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Of all technological advancements, smartphones have had one of the most profound impacts on humanity in recent history. They have ingeniously monetised “idle time,” the brief intermissions between our important tasks, often filling our idle moments with a plethora of addictive apps, content and social media. However, as technology has evolved, these “idle time” tasks […]
In the last year, I’ve seen RFP responses worth an accumulated total of well over $1B for network services, systems and such. In almost every case, the carrier buyers have indicated that they’re seeking innovative solutions. That’s the outward-facing commentary at least. But the real, inward-facing story is that they’re just seeking cost-reductions in most […]
OSS solutions hold a privileged place in the operations of communications service providers around the world. They collect logs and events from network devices, security devices, shared services (like Active Directory) and other support systems. With increased automation and orchestration, they also have the power to quickly push controls back into all of those devices […]
When it comes to telco / OSS / BSS data, I’m a big believer in matching the type of database to the type of data you’re handling. For alarms / events / logs, it’s time-series databases, where KX is a stand-out. For network inventory-based use-cases, graph databases like Neo4j provide some significant advantages. If you’re in Melbourne next […]
Have you ever heard of the concept of a project pre-mortem? Have you ever used the concept on one of your OSS projects? They can be a really useful technique to use prior to embarking on OSS projects. But what are they and how do you use them I can hear you asking. Think of […]
Have you ever stopped to wonder who actually uses OSS and BSS tools? Or how many role types (personas) do you think interact with OSS/BSS? Then, to go a step further, have you ever wondered what they do with their OSS and BSS tools? This was an itch we just had to scratch, so we […]
For all of the OSS and BSS vendors out there, I’d like to issue you a challenge. Can one person who’s not yet familiar with your solution (but has pre-requisite skills) set up your OSS / BSS product and demonstrate your product’s most essential use-cases with their own data / configurations and then demo to […]
The previous article in this series, “Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment,” highlighted that the current telco business model is at risk. It described how we could be experiencing an era of creative destruction of capital based on the works of Schumpeter and Marx. It also described: Poll results where nearly half of Europe’s […]
I’ll start this article with an apology – for crossing into the world of politics. An important basis of the discussion comes from the concept of creative destruction of capital and references quotes from Karl Marx. I have no interest in politics, especially historical politics, so I have little awareness of what the groundswell of […]
Are you an OSS and/or BSS supplier or telecommunications company that is thinking about seeking external investment or selling (in the sense of M&A [Mergers and Acquisitions], not the normal products and services you sell)? In recent years, we’ve been involved in an increased number of M&A projects, and I’m assuming this mirrors a rise […]
Everything you know right now, and all the knowledge you have collected over your career, is diminishing in relevance at an increasing rate. For those of us who’ve been in this game for decades rather than years, a lot of the knowledge we accumulated during our “apprenticeship” years is losing its lustre. This is particularly […]
As the title asks, do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is? The answer might actually surprise you, but we’ll get to that a little later in the article. Late last year, we published an article that outlined that a A seismic shift is already underway in IT circles and how it […]
Did you notice that our previous article (What does the future hold for telco?) touched on scarcity and abundance in telco as well as how the dynamics of those are changing? Have you ever stopped to think how these changing dynamics of scarcity / abundance might impact the business and revenue models of yourself personally […]
Do you ever look into the past to determine whether commonalities / discrepancies could be used to inform how you might act into the future? When it comes to OSS/BSS and telco, I certainly do. I hark back into the days when CSPs were the world’s leading tech companies and innovators. They also had incredibly […]
What’s your Everest? I was out doing a walk today and listening to a podcast (Jeff Lerner‘s “Unlock your Potential” with guest Colin O’Brady [episode #226]) and that question stopped me in my tracks (literally). What’s that big ambition, that big goal that you’ve always wanted to achieve? I don’t have the answer to that question now […]
Wait, “What??” I hear you ask! No it can’t. Have you ever worked on a BIG OSS project? One where the budget is in the hundreds of millions of dollars? Or even tens of millions of dollars? Have those big projects delivered your best transformation outcomes? Or have other projects, with more constrained budgets, been […]
When speaking with a customer last week, I was hearing the same expression of anguish that I’ve heard so many times before. The anguish of getting an OSS business case approved. Actually, in this rare case, the business case had already been approved. The budget had been allocated long ago. The exec sponsors were onboard […]
There were plenty of search engines before Google came along and grabbed a lot of the search market share. There were plenty of generative AI solutions before ChatGPT appeared and created a large amount of buzz too. The question is why did they grab attention / users and what can we learn from that to […]
Just a word of warning. This article is quite long. However, it contains a message that I feel really strongly about…. as you’ll see. Change is a funny thing. Sometimes we love it. Sometimes we hate it. Sometimes we’re inspired by it. Sometimes we’re in fear of it. Sometimes we know we desperately need to change, […]
Through Passionate About OSS, we’ve created well over 2,600 articles that share ideas, tips, techniques and stories about the OSS industry (ie sharing what’s on our mind). However, recent articles about a shortage of end-user empathy in OSS / BSS / telco have highlighted that we also don’t ask enough questions about what’s on your […]
