There are a lot of factors that impact our ability to address technology in business terms. Some relate to the exploding complexity of technology, some to the slower evolution of business goals that technology might serve, some to external forces like regulations and the financial markets…it’s complicated. Right now, though, enterprises are telling me that…
Yes, This is Another Blog About NFV, but With New Thoughts
The recent announcement about HPE acquiring Juniper, and my blogs on it, raised a lot of discussion on LinkedIn about the combined company’s likely telco strategy, and as it happened there was also a discussion on an Omdia paper called “Telcos must take charge of their cloud native vision”. This in turn referenced a CNCF…
Gasp! Is the OSS/BSS Ugly Duckling Turning into a Swan?
What’s hot in telco spending? Probably not much, you’d say, and you’d be substantially correct in that view. But not entirely. There is one area that’s seen growth in spending according to a report cited in an article on TelecomLead, and that’s OSS/BSS. I think what’s even more interesting is what telcos are saying might…
OK, HPE/Juniper is Official. What are the Early Signals Telling Us?
Any big announcement is going to generate a lot of comments. In tech, or almost any other space, M&A is a big announcement, particularly if it involves well-known players. So it was with the rumor that HPE was buying Juniper, and I joined the comment frenzy in my blog yesterday. But later yesterday, HPE made…
Security: Enterprises’ Budget-Untouchable but Biggest Skepticism Target
Security is really the only network budget area that enterprises tell me is safe from pressure. In fact, of 294 enterprises who commented on their plans in the last quarter of 2023, 288 said that they expected a modest-or-better increase in their security budgets overall. The problem is that while spending is increasing, satisfaction levels…
HPE and the Juniper Acquisition: If True, is it Smart?
OK, time to look at some radical news. HPE is said to be acquiring Juniper. If you’ve followed my writings, in my blogs and in articles I’ve done for tech publications, you know that I’ve been talking about the shift in how network budgets are influenced. There was a time, perhaps only a decade ago,…
We’re Seeing a Rise in Interest in, and Knowledge of, Digital Twin Technology
Digital twinning concepts, I’m happy to say, are getting a lot more positive ink. In December, I saw roughly twice the number of references to the technology in tech media, and the number of enterprises who spontaneously mentioned digital twin technology in their advanced technology planning rose from 78 in November to 146 in December….
Uncertainty in 2024: The Bad Kind or the Good Kind?
Enterprises are uncertain. So are the network operators, and so are the vendors. In fact, if I did a word cloud from the comments I’ve gotten from everyone in December, “uncertain” would surely be among the biggest words. For enterprises, the word isthe biggest, and so we clearly need to understand what’s at the root…
Are Telcos Heading Toward a “Neutral Host” Role Themselves?
One of the concepts that got hot in 2023 despite not being new is that of a “neutral host”, which is another name for a company or entity that invests in telecom infrastructure (usually access infrastructure like towers and fiber) and then hosts multiple service providers over their facilities. In the past, this practice has…
How Enterprises See 5G for 2024 and Beyond
One of many hype-versus-reality questions we can expect to focus on in 2024 is the private 5G space. As it’s become clear that 5G investment by operators is winding down and that there’s little on the horizon to replace 5G budgets, private 5G has gotten more interesting. The question is whether there’s really a significant…