Reviving Iridium

Iridium's Failure Contd...

Following this, many executives in the top management cadre resigned and its satellite services covering an estimated 20,000 subscribers were stopped. Commenting on the debacle, COO Randy Brouckman said, "I am deeply saddened by this outcome.

I particularly regret the impact this will have on our customers. Iridium achieved significant milestones, and I want to thank the more than 160 countries that licensed the service and the distribution partners around the world who helped market Iridium."

A spokesman for Globestar, one of Iridium's major competitors said, "We think Iridium could very well have succeeded. There's nothing wrong with the concept, but with their execution."

Industry analysts commented that Iridium's chances of coming out of this crisis were very bleak. Many of them even stated that Iridium had all the features of a potential failure right from its inception.

Background Note

The idea of Iridium was conceived in 1987 by three engineers-Ray Leopold, Ken Peterson and Bary Bertiger-who were working for the US-based electronics major Motorola. They pioneered the concept of a satellite-based, wireless personal communications network that could be accessed from anywhere on earth. The engineers worked hard to bring to life the concept of satellite telephones.

They launched gateways³ in 1988 to facilitate the proposed Iridium satellites to communicate with the existing terrestrial telephone systems throughout the world. In 1991, Motorola incorporated Iridium to develop and deploy the satellite network system. Besides Motorola, which held a 20.1% stake in the venture, some of the other major partners included Germany's Vebacom with 10%, Korea Mobile Telecommunications-4.4%, Sprint Corporation-4.4% and Italy's STET with-3.8% stakes respectively.

Reviving Iridium - Next Page >>>

3] Gateways interconnect a satellite constellation with public switched telephone networks, thus facilitating
communication with handheld phones and any other telephone in the world.

Case Details

Case Code : BSTR031
Themes: Turnaround Strategy
Case Length : 11 Pages
Period : 1999-2001
Organization : Iridium LLC
Pub Date : 2002
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : USA
Industry : Telecommunication

Free Case Studies

Business Strategy
Finance
HRM
Insurance
IT and Systems
Marketing
Operations
Leadership
More Case Studies >>

Micro Case Studies

Business Environment
Business Ethics
Business Strategy
Human Resource Management
IT and Systems
Marketing
Operations
Micro Case Studies >>

Free Resources

Micro Case Studies
Case Studies
Articles
Interviews
Book Reviews
Glossary
Online Quiz
More Free Resources >>

Case Studies and Management Resources

Asia's Most Popular Collection of Management Case Studies