Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

Think for a moment…

“Many of the most important new companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Snapchat, Uber, Airbnb and more are winning not by giving good-enough solutions..., but rather by delivering a superior experience....” Ben Thompson, stratechery.com Think for a moment about the millions of developer hours that have gone into creating today's OSS tools. Think also for a moment about how many of those tools are really clunky…

18/01/2019 2 Comments

Nobody dabbles at dentistry

"There are some jobs that are only done by accredited professionals. And then there are most jobs, jobs that some people do for fun, now and then, perhaps in front of the bathroom mirror. It’s difficult to find your footing when you’re a logo designer, a comedian or a project manager. Because these are gigs that many people think they can do, at least a little…

17/01/2019 No Comments

To link or not to link your OSS. That is the question

The first OSS project I worked on had a full-suite, single vendor solution. All products within the suite were integrated into a single database and that allowed their product developers to introduce a lot of cross-linking. That has its strengths and weaknesses. The second OSS suite I worked with came from one of the world's largest network vendors and integrators. Their suite primarily consisted of third-party…

15/01/2019 2 Comments

Am I being an OSShole?

""Am I being an asshole?” In other words, am I pointing out problems or am I finding solutions?" Ramit Sethi. One of the things I've noticed working on large and small OSS teams is that people who excel at finding solutions thrive in both. The ones who thrive on only identifying problems seemingly only function in large organisations. In a small team, everyone needs to contribute…

14/01/2019 No Comments

IBM Unveils World’s First Quantum Computing System

IBM Unveils World's First Integrated Quantum Computing System for Commercial Use. At the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled IBM Q System One™, the world's first integrated universal approximate quantum computing system designed for scientific and commercial use. IBM also announced plans to open its first IBM Q Quantum Computation Center for commercial clients in Poughkeepsie, New York in 2019. IBM Q…

10/01/2019 No Comments

Treating your OSS/BSS suite like a share portfolio

Like most readers, I'm sure your OSS/BSS suite consists of many components. What if you were to look at each of those components as assets? In a share portfolio, you analyse your stocks to see which assets are truly worth keeping and which should be divested. We don't tend to take such a long-term analytical view of our OSS/BSS components. We may regularly talk about their…

10/01/2019 No Comments

TM Forum’s Open API links

Those of you familiar with TM Forum are already quite familiar with the Frameworx enterprise architecture model. It's as close as we get to a standard used across the OSS industry. Frameworx consists of four main modules, with eTOM, TAM and SID being the most widely referred to: Application Framework (previously known as, but still commonly referred to as the Telecom Application Map (TAM)) Business Process Framework (commonly…

08/01/2019 No Comments

The bird’s wings analogy for OSS RFPs

"A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on it’s own wings." Unknown. Last month, we posted a series entitled "How to kill the RFP." The RFP is a common mechanism for reaching a purchasing agreement between OSS provider and network operator. Unfortunately, it's deemed to be a non-ideal approach by many…

07/01/2019 2 Comments

2019 predictions for OSS

Well, this is the time of year when people make big predictions for the coming year. But let me start by saying the headline is something of a misnomer. I'm not clever enough to have any predictions for 2019 for a couple of reasons: There are far too many clever people working across the myriad fields of expertise that make up an OSS for me to…

03/01/2019 No Comments

My favourite OSS saying

My favourite OSS saying - "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." OSS are amazing things. They're designed to gather, process and compile all sorts of information from all sorts of sources. I like to claim that OSS/BSS are the puppet masters of any significant network operator because they assist in every corner of the business. They assist with the processes carried out by almost…

02/01/2019 No Comments

OSS come in all shapes and sizes

As the OSS vendors / suppliers page here on PAOSS shows, there are a LOT of different OSS options, making it an extremely fragmented market. But there's something of a reason for that fragmentation - customer requirements for OSS come in all shapes and sizes. Here are four of the major categories that I've been lucky enough to work on. Tier 1 telcos - the OSS…

31/12/2018 No Comments

Happy holidays

I'd like to wish a happy holiday season to all who've been kind enough to spare your valuable time and attention to the PAOSS blog. Wishing you a safe and prosperous 2019 too.

21/12/2018 No Comments

How to build a personal, cloud-native OSS sandpit

As a project for 2019, we're considering the development of a how-to training course that provides a step-by-step guide to build your own OSS sandpit to play with. It will be built around cloud-native and open-source components. It will be cutting-edge and micro-scaled (but highly scalable in case you want to grow it). Does this sound like something you'd be interested in hearing more about? Like…

20/12/2018 6 Comments

GE undergoes another re-structure. Does it unlock a competitive advantage?

GE has just announced plans to establish a new, independent company focused on building a comprehensive Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) software portfolio. The spun out company will "start with $1.2 billion in annual software revenue and an existing global industrial customer base. The company is intended to be a GE wholly-owned, independently run business with a new brand and identity, its own equity structure, and…

18/12/2018 No Comments

What to read from a simple little OSS job advertisement from AWS

Not sure if you noticed, but AWS posted this job advertisement on LinkedIn a couple of days ago - Business Portfolio Leader – Telecom OSS/BSS Solutions. The advertisement includes the following text: "Amazon Web Services (AWS) is leading the next paradigm shift in computing and is looking for a world class candidate to manage an elite portfolio of strategic AWS technology partners focused on the Operation…

17/12/2018 No Comments

How to kill the OSS RFP (part 4)

This is the fourth, and final part (I think) in the series on killing the OSS RFI/RFP process, a process that suppliers and customers alike find to be inefficient. The concept is based on an initiative currently being investigated by TM Forum. The previous three posts focused on the importance of trusted partnerships and the methods to develop them via OSS procurement events. Today's post takes…

14/12/2018 1 Comment

How to kill the OSS RFP (part 3)

As the title suggests, this is the third in a series of articles spawned by TM Forum's initiative to investigate better procurement practices than using RFI / RFP processes. There's no doubt the RFI / RFP / contract model can be costly and time-consuming. To be honest, I feel the RFI / RFP process can be a reasonably good way of evaluating and identifying a new…

13/12/2018 No Comments

How to kill the OSS RFP (part 2)

Yesterday's post discussed an initiative that TM Forum is currently investigating - trying to identify an alternate OSS procurement process to the traditional RFI/RFP/contract approach. It spoke about trusting partnerships being the (possibly) mythological key to killing off the RFP. Have you noticed how much fear there is going into any OSS procurement event? Fear from suppliers and customers alike. That's understandable because there are so…

12/12/2018 No Comments

How to kill the OSS RFP

TM Forum is currently investigating ways to procure OSS without resorting to the current RFI / RFP approach. It has published the following survey results. . As it shows, the RFI / RFP isn't fit for purpose for suppliers and customers alike. It's not just the RFI/RFP process. We could extend this further and include contract / procurement process that bolts onto the back of the…

11/12/2018 No Comments

Why does everyone know an operator’s business better than the operator?

The headline today blatantly steals from a post by William Webb. You can read his entire, brilliant post here. All quotes below are from the article. William's concept aligns quite closely with yesterday's article regarding external insights that don't quite marry up with the real situation faced by operators. "At the Great Telco Debate this week there was no shortage of advice for operators. Some counselled…

06/12/2018 No Comments

OSS answers that are simple but wrong vs complex but right

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills..." John F Kennedy. Let's face it. The business of running a telco is complex. The business of implementing an OSS is complex. The excitement about…

05/12/2018 2 Comments

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