Clearwire’s McCaw Aims To Succeed Where He’s Failed Before; ‘Not Worried About The Demand Side’
By Tricia Duryee - Fri 16 May 2008 01:45 PM PST
Craig McCaw has a lot to prove. His last two mega-million projects fizzled out, and now he’s starting another: a $14.5 billion joint venture between Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) and Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel with funding coming from Intel (NSDQ: INTC), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) Cable, Bright House Cable, and Trilogy’s John Stanton. During his career, he’s perhaps best known for starting McCaw Cellular Communications, which he sold to AT&T (NYSE: T) for $11.5 billion, but he also has two big failures: XO Communications, a landline phone company, filed for bankruptcy in 2002, and Teledesic, which dreamed of beaming down Internet and phone service from the sky, never got its satellites off the ground.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, McCaw, who will become chairman of the new company when the deal closes, said the biggest challenge will be maintaining a common goal among the different players involved, but he’s confident that WiMax will be a success.
-- On WiMax: WiMax for the most part is still unproven. Clearwire has been building out a pre-WiMax network in various U.S. and European markets that’s used on a stationary basis. The promise of WiMax is that it will be mobile and people can use it wherever they go. Clearwire’s CEO Ben Wolff told Bloomberg: “A lot of people bet against McCaw the first time around and the second time around, and some are betting against him the third time around. This space is McCaw’s core competency. This is wireless terrestrial communications.”
-- On demand: Although two analysts downgraded Clearwire after the deal was announced, even though things like the iPhone provides some evidence that there is demand for mobile Internet. This time the timing is right. “I’m not worried about the demand side,” McCaw said. “The key is that we’ll be in the technological position to deliver the product we want.”
-- On cooperation: “The one challenge is you have a lot of people at the table,”’ McCaw said. “Part of my job, as I see it, is moral suasion to have people put aside their selfish interests for the common good and great that will come of it. If there will be one measure as to whether I’ve succeeded or/and failed in my time as chairman on this thing, it is: Did I administer regular beatings on people to put their selfish interests aside?”
-- On Google: Google will be providing not just $500 million to the new company, but will also be contributing applications and an advertising platform for the new network. McCaw called Google a “kindred spirit,” exhibiting an attitude of “What should be, can be. And that’s how we think.”
Posted in: Companies, Google, Operators, Cingular-AT&T, SprintNextel, Technologies, WiMax
Tags: craig mcgraw, clearwire,
