Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is one of several technologies that operators are hoping will improve their profit on infrastructure investment. NFV itself was launched to reduce capex by substituting generic hosted functions for embedded-appliance-based functions. NFV’s benefit expectations have evolved since to include, and even emphasize, operations efficiency and service agility. The evolution of expectations…
Apple “crushed estimates” according to the headline of a financial website, and they surely did. In fact Apple turned in what was perhaps the first unabashedly great quarters of tech companies in the current earnings season. iPad sales were slightly below estimates and some analysts thought outlook was less positive than the current quarter, but…
There are few who doubt that we are in the Internet Age. Few doubt we’re entering the Cloud Age and maybe even the SDN/NFV Age, but I wonder whether there’s broad understanding that the cloud and related technologies like SDN and NFV are going to be as transformative as the Internet was. When the Internet…
There’s no denying that networking is changing, but different people or companies see the change differently. For consumers, it’s mostly about replacing wireline phones and maybe cable TV with the Internet and wireless broadband. For network operators it’s about sliding profits on basic connection/transport services and growing competition from traditional and non-traditional sources. For network…
Google has unveiled its long-awaited MVNO offering, Google Fi. Right now, Fi is in what Google calls “Early Access” so you have to apply for an invite and wait to get it. It might be worth the wait. Working in partnership with carriers in over 120 countries (Sprint and T-Mobile in the US), Google has…
I’m a fan of the notion that the future of communications, in fact of applications, is contextual services. I’ve used that term to describe applications/services delivered to users/workers in part or whole based on their geographic, social, or other context. It’s not just a matter of answering a question, but a matter of understanding that…
IBM’s earnings are always interesting, and right now they’re downright critical. First, obviously, IBM needs to show it’s getting back on track or it risks a loss of customer credibility that would quickly become impossible to stem. But second, IBM is likely a barometer for the pace of change in the IT market. Big guys…
The marriage of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent is clearly a consolidation. The question is what the companies see as the end-game. Consolidation is usually a market response to commoditization, to the loss of pricing power that comes when no meaningful feature differentiation is possible. Consolidation can also be a step toward taking a leadership position in…
Everyone in NFV is jumping on “service agility” as the key benefit, and I don’t disagree that the value NFV could bring to launching new services could be the best justification for deploying it. Wishing won’t make it so, though, and I don’t think we’ve had enough dialog on how one makes a service “agile”. …
Oracle has started demoing their new NFV/orchestration stuff, and anything Oracle does in the space is important because the company represents a slightly different constituency in the NFV vendor spectrum. They’re definitely not a network equipment player so NFV isn’t a risk to their core business. They do sell servers, but that’s not their primary…