Month: November 2014

Excelacom: Ready for the OSS/BSS Sales and Marketing Prime Time?

by Ron Westfall, posted in OSS/BSS/CEM
Ron Westfall
Ron Westfall

Summary Bullets:

• Excelacom, with over 14 years of OSS/BSS experience, 25+ active customers, and 700+ headcount, plans to shed its stealth mode and embark on a proactive marketing campaign aimed at expanding its presence primarily in the operator space.

• Excelacom possesses the channels and portfolio resources to meet evolving operator OSS/BSS transformation needs and differentiate its OSS/BSS proposition, but needs a SDN/NFV strategy and new use cases to boost its cause.

Excelacom has steadily built its presence in the OSS/BSS market in stealth-like mode. Now the company is preparing to ramp up an outbound sales and marketing blitz to raise industry awareness about its Century Suite of Product Modules and drive an aggressive, long-term growth strategy. Continue reading “Excelacom: Ready for the OSS/BSS Sales and Marketing Prime Time?” →

Qualcomm, the Server Supplier: Not Quite as Funny (or Easy) as it Sounds

by Peter Jarich, posted in Net Transformation, SDN/NFV, Vendor Transformation
Peter Jarich
Peter Jarich

Summary Bullets:

  • Qualcomm announced a plan to move into the server space at its 2014 Financial Analyst Meeting
  • While ARM expertise will play in Qualcomm’s favor, it may take a while for that to matter to buyers

Last week, Qualcomm used its 2014 Financial Analyst Meeting to signal an entry into the server market. You can be completely forgiven for not paying attention: it doesn’t seem like the media picked up on this much, and the notion of Qualcomm – a vendor known best for supplying silicon into mobile and connected deices – moving into a crowded server chipset space might seem like a typo or misunderstanding as much as it does a business reality. Continue reading “Qualcomm, the Server Supplier: Not Quite as Funny (or Easy) as it Sounds” →

Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Motive Is Becoming a Bigger Part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Future, but Telling a Cohesive Story Needs to Be Part of the Plan

by Jason Marcheck, posted in OSS/BSS/CEM, SDN/NFV, Vendor Transformation
Jason Marcheck
Jason Marcheck

Summary Bullets:

  • Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive product line encompasses a slew of important capabilities, including analytics, CEM, IoT and OSS.
  • To date, the vendor’s marketing in support of Motive has been sparse and, arguably, scattershot.
  • A clearly defined and articulated marketing story is a key tenet of any strategy aimed at taking market share from incumbents.

At Alcatel-Lucent’s recently concluded Technology Symposium, held in New Jersey on November 11-13, the company devoted some of the program to talking about what it is doing with its Motive line of products. Google defines motive as “a reason for doing something, especially one that is hidden or not obvious.” That kind of sums up the marketing in support of the Motive product line. “Certainly not hidden, but not obvious” would be fair. Continue reading “Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Motive Is Becoming a Bigger Part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Future, but Telling a Cohesive Story Needs to Be Part of the Plan” →

Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Revenue Diversification Not a Shift Plan Pillar, but a Fourth Leg of the Stool?

by Jason Marcheck, posted in SDN/NFV, Ultra Broadband, Vendor Transformation
Jason Marcheck
Jason Marcheck

Summary Bullets:

  • Alcatel-Lucent, like most network equipment suppliers, realizes that it needs to look beyond telecom network operators for long-term growth and viability.
  • Alcatel-Lucent’s work with partners such as Accenture helps the vendor overcome a lack of name recognition outside telecom.
  • The obvious downside of a partnership strategy is that partners can be, and often are, promiscuous.

“We want to be promiscuous.” (The name of the speaker, along with their company affiliation, has been removed to protect their reputation.)

That’s a quote from Alcatel-Lucent’s recently concluded Technology Symposium, held in New Jersey on November 11-13. Aside from giving the artist drawing a storyboard summary of the session (seen below) an awkward moment when pondering how to fit that into the picture, it gave the audience a clear view of how big companies view partnerships: there are many possibilities out there, and many of them want to get in bed with each other, metaphorically speaking.

Continue reading “Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Revenue Diversification Not a Shift Plan Pillar, but a Fourth Leg of the Stool?” →

Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Does Chapter 2 of the Shift Plan Swap Pillars Before the Previous Ones Are Set in Stone?

by Peter Jarich, posted in SDN/NFV, Ultra Broadband, Vendor Transformation
Peter Jarich
Peter Jarich

Summary Bullets:

  • Alcatel-Lucent’s CEO kicked off the vendor’s annual tech conference by detailing proof points that the company has succeeded in the first phase of its Shift Plan.
  • While outlining key aspects of the next phase, the fact that the vendor does not expect to be cash-flow positive until 2015 means that it might not be ready to raise the “Mission Accomplished” banner on Phase 1.

