Project one

There are two issues in the choice of this project: style and specific case. Our goal is to get a diversity of both styles and cases. Therefore, please choose three styles, and associate with each of them a specific cases, and send to the D.G. Messerschmitt. He will then try to give you your top choice, while maintaining a good diversity of projects.

Styles:

  1. Analyze one industry product category w.r.t. how complementary/competitive products relate to one another and the various factors in the success/failure of terms of considerations covered in this class.

    2. Example case: workstations -- Apple/Mac, PCs, UNIX workstations
  1. Analyze a group of companies with complementary products, in terms of how they collaborate to maintain compatibility etc., whether their cooperation is fair or anti-competitive, and whether it is effective in terms of the considerations covered in class.

    2. Example case: Intel/Microsoft/Compaq
  1. Analyze a single company, in terms of the strategic business challenges it faces within the scope of this course (product strategies, industry alliances, intellectual property, standardization, etc.).

    2. Example case: SUN Microsystems
  1. Analyze an industry consortium or standardization body in terms of its effectiveness and its impact on the industry it serves.

    2. Example case: OMG or IETF
  1. Analyze one important patent or group of patents in terms of the effectiveness with which they have been protected, the impact they have had on competition in the industry, and how easy or difficult it would be for a new company to compete in this category without licensing arrangements.

    2. Example case: TI basic IC patents
  1. For a standards war currently being waged, analyze the strategies of the competing approaches and predict the outcome based on considerations discussed in this course.

    2. Example case: CDMA vs. TDMA vs. GSM for digital cellular telephony
  1. Define yet another style not listed, with associated case, that is of more interest to your group.

Outcome:

Analyze the case drawing upon resources like trade magazines, scholarly journals, Web sites, and of course the course reader and lectures, adding your own understanding and initiative. It would be welcome if you wanted to talk to people in industry about the case.

The projects will result in an approximately 10- to 15-page written report on the WWW. Each report should have references and links  to other resources, such as trade magazine articles, company or product homepages, etc. Your report will be graded mostly on substance, but style and organization will count for something too.

Deadlines:

Milestone 1: Choose your list of three project styles/case combinations and send to messer@eecs.berkeley.edu for approval or changes.

Milestone 2: Post on the Web an outline of your project to solicit feedback and suggestions from the instructors.

Project due. Post the final report on the Web for grading.