Ecosystem building case study

Imperial College Business School

By Rebekah Law 

Example section

From 2001-2004 a team at the Nokia Research Centre (NRC) had been technology venturing a Bluetooth low cost, low energy product under Antti Lappeteläinen as technical developer and project manager and Mauri Honkanen as research leader.  By 2004 the team had successfully developed prototypes of a Bluetooth Low End Extension (LEE) with help from collaborators at the Helsinki University of Technology, the University of Oulu, Vaisala and Suunto.  The new technology combined dual-mode and standalone chips in the gateway device to improve cost effectiveness and reduced the battery drain using slave and master devices with just three channels (replacing the normal 32) to advertise connectivity. This was unveiled at the end of 2003 as the Bluetooth LEE.   

This prototype product still had a long way to go before it was a completely viable and marketable option and Bluetooth SIG was resisting the idea of incorporating the technology in its platform. In order to complete the project and bring it onto the market Nokia needed to create an ecosystem to make the product integration viable...