rs' past earnings after its IRU deals were found to have been accounted for improp- erly. (Speaking of trading partners, Global Crossing did, after all, have IRUs on roughly half of Qwest's backbone fiber.) The company's former US West ILEC unit was subject to relatively strict state regulation, and it was a cash cow for the rest of the company, keeping it out of bankruptcy, while the long distance unit had tried to exaggerate sales and later hide losses. New Services Need to Fit Into a Food Chain Another problem that hurt many companies, both equipment suppliers and service providers, was a failure the food chain that their products needed to fit into. A food chain, in nature, describes how the smallest forms of life are eaten Focusing on the Bottom Line by successively larger ones. In a technology business, it refers to a set of depend- encies that companies, technologies, and products have on others. If a food chain is broken in nature, higher life forms will have to adapt or they will not survive. If a food chain is broken in business, its effects can be felt both above and below (Figure 10.1). The bottom of the tech-business food chain is raw technology. Fiber optics, radio communications, digital switching, and Internet protocols all fall into this area. It is sometimes sexy, and it is certainly necessary, but it is not profitable unless the rest of the chain above it falls into place. Developers of technology that fail to assess the likelihood of a complete food chain above them are thus taking a great risk. Technology is then used to create individual products that are in turn parts of more complex systems. If the systems do not need the technology or products, the technology will have trouble selling. Systems are used to create infrastructure and, in turn, services. A service provider thus needs to have a viable chain of systems, products, and technology to support its plans. But it also needs to support applications that fill market needs. Services and applications that do not fill market needs as well 