Showing posts with label Martin Cooper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martin Cooper. Show all posts

Monday, 19 November 2012

Premature rejection

Thinking about the premature rejection of new ideas, I’ve been imagining how the management of Motorola may have greeted Martin Cooper’s new-fangled mobile phone in the early 1970s – on the telephone:

“So, Mr Cooper, the market for these things is how big…?”

“Oh, there is no market. Well, what is market research telling us?”

“That people don’t think they need them. I see. And how would they fit with our business?”

“They’d need completely new manufacturing plant and new routes to market. Hmmm.”

“I must tell you that I showed your new gadget to my wife and she thought it was just too clunky. It really wouldn’t fit in her purse.”

“Too be honest, Martin, maybe your time would be better directed at more promising areas, no?”
 
Maybe that's what happened? Certainly Motorola missed the boat.

Thursday, 29 December 2011

Belated happy birthday, Mr Cooper

My intention had been to post this three days ago, but I’ve been away from wireless electronic media.

26 December 2011 was the eighty-third birthday of Martin Cooper.

Hurrah! Martin who?

Well, he led the R&D team at Motorola in the late 1960s and early 1970s that developed the mobile phone. The inspiration for the idea, Cooper has said, came from watching Captain Kirk communicate on Star Trek. “Beam me up, Scotty.”

Not so well-known, nor so well-off, I guess, as Steve Jobs.

But what a world-changing achievement!