Pre Lunch Preliminary Round Comments from the Judges!

Patrick Melampy (Chief Technology Officer, Acme Packet) commented that the 4 presentations saw lots of "innovative ideas and good solutions" although the teams "did not completely think through the profitablity and growth perspectives". They were looking forward to the teams making bolder statements and assumptions.

Ian Hall (Head of Strategic Business Development): "The lack of data and information should not deter the teams from making financial and profitability projections. 2 teams out of the 4 teams did not provide the financials that the judges were most interested in. More importantly, none of the teams "provided any estimation of costs, investment plan that were critical to the overall credibility of the analysis.

"One team stood out by utlizing a human perspective to the solution and approach" and with Ericsson as a global company, the case question provided an interesting view of the world (not just the US) but across regions and vertical industries".

Ajay Sood (Vice President, Ericsson) thought that the teams "covered the objectives quite well and clearly understood what was expected of them". Helena Ola "it was interesting to see the trends emerging in the market" but thought that the assumptions of the 4 teams were of a strking range and were of a wide spectrum.

A venture capitalist, Charley Lax (Managing General Partner, GrandBanks Capital) was hoping for bolder ideas and suggested that "instead of ties, the teams might be more creative with no ties and T-Shirts".