Inside the Chrysalis

This is the time of year when all that has lain dormant through a very cold winter begins to emerge. Amateur gardeners worldwide are watching to see if the daffodils, tulips and hyacinths they buried last fall as bulbs will bring forth color to the bleak landscape. Bugs, bees and butterflies are also venturing out from their winter habitats.

One springtime ritual at my house is to raise a batch of butterflies — ordered for delivery online — in an indoor setting, to be released outdoors when the weather grows warm enough. These soon-to-be-beautiful creatures arrive inauspiciously as five tiny caterpillars in a little plastic cup.

The company that sells them — in our case, InsectLore — includes a warning that there's no guarantee all five will survive to the final stage of metamorphosis. They guarantee at least three butterflies per batch, which aren't bad odds. In our experience, that's a conservative bet — we usually get all five out the door with wings flapping.

Unfortunately, three out of five is too optimistic a success rate for competitors in today's rather brutal telecom market. The issue now at hand is whether those struggling to survive can metamorphose into something successful, even if that something is very different from the original plan.

In this issue there are numerous tales of transformation. In our Far Forward section, you can get details of AT&T's latest foray into local service. In Services, read about plans by Cable & Wireless to become an application service provider. And in Networks, Executive Editor Joe McGarvey looks at how the market downturn is transforming service provider views of investment and thus their view of new service opportunities.

This change in plans could be viewed as Darwinian survival of the fittest, but I don't think Charles Darwin ever imagined anything as chaotic as the last 18 months have been in the world of network technology. His evolutionary theories were based on thousands, even millions, of years. Today, many trying to survive are attempting to turn on a dime. We have little patience for anything that doesn't happen quickly.

This edition's cover story on multicasting provides a perfect example of how impatience doesn't pay off. Senior Writer Jonathan Blum examines the twists and turns in the long and winding road traveled by a technology that seems alternately the next great hope or the last greatest hype. As streaming video and audio content becomes more entrenched on the Internet, multicasting would seem to have a significant role to play. But as Blum explains, there is a host of reasons why a technology that's been under development for most of the last decade is not moving easily into that role.

In our Markets section, Paul Coe Clark , TNE's Web editor, looks at what could be the greatest metamorphosis of all — the transformation of the Bell companies into separate wholesale and retail units. While many of us believe this division of responsibilities represents the best opportunity for genuine competition in the local loop — to the benefit of consumers and competitors alike — Clark explains why even the latest efforts by AT&T and others to pull state regulators over to their side of the fence are not likely to pay off.

Finally, our Revolutionaries section this issue spotlights the kind of individual who is helping drive the continual evolution of the network. Michael Champa, a highly successful participant in such network technology pioneers as Cascade Communications and Omnia (an early metro optical networking company bought by Ciena), attempted to morph into a person who relaxes and enjoys his fortune — but is now back in the fray. To find out what Champa's up to, turn to page 64.

And I do hope your daffodils are blooming.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in The Net Economy.