"Children have more need of models than of critics." Carolyn Coats. OSS covers a huge range of skills, activities, domains, business functions, etc. I've met some absolute geniuses in the field of OSS, but I've never met someone who is a genius at every aspect. As such, I'd like to tweak Carolyn Coats's comments thus, "OSS exponents have more need of models than of critics." It's…
Read More »"Never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully and imaginatively for its hidden assets." Michael Korda. Working on OctopOSS projects can be a humbling experience. There are so many tentacles that can whack you and your colleagues over the back of the head. Every project seems to have its own tentacles. Sometimes it's only small elements of a project that fail and can…
Read More »Elitecore bags 3 new orders from Multi Service Cable Operators, Deploys Integrated Real time Billing, Charging & Policy Control Solution. Elitecore Technologies, a leading provider of Integrated Policy, Charging, Billing and Revenue Management solution announces three Cable MSOs (Multi-System Operators) wins for Pay TV and Broadband services; setting up a strong footprint in Asia Pacific Cable market. Elitecore will offer a complete pre-integrated as well as…
Read More »"In the struggle between capital and labor, more often than not capital has won, because the real source of value for most companies has historically been the hard assets that they owned and controlled." James Surowiecki. Yesterday we spoke of the different types of interface "objects" such as probes, robots, MDDs (Mediation Device Drivers), etc and how they are developed to interface with data sources such…
Read More »Allstream Transforms Service Layer with NetCracker. NetCracker Technology announced that Allstream, Canada’s all-business communications provider, has agreed to transform its end-to-end order management and service fulfillment capabilities using its comprehensive next-gen innovative NetCracker 9 suite. Allstream is a Canadian leader in IP communications and the only national communications provider that works exclusively with business customers of all sizes with a coast-to-coast national IP fiber network. This…
Read More »NetBoss Technologies Announces Ventraq Acquisition. NetBoss Technologies, Inc. has announced that it has acquired the Ventraq Business Analytics (BIAS) technology assets, product portfolio and associated intellectual property, in addition to assuming the existing customer base, support, and maintenance responsibilities from Ventraq, Inc., an innovative provider of large-scale data integration, network and business analytics, and personalization solutions for communication service providers (CSPs) and large enterprises. The BIAS…
Read More »"I have discovered that there are two types of command interfaces in the world of computing: good interfaces and user interfaces." Daniel J. Bernstein. OSS don't add much value in isolation. They need to get data from somewhere and then add value to that data to turn it into insight. Of course they get some data from manual input, but most of their data come from…
Read More »DeployPartners alliance with OSS Integrators. DeployPartners will be entering into a strategic alliance with USA Service Assurance Solution provider OSS Integrators in the near future. The merge of DeployPartners and OSS Integrators will enable both companies to benefit from each others experience and skills resulting in our customers getting the benefit of a wider set of solutions and product knowledge. ?About DeployPartners: DeployPartners deliver high-quality Service…
Read More »"I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." Michael Jordan. Regular readers of this blog will have recollections of previous discussions about setting up a sandpit environment for customers. A couple of examples are here (building sandcastles) and here (lose your fear in a sandpit). There a few different ways that this can be achieved: Building a dedicated physical trial…
Read More »Comptel Receives a Significant Order from Australian NBN Co for Comptel Fulfillment. Comptel has received a significant order from its Australian customer NBN Co for Comptel Fulfillment. The deal exceeds 1.3 million euros and consists of software licenses and services. This is an extension for the deal made in 2011.
Read More »"Just like any product, an open API needs a business justification, user personas, clear use cases, a roadmap, a revenue model, a pre- and post-launch plan, and specific needs in the areas of marketing, sales, support, documentation, and security. These needs are completely separate from those of your core product, though they should be strategically consistent. In fact, it’s not unusual for companies to assign a…
Read More »"In today’s cloud computing world, many Product Managers will be faced with the decision of whether to open an API to their users. Open APIs have many advantages, but they also bring significant business challenges. In this post, I describe key benefits and challenges of open APIs, and why Product Managers should treat an open API as its own product instead of as a feature." Daniel…
Read More »"If the "best of breed" solutions are all very "different" there may be a great deal of training and overhead that may not be there if they are all from a smaller set of vendors with a similar "technology"." Richard Bragg. During a recent LinkedIn Group discussion about the comparisons of Best-of-breed versus single-vendor OSS approaches, Richard Bragg made the insightful comment above. In addition to…
Read More »"Regression testing means re-testing an application after its code has been modified to verify that it still functions correctly. Regression testing consists of re-running existing test cases and checking that code changes did not break any previously working functions, inadvertently introduce errors or cause earlier fixed issues to reappear. These test cases should be run as often as possible with an automated regression testing tool, so…
Read More »Play Poland (P4) Selects Comverse ONE Converged BSS to Power Real-Time Service Capabilities, New LTE Functionalities. Comverse announced that Play (P4), Poland’s fastest growing mobile communication service provider, has selected the Comverse ONE Converged Billing & Active Customer Management solution to support expansion of services and functionalities for its advanced 4G/LTE network serving a rapidly growing subscriber base. Upgrading to the new Comverse ONE product line…
Read More »"We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them." Orson Welles. One of the holy grails of OSS - automation - has many forms. Whether it is in flow-through provisioning, self-healing networks, advanced event filtering, etc. They are…
Read More »"What would we expect to find if we examined the brain scans of people with high versus average IQ scores? We might picture the active brain of an Einstein as a hotbed of smoldering colors ”but we’d be wrong. Neurologist Richard Restak summarized a UCLA study that compared individuals with high IQs to those with average IQs. Restak wrote, The researchers started off with the seemingly…
Read More »Redknee Supports Virtualization Strategy for Vodafone Germany. Redknee Solutions Inc. is enabling Tier 1 network operators to implement their virtualization strategies. Redknee offers an end-to-end cloud-based solution with a business model that gives service providers flexibility to differentiate and grow their business, while minimizing the investment risk and optimizing total cost of ownership (TCO). Redknee’s agile approach to virtualization enables the smooth migration of legacy services…
Read More »Telenor Norway has selected Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) as its partner to modernize and simplify the fixed network operations. The goal is to improve customer experience through reduced complexity and faster deliveries. Telenor Norway has launched a long-term effort to modernize and simplify products, processes and related IT systems in the fixed area. On 24th June, Telenor Norway signed a contract with TCS as a…
Read More »"Solving a problem with insight is fundamentally different from solving a problem analytically. There really are different brain mechanisms involved." John Kounios in this article on the WSJ. I love reading articles such as the one above, gaining a better understanding of how our brains function and how to prime them for greater results for a variety of different activities. It also relates to why I…
Read More »"A worker named John Gallo was discharged after a “spotter” caught him “smiling” with co-workers after being warned earlier about “laughing with the other fellows."" Steven Watts in "The People's Tycoon." This quote relates to Henry Ford's policy of allowing no laughing, talking or smiling on his assembly lines from his belief that these distractions caused efficiency degradation. Sometimes the intensity of OSS projects can cast…
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