Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
technologies. However, the new standard changed the market considerably as large
multinationals continuously entered the promising GSM market. The consequence
was increased competition, falling prices, rapid development and increased demand
for volume production. The high development costs of GSM phones put Dancall and
Cetelco into severe i nancial problems in the early 1990s, because they did not have
enough i nancial backup to harvest their discoveries in this competitive market.
As a consequence, Cetelco was gradually taken over by Hagenuk (Germany) in 1988-
90. Dancall had more than 600 employees in early 1993. But they also had a troubled
period. The newly produced GSM phone was too expensive compared to competitors
and at the same time the export of NMT phones suf ered from declining markets as the
new GSM market grew. Consequently, Dancall had severe i nancial problems and was
reconstructed again and sold to Amstrad (United Kingdom). During the next couple of
years, the i rm gained momentum and grew to become larger than before the reconstruc-
tion.
During the history of the cluster, Dancall and Cetelco have been the parents of numer-
ous spinof s. Many of these are clear examples of the market and application diversii ca-
tion that has been dominating the mobile phones industry. An example is RTX Telecom
founded in 1993 by three experienced engineers from Maxon and four from Cortech.
They founded the i rm with the strategy of doing R&D for other i rms. RTX based their
designs on chipsets from National Semiconductor who had previously worked with
Dancall and needed the knowledge on the future development of wireless devices to
design their chipsets, and RTX needed the chipsets. RTX grew from seven employees in
1994 to more than 200 in 2003. Another example is ATL Research founded by engineers
from Cetelco in 1996. While working at Cetelco, they often got enquiries from other
i rms in the industry who wanted to buy development aid for mobile phones. But it was
not possible to follow this potential market within Cetelco. ATL cooperated with several
chipset manufactures until Texas Instruments acquired the i rm in 1999.
In the late 1990s, the mobile communications industry had high growth rates and the
large multinational players in the industry were increasingly looking for new regions for
their activities in order to access local pools of development engineers. As a result, many
multinationals were attracted to the region.
The success of the i rst company in the NorCOM cluster, S.P. Radio, in the 1960s and
1970s as one of the world's leading producers of maritime communications equipment
gave the employees who were the founders of the i rst spinof s in the 1970s the relevant
capabilities and routines to become successful themselves. Market opportunities, and
market and application diversii cation were important in the evolution of the cluster.
Some of the i rst spinof s, Dancall and Cetelco, successfully diversii ed into mobile phones
by using their experiences gained by the founders, while they worked at the parent, S.P.
Radio. The growth of the mobile communications industry opened new opportunities
that, coupled with the initial success of these i rms, fuelled an intense formation of new
spinof s as the market grew, which developed the cluster as it grew from one to 50 i rms
during three decades. Application diversii cation and evolution of the industry life cycle
have widened the knowledge base. The core competence is still wireless communications,
but it has expanded from maritime communications to land-based radio, mobile phones,
cordless phones, and many other wireless technologies. The maritime communications
also led to radio-based navigation, satellite navigation, and l eet management systems.
