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Colt selects NEC and Netcracker

Colt Selects NEC and Netcracker to Enhance its Network and Optimize for Virtualization. NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology announced that Colt has selected them to enable and support its large-scale OSS transformation, which will support Colt in the deployment of the next generation of its infrastructure, including virtualization. Colt will leverage Netcracker's future-proof, next-generation OSS and Service Orchestration solution, which is a part of NEC/Netcracker's Agile…

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08/06/2017 No Comments

OSS heirlooms

As we all know, an heirloom is an item that is passed from generation to generation. In the world of OSS, there are a lot of heirloom tools out in the wild. Their long-since-departed* sponsors / builders have ensured their legacy survives with the tools they have built. In the traditional context (eg jewelry, furniture, etc), the object is a valuable one. In the OSS context,…

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07/06/2017 No Comments

Women in OSS

OSS doesn't seem to be a very enticing career for women unfortunately. Over all my years of OSS projects, I can't think of any where women outnumbered the men. However, my OSS projects have been interspersed with a variety of other projects where women have dominated the team numbers. Looking back, there's almost perfect correlation between the positivity of the project environment and the proportion of…

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06/06/2017 1 Comment

The story of Mike Flint

"Mike Flint was Warren Buffett's personal airplane pilot for 10 years. (Flint has also flown four US Presidents, so I think we can safely say he is good at his job.) According to Flint, he was talking about his career priorities with Buffett when his boss asked the pilot to go through a 3-step exercise. Here's how it works… STEP 1: Buffett started by asking Flint…

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05/06/2017 No Comments

AIS upgrades with Netcracker

AIS Upgrades to Netcracker's Revenue Management Solution to Optimize Customer Experience. Netcracker Technology announced that Advanced Info Service Public Company Limited (AIS) is upgrading to Netcracker 12 to deliver a better digital customer experience and meet myriad internal business objectives. As part of the engagement, AIS has also extended its use of Netcracker's Professional Services in order to ensure the long-term success of the platform. AIS…

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03/06/2017 No Comments

OSS S-curves

"I should say... that in the real world exponential curves don’t continue for ever. We get S-curves which closely mimic exponential curves in the beginning, but then tail off after a while often as new technologies hit physical limits which prevent further progress. What seems to happen in practice is that some new technology emerges on its own S-curve which allows overall progress to stay on…

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02/06/2017 2 Comments

Comptel wins order from Saudi Arabia

Comptel Has Received Significant Order from Saudi Arabian Customer. Comptel has received a significant order from a Saudi Arabian customer. The deal is a continuation of a long business relationship between the parties. The value of the contract is approximately 4.9 M euros covering services for Comptel FlowOne Fulfillment, Comptel Data Refinery and Comptel Fastermind suites.

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31/05/2017 No Comments

AI to practice as you play

I'm a die-hard sports fan, as a player and watcher, so I find it interesting how parallels are drawn between work and sport - in particular, that "you practice as you play." Alternatively, it's implied that if you practice sloppy, you play sloppy. But if we look at a professional athlete that dedicates 40 hours per week to their craft, perhaps only an hour of that…

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29/05/2017 No Comments

Our tools going the way of the slide rule

My grandfather achieved many great things in his lifetime and I'm really proud to come from his lineage. I have many great memories of him and one perplexing one. When I was accepted into Engineering at Uni, he proudly presented me with his trusty slide-rule and stated that I'd be needing it in my course. Of course I thanked him but I'm somewhat embarrassed to say…

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26/05/2017 No Comments

Customers buy the basic and learn to love the features

"Most customers buy the basic and learn to love the features, but the whole customer experience is based on trying to sell the features." Roger Gibson. This statement appears oh-so-true in the OSS sales pitches that I've observed. In many cases the customer really only needs the basic, but when every vendor is selling the features, customers also tend to get caught up in the features.…

