Have you noticed how the curves we’re dealing with in the service provider industry are either falling off a cliff (eg voice revenues) or going to the sky (eg theoretical exponential growth like IoE)?
Here in the OSS industry, we’re stuck in the middle of these two trend curves too. Falling revenues mean reduced appetite for big IT projects. However, the excitement surrounding exponential technologies like SDN/NFV, IoE and AI are providing just enough inspiration for change that includes the new projects to plug the revenue shortfalls.
The question for sponsors becomes whether they see OSS as being
- Inextricably linked to the cliff-curve – servicing the legacy products with falling revenue curves and therefore falling project investment; or
- Able to be the tools that allow their exciting new exponential tools (and hopefully exponential revenues) to be operationalized and therefore attract new project investment
The question for us in the OSS industry is whether we’re able to evangelise and adapt our offerings to ensure sponsors see us as being point 2 rather than point 1