The Vizzavi joint-venture: an exogamic marriage between Vivendi and Vodafone as a way of entering the e-economy

Summary form only given. This paper is based on the case of Vizzavi-a joint venture between two companies with very different profiles: Vivendi-Universal, a French multi-utility group and Vodafone, a British mobile phone company. The objective of the joint venture is to provide customers with Web-based interactive services across a variety of platforms (mobile handsets, fixed telephony networks, personal computers and digital assistants, television sets). Each partner pools very specific. resources in the joint venture. This example shows how the combination of very specific resources-originating from very different partners-creates symbiotic effects. Combining companies with basically very different backgrounds, exogamic partnerships such as this Vizzavi case do not cause traditional and direct competitive troubles between partners.