Month: May 2016

Summary Bullets:                 

• Vendor jostling for limelight in DOCOMO’s flagship vEPC rollout has finally subsided.
• At the end of the day, Ericsson and Netcracker came out best in the multi-vendor stakes.

Back in March, NTT DOCOMO commercially launched its national vEPC infrastructure and we made some comments in this blog of March 17 around the significance of this rollout in terms of being “multi-vendor”, “NFV” and “on time”.  In particular, we noted that DOCOMO had selected three vendors from an original cadre of six after several years of intense cross-vendor VNF/MANO/NFVI testing. Almost immediately, that statement was challenged by a Fujitsu announcement (flagging up its role in the project and fronting Nokia’s products), which we then summarized in the blog of April 7. That blog made some observations around VNFM procurement, but now that the dust has settled, what do we now know? Continue reading “NTT DOCOMO’s vEPC Launch “Take 3”: Scoring 1 – 1 in the NFV MANO Vendor Stakes” →

Summary Bullets:

• A handful of practices are important for making user conferences an appropriate venue to engage with analysts: allowing analyst-customer interaction, developing analyst-specific content, and leveraging the analysts.
• GENBAND executed well on these at Perspectives16, but also provided lessons for other vendors thinking about the same strategy.

Last week, on the way out to GENBAND’s Perspectives16 user conference, I took some time to think about whether or not it makes sense for companies to combine analyst conferences and user conferences – or even just bring analysts to their user summits. You can check out the post here. More than just ask the question, however, I suggested a few tenets of what makes this sort of combination a success. They included: allowing analysts to engage with the customers present; developing some set of content specific to the needs of the analyst community; and creating opportunities for two-way dialogue and for the analysts to share their own insights.

With Perspectives16 in the rearview mirror, it’s only fair to ask: How did GENBAND do? Continue reading “GENBAND Perspectives16: Analysts at User Conferences – How Did They Do? (And What Can We Learn)” →

Summary Bullets

• Two key themes dominated GENBAND’s Perspectives16: Collaboration (leveraging KANDY) and network transformation.
• Not all of the vendor’s messages fit into those themes, creating some important tensions – but potentially signaling new growth opportunities for GENBAND.

Beyond connecting with customers and playing some golf, user summits are great opportunities to “inspire and inform.”  Customers want to get the latest product roadmap details along with the near- and longer-term strategies of any vendor they’re working with.  Inspiring presentations, meanwhile, may drive them to innovate their businesses – spending money in the process.  If nothing else, inspiring your customers is one way to make sure they feel good about doing business with you.  Continue reading “GENBAND Perspectives16: Collaborate or Die” →

Summary Bullets:

• GENBAND is holding its Perspectives16 user summit in Orlando this year, from May 2nd to May 7th. Industry analysts (Current Analysis included) were invited, creating a combined customer/analyst conference.

• GENBAND isn’t the only vendor to combine analyst and customer engagements. Deriving value from the strategy requires transparency, dedicated analyst or media content and a forum for analyst-shared insights.

This week, I’m down in Orlando at GENBAND’s user conference, Perspectives16. It’s the first time I’ve attended in years and I’m looking forward to it as an opportunity to dig into some old ground (NFV and service provider network transformation) as well as some new ground (carrier strategies in hosted enterprise services). Plus, we’ve been promised entertainment by a famous “Mickey.” You can’t believe how happy I am that we’re talking about Mickey Thomas of Starship and not everyone’s favorite rodent.

Before the event kicks off, however, I’ve been thinking about GENBAND’s strategy of combining a user conference with an analyst event. Cisco does something similar at Cisco Live. Oracle does this at Open World. Metaswitch is doing something in a few weeks at Metaswitch Forum. Google, Intel, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, AT&T and a myriad of others invite analysts to their user and developer events. And in almost every instance, we’re asked a similar question: “Was it valuable?” Continue reading “GENBAND Perspectives16: Is It Worth Trying to Engage Analysts at a User Conference?” →