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25/05/2017 No Comments

OSS survivorship bias

Take a look at the image below. If you were told that the image showed where planes had taken hits in WWII before returning to base and were asked to recommend locations on the plane where armour should be strengthened, where would you choose? Would you choose to strengthen behind the cockpit and on the wingtips? "During World War II, the statistician Abraham Wald took survivorship…

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24/05/2017 No Comments

OSS data as a business asset

"To become a business asset, the role of data within an organization must move from being departmentally siloed to being centrally managed. Breaking down the siloes is not necessarily a technical challenge, but an organizational one. It requires a data strategy, the correct level of ownership and corporate governance. Data-as-a-business-asset means a single definition of the customer, ownership at an executive level and a well-managed change…

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23/05/2017 No Comments

The Second Law of OSS Thermodynamics

"Applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics to understanding reality, Boyd infers that individuals or organizations that don’t communicate with the outside world by getting new information about the environment or by creating new mental models act like a “closed system.” And just as a closed system in nature will have increasing entropy, or disorder, so too will a person or organization experience mental entropy or disorder…

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22/05/2017 No Comments

Etisalat enlists Comptel

Etisalat Enlists Comptel’s FWD to introduce cliQ to Sri Lankan Mobile Subscribers Comptel Corporation announced that Etisalat Sri Lanka has launched cliQ, its new offering designed to allow subscribers to purchase time-based mobile data packages by using Comptel’s FWD solution. As many mobile subscribers are ill-equipped to buy data in expensive and hard to understand bundles based on megabytes and gigabytes, cliQ provides a flexible and…

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19/05/2017 No Comments

A dubious revenue stream

I recently met with an old friend who is now a leading Engineer in mega construction projects (I'm talking multi-billion dollar projects here). He told me that most of the lead construction companies struggle to make a profit from the main contract due to underestimating or perhaps just competitive bidding to ensure a pipeline of revenue. However, they remain highly profitable from a revenue model that…

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19/05/2017 1 Comment

If telcos don’t issue bills, where does new revenue come from?

"Many of you here are working on digitalisation projects but I would urge you to think bigger. You need to think about business model change – with existing customers or into whole new sectors. It isn’t just about product innovation. It’s about company innovation." Deborah Sherry at TM Forum Live! I really like the way Deborah is thinking (she's General Manager and Chief Commercial Officer of…

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18/05/2017 No Comments

Just three things

I was due to speak at TM Forum Live today but wasn't able to make it across to France this year. However, the talk will still continue on, so if you're in Nice please drop in to listen to Amrit Singh and Crispin Blackall talk about how Infosys and Telstra are using microservices to deliver on Telstra's next-generation of operational support tools. Details as follows: Date:…

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17/05/2017 No Comments

Dialog consolidates with Netcracker

Dialog Consolidates All Billing on Netcracker's Next-Generation Revenue Management Platform. Netcracker Technology announced that Dialog Axiata, a subsidiary of Axiata Group Berhad, has expanded its partnership with Netcracker by using Netcracker's Customer Billing Management solution to consolidate billing across all lines of business into a single platform. This expansion will bring Dialog's retail and enterprise fixed-line subscribers onto Netcracker's BSS, which already bills for Dialog's GSM,…

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17/05/2017 No Comments

Telenet Selects Netcracker

Telenet Selects Netcracker for Comprehensive Digital BSS Transformation. Netcracker Technology announced that Telenet has selected Netcracker to be its strategic partner and initiate a comprehensive digital transformation to leverage its cable and wireless assets and deliver the most innovative services and outstanding customer experience to its more than 2 million customers. This digital transformation program aims to: •Integrate its recent acquisition of BASE's 3 million wireless…

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17/05/2017 No Comments

Open source is like a free puppy

TM Forum Live is currently bringing together some of the leading thinkers in the world of OSS at a gathering in France. Whilst I can't be there, a colleague is representing PAOSS and relayed this message: Best quote in my opinion was Shahar Steiff of PCCW - "Open source isn't like free candy - it's like a free puppy!" Great analogy. Open source, like a puppy,…

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16/05/2017 No Comments