Thursday, September 15, 2005

Talk about timing...

Last year I wrote a partly tongue-in-cheek piece about incumbent responses to innovation at the edge. Today a mega-value reader has alerted me to this announcement from Verso, which seems to point to attempts to institute just such a policy. If it actually works, I guess we're entering an era of product offerings like:

"Turbo DSL - EUR25 per month - add on unlimited usage for an extra EUR10. Just EUR10 more per month gets you our Crystal Clear Quality Guarantee package, so you use all the parasitic crap you want with peace of mind."

Verso's stock closed up 20% on the news.

UPDATE: An observant Platinum Circle reader chimes in with the following pithy interpretation:

"I note that the Verso announcement refers to 'non-service effecting technology'. Since 'effect' as a verb means 'to produce as a result; bring into existence' or 'to bring about', and 'non-service' means 'the absence of service', their technology is, apparently, one which brings about the absence of services."

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