Alcatel-Lucent kicked off its annual Technology Symposium, held in the shadows of its famed Bell Labs campus on November 11-13, by welcoming everyone to the “beautiful woods of New Jersey.” In fact, the woods of New Jersey are picturesque this time of year, and Alcatel-Lucent’s executive team showed up to the event properly dressed for a brisk walk through nature. Jeans, sweaters and sports coats replaced tailored suits as the as attire du jour for most of the vendor’s top brass as each took turns highlighting how the company has come through the proverbial woods with respect to first phase of its save-the-company “Shift Plan” announced in 2013. Among the highlights, neatly illustrated (but amateurishly photographed) below by an artist commissioned to summarize the various sessions, were the standard anecdotes of success followed by a vison statement for the next phase of the company’s journey:

Continue reading “Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium: Does Chapter 2 of the Shift Plan Swap Pillars Before the Previous Ones Are Set in Stone?” →

Amdocs Analyst Day: Can Amdocs Assist Operators in Meeting a SIMmering Challenge to Their Business Models? – Part Two

by Ron Westfall, posted in OSS/BSS/CEM
Ron Westfall
Ron Westfall

Summary Bullets:

  • At the Amdocs Analyst Day Amdocs identified potential disruptors to operator business objectives including AppleSIM technology. Amdocs and its operator customers face an ongoing challenge in determining the magnitude of the threat.
  • Amdocs needs to form an alliance with Apple to assuage operator uncertainty about software SIM technology and further boost its mobile channel credentials.

The arrival of the AppleSIM has stirred debate on the implications it has on operator business plans. With software SIM capabilities mobile device users could ultimately select service plans on the fly from their device. The first iteration of AppleSIM support, among AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, gives operators a great deal of control over the customer relation. AT&T has made it so that once a user chooses an AT&T plan, they have to buy another SIM if they want to switch to another carrier. Only T-Mobile and Sprint are supporting the ability to switch plans dynamically, but only outside of their own sales channels. Also Verizon is not supporting the AppleSIM and operators are selling iPads in their own sales channels with their own SIMs installed. Continue reading “Amdocs Analyst Day: Can Amdocs Assist Operators in Meeting a SIMmering Challenge to Their Business Models? – Part Two” →

Amdocs Analyst Day: Can Amdocs Assist Operators in Meeting a SIMmering Challenge to Their Business Models? – Part One

by Ron Westfall, posted in OSS/BSS/CEM
Ron Westfall
Ron Westfall

Summary Bullets:

  • At the Amdocs Analyst Day the advent of software SIM technology, such as AppleSIM, which allows users to select service plans from their mobile devices and avoid physical swap outs of SIM cards proved a major theme. The new technology creates competitive and business model uncertainties for operators.
  • The Amdocs portfolio of products and solutions can prove well-suited for driving operator adaptability to the long-term competitive implications of software SIM technology.

Amdocs recently conducted its Analyst Day event, including its vision of key OSS/BSS-related market trends over the next few years. Amdocs addressed how potential disrupters could derail operators in capitalizing on emerging core trends such as adopting new modes of operator business and integrating catalog innovations. Amdocs identified software SIM and on-device innovations as a potential major disruptor to operators leveraging core trends to their competitive advantage. Continue reading “Amdocs Analyst Day: Can Amdocs Assist Operators in Meeting a SIMmering Challenge to Their Business Models? – Part One” →

AT&T Analyst Conference – The Three Networking Things Vendors and Carriers Need to Know

by Jason Marcheck, posted in Net Transformation, SDN/NFV
Jason Marcheck
Jason Marcheck

Summary Bullets:

  • AT&T’s Consumer Industry Analyst Conference was held in Atlanta on November 2 and 3, offering network analysts a peek into the strategies of one of telecom’s most influential market makers.
  • AT&T, rightly in our opinion, views virtualization as the key to maintaining cost parity with OTTs and other, more nimble SPs.

I had two personal epiphanies at AT&T’s 2014 Consumer Industry Analyst Conference (CIAC) earlier this week in Atlanta. First, Atlanta is a great city for a quick business trip. It has a temperate late fall climate. Getting to/from the city is fairly easy. It has a preponderance of cheap, nice hotels and features a deep-rooted mastery at frying up extremely tasty southern cuisine. Second, carrier conferences are an infrastructure analysts’ equivalent of finding money in the pocket of one’s jeans. Continue reading “AT&T Analyst Conference – The Three Networking Things Vendors and Carriers Need to Know” →