We all know GM is in trouble financially. Its stock (NYSE:GM) is around $6, a 50 years low. A lot pundits made fun of GM and its stock on TV or the web space. But I have a different feeling for GM. Among many reasons, I think of two:
1) In graduate school I worked in project for an automotive supplier (supplier for the Detroit big three GM, Ford and Chrysler). I went to Detroit and the Renaissance center twice because of the project. I still remember the GM engineer always asks tough technical questions.
2) After graduation, I worked for my former employer, which is a supplier of GM (design and manufacturing software). Later I learned more history of my company and GM. In early 1990s (before I join the company), GM’s information technology subsidiary (EDS) acquired us from an airplane maker, and we grew significantly because we landed the big customer GM. In software world, we all know requirements drives design and development. The support from GM leads to many success, including making us a leading design and manufacturing software vendor in the industry. In other words, we can not get this far without GM, or should we say GM was a good parent?
China 3G standard
What does the GM has to do with the 3G standard in China? Let me back up a little. GM had the budget to back our software development because at the time, it sells plenty of cars and make back the money there. In a way their support helped nurture our product, and make it a defacto industry standard.
By the same token, China has the largest wireless consumers in the world, and has the capability to nurture a domestic brewed standard: TD-SCDMA. The beauty of developing own standard is not only saving tons of money in paying other standard owners for roytalty fees, but support domestic telecom/wireless industry.