{"id":83375,"date":"2012-03-20T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/pearce-sets-different-tone-for-inmarsat-iridium-rivalry-at-satellite-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-03-20T00:00:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:00:54","slug":"pearce-sets-different-tone-for-inmarsat-iridium-rivalry-at-satellite-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/pearce-sets-different-tone-for-inmarsat-iridium-rivalry-at-satellite-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearce Sets Different Tone for Inmarsat, Iridium Rivalry at SATELLITE 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

[03-19-12] While the MSS sector story of 2011 changes depending on which executive you speak to, the common thread between competitors is that the year was dominated by a significant dynamic shift in a different direction. Inmarsat<\/strong>, an operator long considered the largest player in the MSS space, experienced that shift in a direction it didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

   Speaking on SATELLITE 2012\u2019s MSUA-9 CEO panel, \u201cThe Best is Yet to Come: MSS CEOs Speak Out,\u201d Inmarsat\u2019s new CEO Rupert Pearce openly admitted that Inmarsat has particularly been impacted by several headwinds \u2013 maritime customers transitioning to new technologies and a gradual reduction in government spending in Afghanistan. \u201cWe\u2019ve been relatively flat. We haven\u2019t had the growth rate that we\u2019ve seen from our competitor, Iridium. We enjoyed revenue growth in 2011, but this was largely created by our L-band spectrum contract with LightSquared<\/strong>,\u201d said Pearce. \u201cUnfortunately, LightSquared has been mired in a well-publicized and difficult regulatory issue with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)<\/strong>.\u201d
\n   Pearce referred to LightSquared\u2019s recent default on its spectrum payments under the deal as \u201can expected consequence. Conservatively, we\u2019re not expecting more payments from LightSquared this year. If they can get through this regulatory issue, we may see some value in that offering, but that development is definitely uncertain at the moment.\u201d
\n   The U.S. military withdrawal from the Afghanistan battle theatre was an especially significant blow to Inmarsat, the MSS industry\u2019s traditional powerhouse, as military boots return to base and transition off of the mobile network. All of these headwinds, according to Pearce, have forced the company to look at innovation \u2013 not only in developing products and technology, but also in the way of doing business.
\n   \u201cThe restructure streamlines our decision-making process and focuses our activities on the primary markets we serve,\u201d said Pearce. \u201cBy minimizing the overlap between the Inmarsat businesses, we can better target our investment into market development activities that benefit our entire distribution channel. When our channel partners are direct competitors, a dollar of revenue moved from one of our channel partners to another does not generate revenue. It does not generate growth.\u201d
\n   Iridium Communications<\/strong> CEO Matt Desch lightheartedly welcomed Pearce to the \u201ckind and nurturing MSS panel,\u201d by evaluating Pearce\u2019s reorganization plan with sardonic praise when panel moderator and MSUA President Tim Farrar asked if he disagreed with the plans of his long-time competitor. \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d Desch asserted. \u201cI think it\u2019s brilliant. It\u2019s the best thing that has ever happened to Iridium.\u201d
\n   Jokes aside, Desch, who won Via Satellite magazine\u2019s 2011 Satellite Executive of the Year Award for his performance in the past year, stressed that 2011 was not an unusual year for Iridium in certain metrics. \u201cWe did grow revenues at 20 percent again, as well as our customer base by more than 20 percent, but for us, this year was really defined by innovation,\u201d said Desch. \u201cI think 2011 was the year that Iridium really had its innovation engines fired. We covered a lot of technological ground in the M2M sector, which is the fastest growing segment of our business. We also made a lot of progress in Iridium NEXT, but we didn\u2019t talk about it much because we were still building around our current offering.\u201d
\n   Pearce also is building, as Inmarsat is developing its upcoming Global Xpress Ka-band system, which aims to revolutionize the mobility services landscape for high-end data customers. But Pearce\u2019s praise of Desch\u2019s business plans with Iridium NEXT may have seemed strange to some session attendees that had grown used to the SATELLITE show\u2019s traditional battleground between Desch and former Inmarsat CEO Andy Sukawaty.
\n   \u201cMatt speaks passionately about technology and it\u2019s a credit to Iridium,\u201d said Pearce. \u201cI couldn\u2019t agree more with the idea of focusing on mobile devices that customers want to use \u2013 iPads, smartphones and so on. I hear a lot about the blurring between MSS and FSS industries, but I think there is a real difference between the two industries in that the top five MSS companies have five clearly defined and unique business models.\u201d
\n   Desch enthusiastically agreed. \u201cAnd each of those business plans, in their own right, have a real potential for success. They just come from different perspectives.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[03-19-12] While the MSS sector story of 2011 changes depending on which executive you speak to, the common thread between competitors is that the year was dominated by a significant dynamic shift in a different direction. Inmarsat, an operator long considered the largest player in the MSS space, experienced that shift in a direction it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}