I can name one company that blew away old business models, and created disruption in an industry were even its own stasis prevailed: Novell, when its strategy was being led by Craig Burton, back in the 80s.

Novell changed the networking business utterly when they redefined their business category as services rather than pipes and protocols. What Craig and Judith Burton did was amazing to behold, because it was so smart — and so rare that almost nobody understood it.

Back when Novell was selling more ethernet network interface cards than anybody else — including market “leader” 3Com, Craig told me Novell was only filling orders, and didn’t wish to stake any of its future on the network interface card market.

On the surface it made no sense not to push those cards. They sold for hundreds of dollars apiece, by the many millions. “Because in the long run it’s a zero-dollar business”, Craig told me. Ethernet was just going to be another hole in the side of a generic PC: one that cost almost nothing to put there.

And so it did.

What we call television and telephony aren’t even holes in the sides of PCs. They are just names we give to forms of data. There’s money in producing goods and services in both categories. But the bulk of it won’t be tied to the pipes, protocols or business models of today’s telcos and cablecos. And the sooner they realize that — and take advantage of it — the better.

god was pretty smart when he designed it so that people die off.

At LinuxWorld Expo this week, I went by the booth of a software developer for Linux-based mobile phones. There I asked some folks, “How long will it be before the carriers realize that the cell system needs to be a data system and not a phone system?” They looked shocked at the question, before smiles broke across their faces. “It can’t happen soon enough” was one response.

What we have now for data on the cell system is just another form of dial-up. What we have on home phone and cable systems is a third-tier service behind TV and telephony. It’s backwards and wrong.

In time the users themselves will rejigger the thing. When demand gets the power to supply, big things will happen.