Summary Bullets:
- Nexign and Bubbletone augmented their relationship, agreeing to exclusive terms across sales, business, and product development to ensure they sustain competitive differentiation in the early stages of the telco blockchain market.
- As Nexign and Bubbletone double down on their alliance, they must produce operator endorsements to validate their differentiation and first-mover marketing claims.
In October 2018, Nexign and Bubbletone officially unveiled the decision to take their existing partnership to the next level by entering into exclusivity terms across their sales, business, and product development efforts. Forming an exclusive partnership is a rarity in the telecommunications supplier market, and it demonstrates Nexign and Bubbletone’s determination to press their early inroads in the emerging telco blockchain market. Equally important, the new terms remove concerns that the alliance could lose focus if either Nexign or Bubbletone started forming multiple blockchain and BSS partnerships (see: “Nexign and Bubbletone Ready to Turbocharge the BSS Market with Embedded Blockchain Applications,” August 13, 2018). As a result, Nexign and Bubbletone are on a stronger footing to pursue their joint goal of earning operator trust and accelerating the adoption of blockchain innovations. The partnership identifies innovations like capturing new revenue streams from roaming visitors and eliminating intermediaries as key reasons for operators to embrace blockchain technology.
However, the Nexign/Bubbletone alliance now has several items on its ‘must complete’ list to capitalize on their exclusivity terms in order to ensure long-term differentiation and spur telco blockchain adoption:
- <i>Produce Endorsements: </i>Nexign and Bubbletone, like their competitors, must fulfill the prime sales and marketing objective of generating customer wins in order to validate their differentiation claims. Since both companies are hyping positive market feedback as the key driver for entering into an exclusivity deal, it puts increased pressure on them to deliver press announcements validating underlying operator support.
- <i>Keep an Eye on Competition: </i>Nexign and Bubbletone are asserting ‘first-mover’ advantage in developing telco blockchain innovation, but competitors are not standing still. For example, Oracle and IBM already deliver enterprise blockchain solutions that can plausibly meet telco requirements as well as boost telco aims to use blockchain to streamline enterprise and partner billing applications. Key BSS rivals like Amdocs, Ericsson, and Netcracker are also engaged in developing and testing telco blockchain solutions. This puts an increased onus on the alliance to demonstrate first-mover bona fides.
- <i>Blockchain Specialists Lurk: </i>Blockchain specialists are also making inroads into the telco blockchain realm. Startup Clear worked with Colt and PCCW Global in delivering a proof of concept that showed inter-carrier settlement ties can be reduced from hours to minutes using blockchain capabilities. QLC Chain is reported to be engaging mobile operators in simplifying content distribution and billing. Bubbletone clearly has direct rivals looking to make breakthroughs specifically in the telco space.
Nexign and Bubbletone, through their exclusivity deal, revitalized their campaign to accelerate telco blockchain adoption. The deal gives operator prospects more confidence both vendors are providing the development and business focus required to make telco blockchain implementation and innovation a reality. However, there is no doubt the heat is on Nexign and Bubbletone with the competition also racing along to announce breakthrough operator endorsements of telco blockchain technology.