"There was US$21.9B spent on games in the USA alone in 2012." NewZoo infographic [Please note: I've since been advised that this link to the infographic may be malware] According to the infographic, $2.1B was spent on Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games and $2.4B on mobile games alone. At the moment, these games tend to be monetised via subscription or up-front procurement of an app. But…
Read More »"We need to dedicate fewer of our resources to our traditional and core products as their profitability erodes and be ready to compete hard against an unprecedented number of new competitors and disruptive elements. They face none of the infrastructure, cost and regulatory pressure we do." Phil Jordan, Group CIO of Telefónica. The statement above is so obvious, yet I'd only ever thought of it by…
Read More »"Every operator needs to understand four key things about their data: What data do they have and what does it tell them about the customer? What further data can they reasonably collect and what is its value to the operator and to other players in the ecosystem? What can the operator do with it from a regulatory point of view and from the expectations of privacy…
Read More »"The digital world is much more fragmented – an ecosystem of different players each delivering their element of the service – with a different access network, core network, computing, storage and many applications providers. And where services comprise a number of aggregated application services, the challenges get even harder. If the only person getting the end-to-end picture of the overall service quality is the user, trouble…
Read More »"As markets grow, they fragment, forming distinct sub-markets that may break away from the parent market to become sustainable separate markets, with different products and services. Fragments start as small segments of customers with similar needs but for which there is no customized solution available. As a result they do not buy or make do with the best alternative. As the market grows, it becomes economically…
Read More »"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." Dale Carnegie. PassionateAboutOSS.com holds an OSS networking breakfast on the last Wednesday of every month in Melbourne, Australia for a bunch of people who are Passionate About OSS. Leave us a message on the Contact Us page…
Read More »"When someone discovered that the coffee bean made a tasty, refreshing drink, it was not necessary to do more than say so. Competition to sell coffee beans meant price wars and mergers and regulation and ethical dilemmas. Now, no-one sells their coffee beans as ‘cheaper’ – it is not ‘sustainable’ to do so. Coffee beans are sold on whether a range of sweet, hot milky drinks…
Read More »"The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent." Steve Jobs. In the television age, the first half saw the biggest margins going to the technology innovators. The technologies were the drivers and innovators reaped their rewards. TV sets, outside broadcast vans, television stations were expensive, transmission technologies, etc. But as the…
Read More »"Here’s a thought exercise for the audience: Imagine no Internet: no data on phones, no Ethernet or wi-fi connections at home — or anywhere. No email, no Google, no Facebook, no Skype. That’s what we would have if designing the Internet had been left up to phone and cable companies, and not to geeks whose names most people don’t know, and who made something no business…
Read More »"The other part of outsourcing is this: it simply says where the work can be done outside better than it can be done inside, we should do it." Alphonso Jackson. In this last of a nine-part series on non-traditional OSS markets, we touch on the possible business model differences to support and implement OSS. With a CSP, the business is focussed on delivering communication services. As…
Read More »"You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage." Martin H. Fischer. When implementing an OSS for a CSP, the communications network is the centre of the universe so all assets and their associated attributes and naming conventions revolve around the communications network. However, in a utility network, the communications network is generally just a support…
Read More »"I think I understand something about space. I think the job of a sculptor is spatial as much as it is to do with form." Anish Kapoor. Whilst a utility (eg rail, electricity, water, mining, etc) will have many facets of similarity with CSPs, the one major difference tends to be that it will have far fewer customers/subscribers on its network. This has a number of…
Read More »This page provides links to 10 techniques I've developed for Implementing an OSS
Read More »"The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing." Pierre Bonnard. As mentioned in yesterday's blog, the non-CSP market is a fascinating one with regards to naming conventions. For CSPs, I recommend to start with some form of variation on the ITU M.1400 recommendation, as shown on the naming convention tool page. A communication network circuit will generally have an A-end and a B-end…
Read More »"Competitiveness demands flexibility, choice and openness" David Cameron Over the last four days, we've covered a number of aspects of introducing OSS into non-traditional customers. There is one major risk that awaits the vendor that broadens its customer net though. Whilst there are similarities at a node-arc-service model across many industries, there are also industry-specific challenges that await. For example, in the CSP industry, diverse path…
Read More »"And God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected." Spike Milligan. Over the past few days, we have spoken about the different industries that have been, or could benefit from the introduction of OSS. Utilities companies (electricity, water, rail) tend to have extensive communications networks to manage their core…
Read More »"Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm." Idries Shah. It was whilst heading up a communications roll-out at a huge gas processing plant in the middle east that I realised what a massive opportunity existed for OSS vendors outside the traditional CSP market. We designed a converged network that encapsulated traditional technologies such as IP (Internet Protocol data networks), SDH, DWDM, VoIP,…
Read More »“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.” George R.R. Martin. In yesterday's blog entry, non-traditional industries were discussed as potential users of OSS technologies. In reality, OSS just model the assets of CSPs as nodes, arcs and services, with all sorts of associated attributes. In a telco network: node = network device (eg router/switch), arc = communications cable, microwave link, and services = network paths or…
Read More »"I always say the next big thing will happen in unexpected places." Anna Sui. I recently ran a survey to find out more about the true OSS market needs. One of the responses caused a light-bulb moment. Despite having worked with customers from alternate industries and having nearly 250 entries in this blog roll, there has been little mention of the growth markets in non-CSP industries.…
Read More »"You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment." Alvin Toffler As an OSS vendor, how many of your customers operate in different sectors and don't compete directly with each other? If the answer is a high percentage then you may wish to consider benchmarking to find out which implementations have…
Read More »"You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied." Jerry Fritz. "Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless." Jeffrey Gitomer In an earlier post about Net Promoter Score (NPS), it was indicated that Apple had an NPS of +70 whereas telcos often languish in negative NPS scores. Of course there are…
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