A new book entitled, The Innovation Journey of Wi-Fi: The Road Toward Global Success will be published by the Cambridge University Press later this year. The authors are Wolter Lemstra, Vic Hayes, and John Groenewegen of Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands. Readers may recall that Vic was the founding chair of 802.11 and was key in setting its wildly successful management style that changed the world.

Here’s their description of the book:

Wi-Fi has become the preferred means for connecting to the internet - at home, in the office, in hotels and at airports. Increasingly, Wi-Fi also provides internet access for remote communities where it is deployed by volunteers in community-based networks, by operators in 'hotspots' and by municipalities in 'hotzones'. This book traces the global success of Wi-Fi to the landmark change in radio spectrum policy by the US FCC in 1985, the initiative by NCR Corporation to start development of Wireless-LANs and the drive for an open standard IEEE 802.11, released in 1997. It also singles out and explains the significance of the initiative by Steve Jobs at Apple to include Wireless-LAN in the iBook, which moved the product from the early adopters to the mass market. The book explains these developments through first-hand accounts by industry practitioners and concludes with reflections and implications for government policy and firm strategy.

• First-hand industry perspectives link the practice of innovation to the theory of innovation
• Shows how successful firm strategy relies on linking innovation to product introduction
• Provides important advice for practitioners and policymakers about designing and applying successful standardisation strategies

Your blogger is a coauthor of one section, but has no financial interest in the book.

UPDATE
The book is now available: