Upstream marketing and the big moves in OSS

“Upstream marketing focuses on innovation. It tries to answer two questions: where the market is moving and what customers will want next.” Scott Thompson here on Chron.com. As indicated in yesterday’s post, I have a series of posts coming up shortly that will look at the customer experience and how OSS might look at doing […]

Backed into a corner

“As soon as we feel attacked or backed into a corner, it’s almost inevitable we will fall into “Fight” or “Flight.”” Dr Stephen Samuel Lomax. When a CSP has been backed into a corner by their OSS vendor, when for whatever reason the OSS is not delivering what the CSP needs but they are locked […]

OMG! It’s soooo not about you

“We shall listen, not lecture; learn, not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them.” Theodore C. Sorensen. Last year I wrote “the first date analogy for OSS,” about two vastly different approaches to selling to a potential OSS customer. Over the years, I’ve seen many […]

New OSS business models

“(start-ups) have to think about making money. From day one they have to figure out the best working business model for their social business. Fortunately there are a quite a few business models out there to evaluate: subscription, affiliate & referrals, lead generation, selling virtual goods or content, discounts & deals, freemium and … advertising.” […]

The enterprise OSS play

“…most of today’s open source companies license under an Apache software license (ASL), which lets the vendor decide whether to share code changes with the community or keep them as proprietary. Under this hybrid or dual-license, open source companies can charge for proprietary product extensions, and not just for services and support, accelerating revenue growth […]

Beware of side deals

“A shady business never yields a sunny life.” B. C. Forbes. Years ago I was assigned to advise the executive leadership team of a very large incumbent carrier on the installation of their first-ever OSS project. Prior to my arrival, they’d had a vendor selected for them that was not quite of their own choosing. […]

OSS Market Research

“You already have zero privacy. Get over it.” Scott G. McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc, stated back in 1999 believe it or not! Note that I’m not being flippant about privacy, but please read on. 🙂 Today’s blog is more of an open question to you dear readers, which follows on from the trailing […]

Telco REITs

“Windstream, a leading provider of advanced network communications, announced plans to spin off certain telecommunications network assets into an independent, publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT). The transaction will enable Windstream to accelerate network investments, provide enhanced services to customers and maximize shareholder value. The transaction will allow the REIT, which will own Windstream’s […]

Value doesn’t equal price

“[Guy]Kawasaki told the audience that this was one of the most important learnings from Jobs: “Price is something you pay on the first day, but value is the sum total of the experience.”.” Max Nyman on the Comptel blog. I recently assisted a customer through a vendor selection process as they migrated away from their […]

Optimists are the best innovators

“[Guy] Kawasaki concluded by saying that skeptics aren’t the best innovators. Optimists are. In order ignite a paradigm change, you have to be able to see something valuable, unique and something that doesn’t yet exist and make it happen. Comptel believes Kawaski’s innovative mindset is also important in the context of the telecommunications industry. Now, […]

You’re going to screw up. Accept it

“You’re going to screw up. Accept it.” Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, from their book, “Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change.” Production databases can be a scary environment for operators who are taking over the reins of a new OSS that has been implemented by others (eg vendors, integrators, […]

A single vendor’s throat to choke

“OpenFlow facilitates the use of “bare metal switches” and eliminates traditional vendor lock-in, giving you freedom of choice in networking like you have on other areas of your IT infrastructure such as compute and storage. SDN controllers also expose APIs northbound, which allow you to deploy a wide range of off-the-shelf and custom-built network applications […]

Who are your most productive customers?

“…the top 15% of today’s residential subscribers in the US are said to account for about 95% of carrier profits! Thus, many service providers are looking to Next Generation Network (NGN) services as a means to attract and/or retain the most lucrative customers.” Joseph C. Crimi in this white paper from Telcordia.* Do you know […]

OSS persuasion

“Whether you are engaging a client on a solution proposal or simply kicking off your project exploration phase, clients are today deeply interested in ROI [Return on Investment].” Jason Charvat, here on TechRepublic. OSS tend to be evaluated by technical stakeholders in an organisation. They may be strong influencers, but they’re not often approvers. OSS […]

Multi-disciplinary insights

“[AIG’s] Science Team intentionally refrains from using the words “data” or “analytics,” as the team’s capabilities stretch far beyond these two disciplines: behavioral economists, psychologists, engineers, and change management experts work hand-in-hand with data scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians. And for good reason: this multidisciplinary approach is essential to go beyond merely generating new insights from […]

The Trillion-Dollar Treasure Chest

“Integrated operators are sitting on a veritable gold mine. Monetizing passive assets could unlock billions of dollars—enough to wipe out their [traditional telcos’s] entire debt.” Liu, Garg and Bhagat in this article on ATKearney.com. I really recommend taking a close look at the link above. Being an OSS-nerd, this report takes me to a different […]

Return on Analytics (ROA)

“Return On Investment (ROI) for analytics and business intelligence solutions is increasing and currently delivering on average $13.01 for every dollar spent, according to a new analysis by Nucleus Research. The study analyzes the actual costs and benefits of Nucleus published case studies on individual companies’ analytics deployments.” BusinessWire. Have you ever tried to quantify […]

Open source software supportability

“When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver.” Linus Torvalds. I recently had an interesting conversation with a very bright young man who is just starting out on his […]

Managing the managed services

“Managed services are one of the areas where CSPs still hold sway because they are able to provide the diversity of voice, date, video, collaboration, etc and geographical coverage that the niche players can’t. As such, this is a very important revenue source to CSPs where their old cash-cows (eg voice, ISDN, etc) are drying […]

Cloudification threatens OSS and BSS

“For companies like VM Ware and Microsoft no-one predicted that one of their biggest threats would come from an online book retailer, yet Amazon Web Services has upended the entire software industry. The challenges for VM Ware today or Apple nearly two decades ago are being repeated in many other industries as competitors appear from […]