"I like to think that if I’d been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 when Orville Wright took off, I would have been farsighted enough, and public-spirited enough–I owed this to future capitalists–to shoot him down. I mean, Karl Marx couldn’t have done as much damage to capitalists as Orville did. I won’t dwell on other glamorous businesses that dramatically changed our lives but concurrently failed to…
Read More »The Linux Foundation Announces Intent to Form Open Source Unified Orchestrator Project for SDN and NFV. The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today is announcing the intent to form the OPEN-Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O). This collaborative effort will bring the industry together to develop the first open source software framework and orchestrator to enable agile software-defined networking (SDN) and network function…
Read More »Amdocs has made the following five announcements at Mobile World Congress (MWC). Amdocs Unveils New CES 10 Product Portfolio to Accelerate Pace of Service Provider Digital Transformation Amdocs Announces Enhanced Digital Services Portfolio to Speed Transition to Digital Business Models Amdocs Introduces Internet of Things (IoT) Monetization Platform, Enabling Service Providers to Gain New Revenues from IoT Services Amdocs Partners with Adobe and frog to Accelerate…
Read More »Redknee Awarded a Multi-Year Contract to Support Turk Telekom with the Launch of New Services. Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) announced the signing of a new multi-year expansion of services contract, including licenses, support and other consulting services, with Turk Telekom, a leading mobile operator in Turkey with over 17 million subscribers. With signing of this new contract, Turk Telekom will further strengthen its relationship with…
Read More »New ETSI group develops Open Source for NFV. A new ETSI group has commenced development of Open Source software for Management and Orchestration (MANO) of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The open source implementation will be aligned with ETSI’s NFV Industry Specification Group (ISG). Two of the key components of the ETSI NFV architectural framework are the NFV Orchestrator and VNF (Virtualized Network Function) Manager, known as…
Read More »"He [Barry Schwartz] suggests that because we are presented with so much information, the overload of options and data leads us to falsely believe that, even a fairly mundane task like shopping for toothpaste, has greater significance than it really does." Howstuffworks.com. Why do 5-10yo kids know what profession they want to do but by the end of high school 10 years later, most do not?…
Read More »Netcracker Supports BT’s Digital Service Provider Transformation. Netcracker Technology announced that BT Group (BT), one of the world’s leading communications companies, has extended its partnership with Netcracker for revenue and billing management technology solutions and professional services. BT is leading the industry by transforming its technology platforms, and the business models associated with them, to create a new kind of digital service provider—a network operator with…
Read More »Nokia strengthens security portfolio with planned acquisition of Nakina Systems. Nokia plans to acquire Canadian software firm Nakina Systems ("Nakina"), to reinforce its position in security at a time when customers are bolstering their defenses to cope with the increasing demands of hyper connectivity, new regulations and emerging technologies. The companies previously had a five-year partnership where Nokia used Nakina's software in several customer projects. Security…
Read More »"Your financial planner, real estate agent, and accountant all call your house an asset. But in reality, an asset is only something that puts money in your pocket. If you have a house that you rent out to tenants, then it’s an asset. If you have a house, paid for or not, that you live in, then it can’t be an asset. Instead of putting money…
Read More »"Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style." Warren Buffett in his 1990 Chairman's Letter. It's been said that 90% of Warren Buffett's immense wealth has been derived from just 10 deals. That's 10 deals in roughly 60 years of investing. Warren undoubtedly gets to see many opportunities but only invests in a select few, bypassing many great opportunities to bet big on…
Read More »BT Mobile selects Openet to deliver real-time charging for mobile MVNO. Openet announced that BT has installed Openet’s NFV-ready Evolved Charging solution. The market leading converged service provider has selected Openet’s virtualized, real-time BSS technology to monetize its consumer mobile service. BT Mobile will harness the added agility and flexibility of Openet’s real-time charging platform to drive fast time-to-market for its new MVNO venture. BT Mobile…
Read More »Telstra network ready to support IoT - Telstra blog post. Telstra announced another major milestone in their network evolution as they enable support for Category 1 (Cat1) devices and build a new foundation for the Internet of Things (IoT). To date when we have spoken of our LTE service on our mobile network we have compared it to a highway optimised for the fastest vehicles racing…
Read More »In "Getting to genba" we discussed the Japanese concept of genba or defining where is the real place that work gets done. According to a learned colleague named Paul who also grew up in Japan, genba is part of popular culture there, being cited regularly in business discussions. We had an interesting discussion about the earlier blog and some of the thoughts have spawned this follow-up…
Read More »T-Mobile Netherlands Optimizes End-to-End Product Management with Netcracker BSS. Netcracker announced that T-Mobile Netherlands, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has selected Netcracker to implement its sophisticated Product Management solution, which is comprised of Product Catalog and Product Lifecycle Management components. This will help T-Mobile Netherlands improve the overall management and delivery of its services. T-Mobile Netherlands is among the largest providers of mobile telecommunications, offering services…
Read More »3 Macau Leverages CSG Singleview for New 4G LTE Services. CSG International (NASDAQ: CSGS) announced that 3 Macau now uses CSG Singleview® to provide comprehensive integrated revenue and customer management system for its advanced 4G LTE services. To coincide with the network launch in December 2015, CSG used its proven Accelerate methodology to deploy a comprehensive revenue and customer management solution. The deployment included CSG’s Singleview…
Read More »Over the years of working with different OSS products I've noticed two distinct approaches to building the data models that underpin OSS functionality. The two options are: Network specific data model Generic data model The first approach sees the vendor implement a different data structure for each different network type (eg Ethernet, transmission, etc). The second has a network-agnostic approach that by default is also agnostic…
Read More »TOT Combines Pre-Paid, Post-Paid, Mobile and Fixed Billing with Convergent Netcracker Solution. Netcracker announced that TOT Public Company Limited, formerly known as the Telephone Organization of Thailand, has implemented Netcracker’s Convergent Billing solution to consolidate its pre-paid and post-paid fixed and mobile rating, charging and billing processes, which were traditionally managed on disparate platforms. TOT is a leading provider of fixed and mobile telephony services across…
Read More »Efficiency experts refer to getting to genba (or gemba), a Japanese term for "the real place" or the place where the "real" work gets done. lt's the place where every movement is vital and any inefficiency or waste is a target for improvement. In OSS, genba resides in two places - the product development and the customer implementation site. Creating OSS tools and configuring them for…
Read More »"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." Vincent Van Gogh. I recently contributed on a vendor's product design exercise and came away with some ideas that are worth sharing here. We started the process by trying to resolve a problem faced by many OSS customers. The problem related to re-designing their network to adapt to ever-changing demands within the network. The…
Read More »SolarWinds completes $4.5B sale. On Friday morning Austin software maker SolarWinds Inc. quietly completed its $4.5 billion sale to two investment firms. Jason Ream, Solarwinds’ chief financial officer, said the day was business as usual for the 17-year-old company, with only an internal email announcement sent out notifiying employees the deal had closed. In October, Silver Lake Partners and Thoma Bravo announced plans to take SolarWinds…
Read More »A great friend of mine, Evan, and I recently caught up with Mike Lawrey, the Chairman of the TM Forum. Mike spoke to us about some interesting initiatives the TM Forum has in the pipeline, including some that build upon the success of their Smart City Forum. You may have noticed that I regularly discuss the future of OSS spreading from operations into digital ecosystems. I…
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