"Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth." Mike Tyson. The great thing about Engineers is the solution is always black and white. It has to be perfect or it's not complete. Well, I'm a qualified Engineer, but I'm not qualified to be an Engineer by these generalisations. You're probably sick of hearing me talk about the Pareto Principle in OSS - where…
Read More »"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after." J.R.R. Tolkien. As reported last week, my latest publication (The Changing Landscape of OSS) was launched. When approached about writing a report about next generation OSS concepts many months ago, I was excited by the idea…
Read More »"If you were able to shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball, it would be the smoothest sphere ever created. Hard to believe this if you live near the edge of the Grand Canyon." Seth Godin here. Great analogy above from Seth. The same goes for data. We're constantly hearing about Big Data, but in a recent article entitled, "Minimum Viable Data (MVD),"…
Read More »"If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do." Lucille Ball. The first sentence above comes from Benjamin Franklin, whilst the complete statement is attributed to Lucille Ball. The first sentence is arguably the more famous, but it's the second sentence that best fits the sentiments of today's blog. Have you ever noticed…
Read More »Redknee Announces New Cloud-Based Converged Billing Win in US. Redknee Solutions announced another customer to subscribe to Redknee’s cloud-based converged billing and customer care solution. Redknee will support EcoMobile, operating on the Sprint network, with its fully managed, software-as-a-service offering. The new deal adds to the growing number of operators who have selected Redknee’s solution in order to achieve the benefits of its flexible, scalable offering,…
Read More »The Changing Landscape of Operational Support Systems (OSS): Technologies, Solutions, and Organizational Impacts I'm proud to announce that my latest publication has been released today. Click on the image (or here) to find out more about the document published in conjunction with Mind Commerce. Operational Support Systems (OSS) are the essential set of tools required for a Communications Service Provider (CSP) to design, deploy, monitor and…
Read More »Turkcell Selects NEC and NetCracker’s OSS to Improve Business Agility. NEC Corporation and NetCracker Technology announced that Turkcell Superonline, a leading data, voice and video service provider in Turkey, has opted to use NetCracker solutions to improve and optimize B2B and B2C service fulfillment and assurance and drive operational and business agility. Turkcell Superonline is the only provider in Turkey to offer high-speed, ultra-broadband services to…
Read More »VIVACOM Goes Live with NetCracker Convergent Revenue Management Solution. NetCracker Technology announced that VIVACOM, a leading quad-play communications service provider in Bulgaria, has gone live with an upgrade to the NetCracker Revenue Management solution. The NetCracker platform enables convergence of VIVACOM’s rating, billing and charging operations across all lines of business. VIVACOM is the largest communications service provider in Bulgaria, providing fixed-line, mobile, broadband and pay-TV…
Read More »NetCracker’s Visionary Transformation Goes Into Production at Andorra Telecom. NetCracker Technology announced that Andorra Telecom, the national telecommunications operator for the Principality of Andorra, has deployed NetCracker’s end-to-end, fully integrated solutions as part of a massive BSS/OSS transformation. Andorra Telecom has been a longtime NetCracker billing customer, and selected to update and expand its existing NetCracker platform to the entire NetCracker BSS/OSS suite. Andorra Telecom provides…
Read More »"A core component of Lean Startup methodology is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible. Once the MVP is established, a startup can work on tuning the engine. This will involve measurement and learning and must include actionable…
Read More »"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better." Sydney J. Harris. There are many dilemmas facing the organisation that is attempting to select a new OSS vendor, including: The need to change vs the difficulties in changing [the devil you know or the devil you don't??]…
Read More »"Surprisingly though, wireless providers themselves are one of the largest hurdles for advancing IoT, with many resisting adding connectivity to new devices due to fears of lower APRU metrics. CSPs must band together and embrace future innovation before competition edges them out. Perhaps creating an IoT MVNO is the transition necessary for addressing lower ARPU, while still fostering the innovation necessary to drive these new revenues."…
Read More »"Your opportunity to connect with the ‘who’s who’ of the digital ecosystem and take away actionable best practices that will inspire and shape your professional and personal success!" www.tmforumlive.org @tmforumorg Today marks the start of TM Forum Live 2015 in Nice, France. Leave us a comment if you're going to be there and let us know what you're most looking forward to seeing.
Read More »CA Technologies Agrees to Acquire Rally Software, Accelerates Ability for Businesses to Build Transformative Applications Quickly. CA Technologies announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Rally Software Development Corp., a leading provider of Agile development software and services, for $19.50 per share, which equates to approximately $480 million, net of cash acquired. The transaction has been unanimously approved by both Boards of Directors, and…
Read More »"You don't need to be better. You need to be different." Chase Jarvis. PassionateAboutOSS.com and my book came into existence due to a distinct gap in the OSS market that I'd noticed again and again whilst on customer assignments. As represented in the diagram below, there was a major disconnect between the Technology Context and the Business Context as it related to OSS people, projects, processes,…
Read More »"Ideally, analytics-driven telcos must have predictive analytics embedded in all their business processes, thereby moving away from decisions based on gut feeling or intuition. [The Figure below] illustrates the four phases of a telco customer life cycle - Acquisition, Relationship, Retention and Win-back. Each phase can have several embedded analytical models, which can enhance operations considerably and provide a strategic advantage." Mahendran K from a white paper on TCS.com This…
Read More »EMC expands cloud push with $1.2 billion buy of Virtustream (including Cloud Management Platform [CMP] xStream). Source: Fortune.com. Joe Tucci is at it again. The longtime EMC chief executive and chairman has made another purchase, buying Virtustream, an enterprise-oriented cloud computing company, for $1.2 billion in cash. This move follows EMC’s late 2014 acquisition of Cloudscaling and its OpenStack-based private cloud expertise. Virtustream is focused on…
Read More »"Consider as a marker the speed of travel. It improved dramatically through the late 19th and early 20th centuries with major innovations such as trains, automobiles, airplanes, jet engines and rockets. But the big advances came to an end in the 1970s. Movement by car now is no faster than it was then – indeed it is often slower. We can fly from London to New…
Read More »"But do you want to get better? It seems like a stupid question. Of course we want our organization, our work and our health to improve. But often, we don't. Better means change and change means risk and risk means fear... There are countless ways to listen, to engage with users, to learn and to improve, but before you or your organization waste time on any…
Read More »Alcatel-Lucent launches major new SDN platform. From telecoms.com. French networking company Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled its Network Services Platform (NSP), a unified, SDN-based carrier solution designed to unify service automation and network optimization. The launch of NSP marks a major milestone for A-Lu and is a strong statement ahead of its impending acquisition by Nokia. It is embracing the new, software-defined, era of network management and delivering…
Read More »"With more success comes greater problems along with greater ability to solve them." Mark Victor Hansen. Paul Graham's essays are a great read. There is something unique about the way he views his subject matter (usually startups) and then has the ability to break it down into highly insightful chunks of wisdom for his readers to learn from. For example, so much of Paul's essay entitled…
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