Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

Let us review your OSS product development backlog and I’ll predict if there’s growth in your future

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 cases. In one example, I knew of a telco that issued…

08/05/2023 No Comments

A detailed account of the SolarWinds hack. A must-read story for all OSS/BSS suppliers

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 and systems. "With great power comes great responsibility" Wired has shared, The…

03/05/2023 No Comments

Graph Data Summit (Melbourne, 9th May 2023) – A presentation about telco network data modelling

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 Tuesday (9th of May, 2023), I'd like to invite you to…

02/05/2023 No Comments

Putting on the Big Black Hat: How Project Pre-Mortems can save your OSS Project before you begin

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 it as projecting forward and you're doing a project post-mortem when…

26/04/2023 No Comments

Would you believe that 70+ personas and 700 use-cases is NOT a definitive list for OSS/BSS tools?

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 decided to prepare a list of both, cross-linked, in one spreadsheet.…

17/04/2023 No Comments

The one person, two day, OSS challenge (The Friction Continuums)

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 colleagues within two days? [Speaking of use-cases, I've just put the…

14/04/2023 1 Comment

Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes

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 telco CEOs don't expect their businesses to make it through the…

11/04/2023 No Comments

Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment

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 feeling might be around this famous figure in human history. I…

05/04/2023 3 Comments

Crafting an Investment Memorandum (IM): A Comprehensive Guide

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 in the amount of OSS/BSS M&A that's happening in the market…

04/04/2023 No Comments

Want to know where the next wave of OSS/BSS innovation is coming from?

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 true of technical knowledge as new waves of technology arrive like…

29/03/2023 No Comments

Do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is?

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 will fundamentally change OSS/BSS product designs. The article built upon concepts…

27/03/2023 No Comments

What’s your future in OSS/BSS more closely linked to – elements of scarcity or abundance?

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 or your companies in the future? Let's have a look at…

22/03/2023 No Comments

What does the future hold for telco? Can it inform long-term OSS/BSS supplier strategies?

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 profitable business models throughout the 1900s. That world of telco has…

20/03/2023 No Comments

What’s your Everest?

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 and thinking back, am not sure I've ever had that one…

16/03/2023 No Comments

Sometimes an OSS budget is too big

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 your more successful ones? Big budgets come with big ambitions. Lots…

07/03/2023 No Comments

The Pain. The Burning Ring of Fire. How to get OSS Projects unstuck and approved

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 weeks ago too. The business case had been given the green-light.…

20/02/2023 No Comments

What can OSS learn from Google and ChatGPT?

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 apply to OSS solutions? Search User Interface and User Experience This…

14/02/2023 No Comments

How to revolutionise telco Customer Satisfaction via an OSS-led Mindset Shift

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, but still can't bring ourselves to do anything about it. The…

08/02/2023 No Comments

There are 2600+ things on our mind. What’s on your mind?

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 mind and other readers like you. This is particularly true of…

01/02/2023 No Comments

Uncovering Hidden Gems: How an Unexpected Technique Unlocked Surprising Insights

It's funny how you sometimes unlock powerful work techniques without intending to isn't it? So powerful that they become an important part of the way you work on future OSS/BSS projects. Or perhaps just an incisive tool that you pull out of your kit-bag in certain situations. A few years ago I was helping a client to develop a 5-year plan and associated product roadmap. We…

31/01/2023 No Comments

Telcos have 3 enduring assets. They might not be what you think. They’re almost definitely undervalued

Have you pondered what the greatest assets are for telcos with their current business models? We recently looked at their Fundamental telco differentiators but what about assets / strengths? Some may cite factors such as network infrastructure, spectrum, intellectual property (IP) or employees (and I'll always include OSS/BSS in this list naturally). These might all be assets, but I don't necessarily equate these to enduring advantages…

27/01/2023 No Comments

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