"I made the point that there was one rule that had to govern any operator shift of focus to higher service layers—the network itself must remain profitable. You can’t say you’ll earn new revenue that in part at least will subsidize a network loss, because competitors with no network and no losses will then have a pricing advantage you can’t make up. What higher-layer services could…
Read More »"Gartner’s 2016 CIO Survey revealed five key innovation practices that deliver the highest improvement in digital performance: Crowdsourcing, Different metrics, Formal innovation management and work with Startups. Nevertheless according to the same survey, CIOs also indicated that these five innovation were the least used." Sebastian Barros here. I suspect these CIO findings are also mirrored in the OSS industry. How many OSS organisations do you know that are making use of: Crowdsourcing,…
Read More »Redknee Selected to Monetize Tbaytel’s Multi-Play Services and Support its Digital Transformation. Redknee Solutions Inc. announced the signing of a new multi-million dollar digital transformation contract with Tbaytel, the largest independently owned telecommunications service provider in Canada. This win will leverage Redknee’s experience in managing and implementing complex IT transformation projects to modernize Tbaytel’s business support systems. The Redknee solution will consolidate Tbaytel’s existing multi-play service…
Read More »"Perhaps the most egregious platform failure is to simply not see the platform play at all. It is also one of the hardest for traditional firms to avoid. Firms guilty of this oversight never get past the idea that they sell products when they could be building ecosystems. Sony, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Garmin all made the mistake of emphasizing products over platforms. Before the iPhone…
Read More »Sprint and Ericsson renew portions of managed services partnership. Ericsson and Sprint announced a renewal of portions of the companies' 2009 managed services contract, which reaches its full term in September 2016. Going forward Ericsson will continue to be a key business partner for Sprint. As part of the new relationship Ericsson will provide some multi-vendor services that support the ongoing operations, development and transformation of…
Read More »"The telco’s strategy encompasses three broad categories of APIs, each of which targets a different audience: - Private, internal APIs accessible exclusively to Telstra’s developers; - External, public APIs, that are available for use by third-party developers; and - APIs intended for use by Telstra’s partners. “Each one of these has a different value to Telstra,” said Telstra developer evangelist Frank Arrigo. “The internal ones, the…
Read More »AT&T and Amdocs Collaborate to Deliver Open Software Solutions to Accelerate Network Function Virtualization. Amdocs will be the integrator for telecommunications companies and cloud developers who want to use AT&T’s ECOMP platform to build their own software-centric network services. AT&T created and developed ECOMP and recently committed to releasing that code into open source. Amdocs will help companies deploy that open source software into their own…
Read More »Ericsson and China Telecom sign MoU on IoT. Ericsson and China Telecom group (China Telecom) signed a MoU to jointly build global Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity and offer one-stop global IoT connectivity service to enterprise customers through Ericsson Device Connection Platform (DCP). The MoU was signed at the China Telecom Tianyi Terminal Expo on July 15. According to the MoU, the partnership, initially covering a…
Read More »"Answers to leading questions under torture naturally tell us nothing about the beliefs of the accused; but they are good evidence for the beliefs of the accusers." C.S. Lewis. Today I'd like to share a clever strategy used by a clever OSS division head that l once worked with. The team he led was in the early stages of its development, but with an existing culture…
Read More »"Yes, it's true, almost no one reads the instructions... people are so self-absorbed and hurried that they plunge first. One more reason to build something simple. But at least you can post instructions so that after they fail the first time, they have a shot at getting it right the second time." Seth Godin. My washing machine broke down last week. One little part plus labour was…
Read More »HT Croatia, part of DT Group, Positioned for Growth with Redknee Unified Upgrade. Redknee Solutions Inc. announced the completion of an upgrade project at Hrvatski Telecom (HT Croatia), part of the Deutsche Telekom Group. The Redknee Unified upgrade modernizes HT Croatia’s real-time charging system to provide agile capabilities to subscribers, while supporting future growth opportunities, the introduction of new and innovative services and real-time marketing campaigns.…
Read More »In the law of cascading problems, let's say we have data sets where our data accuracy levels are as follows: Locations are 90% Pits are 95% Ducts are 90% Cables are 90% Joints are 85% Patch panels are 85% Active devices are 95% Cards are 95% Ports are 90% Bearer circuits are 85% That all sounds pretty promising doesn't it (we've all seen data sets that are…
Read More »"Companies often see the disruptive forces affecting their industry. They frequently divert sufficient resources to participate in emerging markets. Their failure is usually an inability to truly embrace the new business models the disruptive change opens up. Kodak created a digital camera, invested in the technology, and even understood that photos would be shared online. Where they failed was in realizing that online photo sharing was…
Read More »"Spectacular success doesn’t lead to deep introspection, which in turn leads to wrong conclusions. You see this all the time, right? Successful companies draw conclusions about how smart and good they are, and then a significant number of them fall off the cliff because they drew the wrong conclusions." Ed Catmull (of Pixar) here. The article above provides Ed Catmall's interesting take on how Pixar needs…
Read More »Ericsson extends commitment to OSS interoperability initiative (OSSii) with Nokia and Huawei. Ericsson has renewed its commitment to the OSS interoperability initiative (OSSii) by signing an extended memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Huawei and Nokia. Initiated by Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia in May 2013, the OSSii promotes interoperability between different OSS vendors' equipment. It aims to enable operators to simplify network operations, reduce overall integration costs…
Read More »Telstra to expand enterprise mobility footprint by acquiring MSC Mobility. Telstra announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire MSC Mobility (MSC), a leading provider of Enterprise Mobility solutions in Australia. Telstra expects the transaction to complete in the coming weeks. MSC provides mobile device management and provisioning services for large organisations, including providing devices and support to end users, and professional services, including strategy…
Read More »Ericsson and Inspur to work on cloud, media and IoT solutions. Ericsson and Inspur Group Co. Ltd (Inspur), the leading supplier of data center equipment in China, announced on July 1 they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU builds upon the existing cooperation between the two parties, which dates back to 2002, when Ericsson and Inspur established a joint venture to develop radio…
Read More »Telenor Serbia transforms customer charging and billing experience. Ericsson has been selected by Telenor Serbia to deploy the Ericsson Charging and Billing in One (CBiO) solution as the operator's new real-time convergent charging and billing platform. As a result of the deployment, Telenor Serbia can support a full range of charging and billing needs for residential, corporate, mobile and fixed subscribers. Ingeborg Øfsthus, Telenor Serbia CEO…
Read More »Early in my (pre-OSS) career I noticed that I had a different approach to designing solutions than most of my colleagues. My colleagues, when given an assignment, would tend to disappear into their office cubicles and prepare a solution in isolation, before asking for a review (for quality assurance purposes) once their solution was all but complete. I, on the other hand, would summarise my thoughts…
Read More »Netcracker acquires CoralTree Systems. Netcracker Technology announced that it has completed the acquisition of CoralTree Systems, a leading provider of converged solutions for European service providers. The acquisition includes CoralTree's technology solutions and highly skilled resources in systems integration, business operations support and other professional services. CoralTree's solutions also include technology assets in video activation, BSS and OSS which complement Netcracker's solution portfolio. Netcracker has seen…
Read More »"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.” Woodrow Wilson. Going for a run can be fun, but adding a clock/stop-watch changes the dynamic. A game of football is fun to watch (or play), but adding a clock makes it somewhat more interesting…
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