Strategic planning – boiling frogs
“The idea of ‘boiling frogs’ relates to the anecdotal frog that, in theory, doesn’t jump out of the pot if you raise the temperature very gradually and ends up being boiled alive. Apparently the latest biological research is that the frog actually would jump out, which is perhaps encouraging for him and for people trying […]
Strategic planning – elephants in the room
“The ‘elephant in the room’ is something that everyone is well aware of, but they deliberately or subconsciously choose to ignore it. Sometimes we encounter clients who refuse to face the fact that their industry is declining or that something hugely impactful is about to happen.” Alan Iny. There are a number of elephants that […]
Strategic planning – wild cards
“A synonym for ‘wild cards’ in many ways is the Black Swan. We’re talking about unexpected, high impact things. We have to recognize that no matter how much data we have about trends and predictions of what’s going to happen in the future there will still be wild cards.” Alan Iny. OSS are responsible for […]
Strategic planning – wild cards, elephants and frogs
“A synonym for ‘wild cards’ in many ways is the Black Swan. We’re talking about unexpected, high impact things. We have to recognize that no matter how much data we have about trends and predictions of what’s going to happen in the future there will still be wild cards. This could take the form of […]
What problems are your OSS solving?
“Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder.” Zig Ziglar. What problems are our OSS trying to solve? Have you ever pondered what problems they could be solving? Sometimes our answers to the first question show the day-to-day issues that we’re trying to […]
OSS product overhaul
“First, explore how to doubt everything you think you know, and remember that all your ideas, even the most successful, are hypotheses within you – and not set in stone. Challenge the boxes that determine how you perceive the world, and think creatively about how you’re defining the specific problems you’re hoping to solve.” Luc […]
OSS re-write – Benefits and Insights
This is the fifth in the Complete OSS re-write series of posts and relates to What are the tangible benefits or insights. This series is designed to pose ideas on how the OSS industry could take a Control-Alt-Delete approach to all aspects of delivering operational support, which coincides with the inflection point underway in our industry via […]
OSS re-write – Changing requirements
This is the fourth in the Complete OSS re-write series of posts and relates to Our requirements keep changing. This series is designed to pose ideas on how the OSS industry could take a Control-Alt-Delete approach to all aspects of delivering operational support, which coincides with the inflection point underway in our industry via technologies such as […]
A complete OSS re-write
“The best edit is often a complete re-write. And maybe it’s time to start writing lots of things from scratch.” Peter Thiel (actually a notes essay from Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup – Class 13 lecture). As the URL states, I’m passionate about OSS. But as passionate as I am for current-day OSS, I’m even more […]
What is your OSS worth?
“The only things we spend time and money on are things that we believe are worth more than they cost… If people aren’t buying your product, it’s not because the price is too high. It’s because we don’t believe you enough, don’t love it enough, don’t care enough.” Seth Godin on his blog here. Another […]
Spinning off network ops
“Analyst predicts emergence of more shared networks, sees operators separating infrastructure from retail businesses. Major telecoms operators will in future make the decision to separate their network operations from the retail side of the business.” Mary Lennighan quoting John Strand here. Not exactly ground-breaking news, but certainly an interesting concept nonetheless. As noted here almost […]
Dominant revenue streams
“Ask your friends what business Google is in and the answer you’ll most likely get is “search.” And they would be wrong. Google is, first and foremost, an advertising company. A full 97 percent of its revenue comes from advertising on its various properties, including YouTube, plus partner sites through its AdSense product. Sure, Google […]
Owning the OSS market
Another set of quotes from Peter Thiel below (actually a notes essay from Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup – Class 4 lecture): “For a company to own its market, it must have some combination of brand, scale cost advantages, network effects, or proprietary technology“ “Brand is a tricky concept for investors to understand and identify in […]
Last mover monopolies
“The PayPal network, as it’s been called, is a set of friendships built over the course of a decade. It has become a sort of franchise. But this isn’t unique; that kind of dynamic arguably characterizes all great tech companies, i.e. last mover monopolies. Last movers build non-commoditized businesses. They are relationship-driven. They create value. […]
Long tail dynamics in OSS
The diagram above shows the head and the long tail of OSS, but also the tale of two distinct ways of thinking at some Tier-1 CSPs. The yellow band represents the head, the top-X (eg Top 100) customers, generally the major corporates, government, etc that spend massive amounts on communication services and expect a corresponding amount […]
Segmentation of one
“SMSes and push notifications have eight times higher response rates from consumers compared to emails. Thus, sending relevant and targeted push notifications would not only have higher response rates for the brand but also improve the shopping experience for the customer.” Nameet Potnis. It’s been a bit of a “marketing” week here on PAOSS. The […]
Can OSS be marketing tools?
“One of the messages at the keynote included the fact that successful busineses now have a ratio of 4:1 in the marketing and sales. This means that to maximize company growth and sales, successful companies engage about four marketing specialists to one sales person. The traditional role of the Business Development Manager or Sales Manager is […]
Managing network abundance
“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” Wayne Dyer. Have you noticed that in many developed countries, CSP services have recently flipped from scarcity to abundance situations? Bandwidth, storage, compute, applications, content, etc all saw premiums in the past because demand outweighed restrictions in supply. But in recent times, this […]
Just one more bucket
“Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean.” Percy Ross. One of the big OSS challenges for vendors and customers alike is version management. Let’s say Customer X installs version 1.5.3 of Vendor Y’s exciting new resource management software. This software is […]
Only the Swedes can change Sweden
“Changing IBM is like trying to change Sweden, and it would require diplomatic and bureaucratic work.” Edward Tufte. Interesting analogy from Edward Tufte. Give or take, IBM consists of around 400,000 employees globally (FWIW. Sweden has a population of around 9.5 million people). That’s a lot of people to persuade towards a future mode of […]