By 2009, just 30 years after they had been commercially introduced cellular phones were used by billions of people worldwide. This note reviews the development of the cellular telecommunications industry, with particular emphasis on the role of intellectual property and technical standards. Throughout the industry's history, companies owning intellectual property (IP) actively advocated for standards to be adopted that incorporated their IP. Once standards were adopted, companies with strong IP positions were positioned to reap substantial financial rewards. This has led to intense competition over the standards process. This note covers developments to 2009, including work on standards for fourth generation (4G) cellular systems. However, its primary focus is on the earlier struggles between TDMA and CDMA technologies, and the role of Qualcomm in influencing the standards-setting process.

In September 2008, Google and its Open Handset Alliance (OHA) partner, T-Mobile, launched the first Android-enabled smartphone in the U.S. market. Android was a new, open source, operating system for the wireless industry, developed by the OHA, a group which Google brought together in November of the previous year. The introduction of an open source operating system specifically designed for mobile telecommunications had the potential to make a substantial impact on the marketplace. The case describes the mobile telecommunications industry landscape Google faced, and the incentives that the dominant search engine provider would have for initiating the Android project. The case also describes the challenges facing Google, and the Android operating system. By studying the dynamics of the wireless industry available in the case, one may consider whether Google had the potential to become a Cross Boundary Disruptor (XBD) in the wireless industry.

Operations network design is about where to locate your supply sources and manufacturing and distribution operations, as well as the deployment of such operations, i.e., who should be supplying whom. With the emergence of global supply and manufacturing sources and the global market, such a design will increasingly have to span multiple regions. In the design, we have to capture the quantitative impacts of such factors like fixed and variable costs of production or distribution facilities, inventory, freight, and other logistics costs. The global network requires explicit treatment of taxes, customs and duties. This case is about Renault's recent car Logan, which was designed to serve markets in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The company has designed its supply chain to take advantage of the special customs and duties treaties in these regions. The case illustrates the complexities of such design decisions, and the approaches one needs to take. The case also ends with a key decision that Renault has to make - how to set up the supply chain for the new market in South Africa. Again, the customs and duties implications play a big role in such a decision.

In the tenth year of their business, Circles' co-founders, Janet Kraus and Kathy Sherbrooke, had completed a successful exit for their company. They had worked closely for years, building their early venture into a leading provider of concierge services with over $40 million in annual revenues. In preparing the company for exit, the two not only had to package the business for sale, but also prepare themselves for the next phases of their careers. Sherbrooke would move on to a corporate role with the acquirer, Sodexho, as the CEO of Circles, and Kraus would take on leading an early stage company, Spire, a Circles spinoff. The transition would not be just one for the company, but also one for their relationship as co-founders and true business partners.

This case discusses the astounding growth of Crocs, Inc., a manufacturer of plastic shoes, from 2003 through early 2007. Much of the company's growth was made possible by a highly flexible supply chain that enabled Crocs to build additional product within the selling season. The normal model used within the fashion industry was to take orders well in advance of each selling season, and produce to those orders, with relatively little additional production. If demand was far in excess of this production, there would be stockouts and the company would lose the ability to capture revenue for that season. The product might or might not be in fashion the following year, when production would again be based on preseason orders. Crocs' ability to build additional shoes within the season enabled it to take advantage of strong customer demand, resulting in the company filling in-season orders totaling many times that of the initial prebooked orders. The case describes the Crocs supply chain. It asks students to assess the company's core competencies and how those can be exploited in the future. The case was revised in March 2011 to present information on the company's results in 2007 and prepare students for discussions of problems that would be faced in 2008 (covered in the B and C cases).