One key application of “carrier cloud” is 5G Core services, and that’s the most telco-ish of all the carrier cloud applications. Is it realistic for non-telco vendors to hope to grab that opportunity? There seem to be a lot of candidates to supply 5G Core these days, including many who don’t provide 5G network components….
More Signs that Microsoft is Looking at the Telco Market?
We just can’t shake stories that relate to public cloud providers and their possible interest in hosting network operator applications that would otherwise justify “carrier cloud”. It would be easy to read Microsoft’s rumored interest in Jio Platforms as a further indication that it covets the carrier cloud space. Jio is a giant in digital…
What’s Separating Winning Tech from Losing Tech in the Pandemic?
Why did Dell and VMware beat Street estimates, while HPE and IBM fell short? The companies themselves are clearly interested in answering that question. Investors obviously have an interest in this question, but anyone in tech should be interested too, because the answer may a signal on future technology direction. It’s not difficult to see…
What’s Cisco Seeing with ThousandEyes?
Cisco may have declared itself with regard to its growth and cloud strategy. Thursday late, they announced they’re going to acquire ThousandEyes, a company with a big name in “experience monitoring”, meaning quality of experience (QoE). Monitoring, particularly monitoring related to QoE, has good potential to serve as the centerpiece of an “ecosystem”, something that…
Are Operators Still Looking at Virtual Routers?
What is the value of hosted routing instances? This is a question that’s been asked for a full decade now, and the view of operators has shifted back and forth. It’s also true that when operator technology planners are asked, they often give a knee-jerk answer and take it back on consideration. Finally, many are…
How Virtual Networking Could Create Service Value-Add
I blogged yesterday about vendor differentiation in an open-model network, and closed with the point that a higher virtual layer might offer the only place where “connectivity networking” could find the features and opportunities vendors needed. SD-WAN, I pointed out, was an example of an exploitation of that higher virtual layer, but one that’s not…
How Do Network Vendors Differentiate in an Open-Model World?
How do you compete in an open-device future? It seems obvious that we’re not only headed in that direction, in some market areas we’re already on the doorstep. Vendors are not going to lie down with a rose on their chest, they’ll try to fight, but how will they do that? There are a number…
Remote Work Lessons from WFH Experiences
There is no question that videoconferencing tools have saved companies from a pandemic lockdown crisis. There’s little question that familiarity with the tools will promote their use in the future, even when there’s no pandemic to drive change. They may indeed replace voice calls for many business interactions, even those involving only two parties. We’ve…
Why Would Google Want To Be Your Babysitter?
Google wants to be your babysitter? That’s a pretty interesting tag line, and one that Protocol has offered us. According to their piece, parent Alphabet has filed a patent in the space. “Not that many of us are leaving home much, but in that distant future when the world returns to normal, Google wants to…
Can Microsoft Make the Most of Metaswitch?
A tale of two announcements; that’s a nice literary play on my blog topic. Cisco announced its earnings, and it’s always a useful barometer on telco spending trends. In addition, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Metaswitch, and that seems to me to decide the question of how its recent Azure Edge Zone stuff should be…