages a day but only the coworkers would contact them with beepers. So the ring of beepers can even wake somebody sleeping up. Second, the system is more stable than smartphones’ system due to its simplicity. For example, when a sudden accident happens, telephone network is easy to break down because of the information traffic jam but pager system is a different story. Last but not least, the cost of pager is way lower than that of phones.
Therefore, “blue sea” still exists for pagers in business worlds.
2- combining with cellphone
One advantage of pagers as opposed to the cellular telephone is the ability to screen phone calls, thus not wasting airtime on an undesired call. (When the popularity of smartphone is not high.)Pagers are also used in combination with the cellular phone. More and more people are working from home or on the go. The pager is adapting to the needs of these companies and employees who must be mobile, yet in constant touch with the office.Worldwide reach is most likely the next step for the pager.3- Smart functions
The pager’s technology can be used for miniature computers. As it stands now, they can operate as portable email receivers and fax machines. Computing will never be the same, as a pager becomes a personal computer on the go. Two-way pager technology is already being marketed, and its capabilities will surely be increased. Voice recognition papers and portable answering machines are currently being developed and marketed. Sky pagers, allowing paging worldwide and in the air, will become more common. All of these technologies are expected to become even more affordable as they gain wide acceptance. One of the most advantageous features of the pager is that it is compatible with other technologies. This indicates that the pager would probably not lose its popularity. Instead, it will be combined with other communication technologies to create new and better tools.7-Lessons from the “flash in the pan”
1-“Quit or change”
If you cannot extend the life cycle of one product (like we have mentioned the new functions for pagers above), you would better switch to the right thing as soon as possible.We can cite Chinese market for example. In 1983, the pager business entered Chinese mainland market and reached its peak at the end of 20st. However, in 2002, 90% drop of sales in the market still could not stimulated Motorola to make some changes both for the pager business and the development of smartphones.5 years later, it lighted out for pagers in China totally in such a tragic way. So if the managers in Motorola could be aware at first time that 3G smart phone is a trend and enormously strong substitute for pagers and even cellphone, they should have stopped or change the business.
2-Don’t listen to your customers without your own judgment towards future market
Motorola missed the fast movement to 3G. Sure, it did — but remember its biggest customers, the U.S. wireless carriers, didn't think they needed 3G technology. Hence, Motorola listened to its customers, when they should have been listening to its customers' customers. Sometimes, customers seem to be right all the time but remember in some cases they are not crystal-clear what they really want and what incentives genuinely drive them to pay the bill.3-Technology changes faster today
It took us hundreds of thousands years to move forward from agricultural society to industrialization. However, it only took decades to brace the smartphone. Technology changes faster today than ever, therefore, companies need to think ahead, look further, adapt faster - at least, when hint of new technology emerges, do not ignore it! The falling down of lots of once well known Tech-giants is due to their complacency. Like Nokia, Kodak and Motorola, they have been so successful in their fields which made them blind to the fast developing threads. Or they thought they still had time, but in fact they do not! These are serious lesson to learn in today’s fast changing society.References:
The Decline of Pager Technology http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/ron-adner/Pagers.pdf
The Decline of Pager Technology http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/ron-adner/Pagers.pdfhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/telus-may-be-closing-its-pager-network-but-the-beeper-isn-t-dead-yet-1.2929237
Newsbytes, “Pager Market Up, Motorola Market Share Down,” August 11, 1997.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/telus-may-be-closing-its-pager-network-but-the-beeper-isn-t-dead-yet-1.2929237
http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/images/brick_to_slick.jpg
http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography
http://www.historyofthecellphone.com/people/john-mitchell.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager
http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/images/brick_to_slick.jpg
http://www.brophy.net/PivotX/?p=john-francis-mitchell-biography
http://www.historyofthecellphone.com/people/john-mitchell.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager
