Matt Bross Joins Huawei as CTO

Folks,

I agree 100% with checaro! If at the end of the day we can't compete with the chinese who (with the exception of a VERY small group!) are very commercially naive and in-experienced from a global business perspective - then we really should pack up now and find another way to earn a dime.

Marconi's demise was not all down to Huawei. Yes, the chinese helped accelerate it, but M was led and managed at the very highest echelons by a bunch of greedy, self-serving hypocrites who saw the telco boom and marconi brand, as a great payday. See articles by "lord" Simpson and John Mayo (if you dont know the story!)

Its absolutely true that Bross is NEVER going to be the real CTO of Huawei. That is a committee based system (a structure that Cisco is ironically very busy trying to copy/ replicate!) and ALL the people on that committee speak Mandarin and are designated "loyal" party members - No expections.

Matts role is to be a pretty caucasian US based face, use his rolodex, arrange meetings + access and then get out of the way and let the chinese staff offer "gifts" and other inducements (free kit, vendor financing, vouchers, etc) to win the deal.

Ultimately, our fate will be determined by 3 things;

a) Our own greed. (Will our politicans and executives only go for cheap chinese goods? Or do we have a strategic national interest in these technologies?)

b) Global politics. (The shift from west to east of wealth and power will continue but the pace and nature will alter. That's inevitable)

c) Nature. (The current 2.4billion people in India and China make them economic superpowers. But if H1N1, SARS or any of the millions of viruses and diseases mutate and attack mankind, the population density of these countries mean they are likely be hardest hit.)

Soups

R0b355 they seem quite successful so they must have got their strategy right somewhere along the line....

You never know, if they have a CTO they may even get a product strategy that doesn't change before the end of an ITT.

Does anyone know if Huawei had a CTO and if so what happend to him/her?

Matt was the principle at BT to get whoreway approved and in essence destroy the national incumbent Marconi and the loss of many thousands of jobs.

It is a sad day to see folks like him being rewarded.

Firstly, not all vendors and/or their products could be slapped with 236% extra import tax. "The recommended anti-dumping duty ranges between 29 % and 236 % of cost-insurance-freight (CIF) value of imports. " And secondly, as implied in the article, mobile providers will face certain dificulties if forced to replace their vendors. IMNSHO, it is the worst possible action that a goverment can make (similar to our domestic tire-taxing). If we can not build better equipment, better solutions but start whining about financial disadvantages, lack of federal crutches and inequality compensation/standard of living - shame on us.

Didn't they pick up Mick Reeve too?  Anyone else?

Interesting to see Matt finally join the system vendor community in an overt way.

Of course I'm referring to his past stints working for Sycamore and ONI while at Williams Communications; taking enourmous bribes in the form of stock options to get these two vendors products "qualified" and selected by Williams, thus inflating their valuation prior to IPO, thus making Matt millions of $.  The word "qualified" is obviously in parentheses; as any industry insider who understands where Sycamore and ONI products are today, it is clear that these companies products were sub-par, and were only selected for Matt's personal gain.

So now he works for Huawei.  Hoepfully he won't be bringing the product plans of all of Huawei's competitors that he was deeply exposed to while at BT with him.  Hopefully.....

Somehow the vision of Matt walking around with a Huawei business card just seems sort of normal.  Just like every sci-fi movie has a "bad guy" who betrays his own side, here comes Matt from Oklahoma, touting wares from Beijing.