Telruptive

Every company is using Microsoft Office and especially Excel to do some sort of data analytics. However data volumes have grown exponentially and have outgrown Spreadsheets. You need experts in the business domain, in data analytics, in data migration/extraction/transformation/loading, in server management, etc. to get data analytics done on Big Data scale. This makes it expensive and only usable for the happy few.

Why? There must be easier ways to do it.

I think there are. For those unfamiliar with data analytics but eager to learn, you should take a look at a product called RapidMiner. It is close to amazing how a non-expert is able to use Neural Networks, Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, Genetic Algorithms, etc. and get meaningful results in minutes. The amazing part is also that RapidMiner is open source hence for usage by 1 analyst it is free.

Rapid-i.com, the company behind RapidMiner, also offers server software to run data analytics remotely. It is here where big data opportunities meet easy data analytics. What if RapidMiner data analytics could be ran on hundreds of servers in parallel and you pay by usage just as you pay for any Cloud compute and storage instances?

RapidMiner as a Service

RapidMiner as a Service, RMaaS, would allow millions of business people to be able to analyse Big Data “without Big Investments”. This type of Data Analytics as a Service would provide any SME with the same data analytics tools as large corporations. Data could come from Amazon S3, Amazon’s DynamoDB, Hosted Hadoops, any webservices, any social network, etc.

Visual as a Service

RapidMiner as a Service is only one of the many domain specific tools that could be offered as a visual drag-and-drop Cloud service. VAS as a Service is another example in which complex telecom assets can be easily combined in a drag-and-drop manner. There are many more. These services will be the real revolution of Cloud Computing since they combine IaaS/PaaS/SaaS into a new generation of solutions that bring large savings for new users and potential large revenues for their providers…

MWC is supposed to show off the best innovations in the telecom industry. The telecom industry is desperately in need of a new business model to substitute falling revenues and pay for exploding data costs.

There were a lot of LTE innovations that were announced. However these will only generate new revenues for the solution providers and not for the telecom industry as a whole.

M2M was another major innovation area. However there was no announcement of any standardization whereby several large operators would push a common standard. Without this standard it will be hard for large scale M2M projects to deliver large profits. If the telecom industry wants to be seen as the leader in the M2M then they should take a leading role in its standardization.

Augmented reality is also pushing strong. However most players are over-the-top companies and not telecom solution providers or telecom operators.

Lots of new phones and tablets but this will also not generate new telecom revenues but will probably push operators into bit pipes sooner.

Cloud computing, big data, collective intelligence, gamification, etc. were under-represented. A lot of slides but few real mind-blowing products.

Operators are probably the once to blame most for this. There is no clear signal from them that they will be investing in revenue generating solutions in 2012-2013. The only thing you can hope for is revenue sharing. Why if you invest in making a stellar product would you want to go to endless RFPs and complex integration solutions if you could launch the product by yourself and become a successful over-the-top-player?

When the first television shows were made they used one camera to record a theatre play. It was only after some time that the real potential of the television became clear.

Virtualization and IaaS is like a one-camera-theatre-play-broadcast

Yes it is great to be able to put software on virtual hardware and as such save some money in hardware costs. But it will not change anybody’s life because renting a virtual server full-time is more expensive than renting a physical hosting server. Companies that focus too much on virtualization and IaaS are not seeing the full potential of Cloud Computing.

Multi-tenancy – a game changer

Cloud Computing without mult-tenant solutions is like a race car without an engine. Making one solution that fits many and installing it once and managing it in one place is the real game changer.

How much time and money is lost in a per customer install? Ordering and installing hardware (4-6 weeks); paying for base software (OS, Cluster, Database, etc.); installing the total software stack; integration with back-up, fault management, single sign-on, performance management, third-party systems, etc.; upgrading and bug fixing; data migrations; etc.

All this can be drastically reduced if the software is installed once and designed for multiple companies and customers.

Best-In-Class Solutions

Best-In-Class solutions used to be those solutions with most features from market-leading companies like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. However most of these solutions are unnecessarily complex. There is a simple rule to check if you will be overpaying for unnecessary features: Do my business users need training? The more, the worst.

Apple has demonstrated that simplicity and easy-of-use are real demand creators. The real revolution of Cloud Computing is starting now. The real revolution is that business users can ignore the legacy corporate IT systems and use alternative solutions to get things done faster and more efficiently. The Appstore concept of “There is an app for everything”, will now be translated into “There is a SaaS for everything”.

Project managers will stop asking the IT department to install a shared project management server to synchronize their MS-Projects. Instead they will simply use a SaaS solution for project management. The same will be happening for other disciplines.

IT departments can fight this trend, just like they can try to stop people from bringing smartphones and tablets to work. However smart IT departments see a clear opportunity.  Corporate systems are very expensive and often their implementation fails. This wastes a lot of time and money. By letting business users choose the SaaS solutions they want to use, IT departments will see the risk of project failures due to change management issues almost disappear. Using SaaS solutions however does not mean that IT departments are no longer necessary. Once users are over their honeymoon period they will want these SaaS solutions to use Single Sign-on and be integrated with corporate systems and other SaaS solutions.

The next steps in the Cloud Revolution

The next step in the Cloud revolution will be solutions that make easy integration between on-site systems and between different SaaS solutions possible. Project managers will love to manage projects via a best-in-class project management SaaS. However they will still need to get time reporting info, travel expenses, resource allocation, etc. The reality will be that some of these systems can be offered via other SaaS solutions and some will be local. All of them will need to be integrated if the enterprise wants to get real benefits. History has a tendency to repeat itself. Middleware  and EAIs are not death because of the Cloud. They just will become EAIaaS.

The other Cloud revolution is likely to give business users tools to create their own applications in the Cloud. This does not mean programming tools but instead drag-and-drop wizards and dynamic data storage solutions. There are millions of business critical applications stored in Excel and Access files. It is time that business users get the proper Cloud tools to convert these into social corporate solutions. Google Apps and Force.com are ahead of the rest but they are far from being the winner yet. The war has just started…

Recently I wrote an article about Ryancom. I received a comment that Fon.com was already doing certain things like making broadband access available for free globally.

I want to take the opportunity to make some suggestions that would make Fon a really disruptive player.

Fon has some really nice residential WiFi routers. A basic version, the Fonera Simpl with an optional antenna, Fontenna, to reach more distance. Additionally there is the Fonera 2.0 N which allows a community of developers to extend the product with new functionality. Finally they can embed their software into operator’s existing WiFi routers.

Fon’s routers are based on OpenWrt, an open source Linux firmware distribution for embedded devices. Developers can create extra plugins / packages that can be deployed on the router.

How to make Fon more disruptive?

For many technical people having access to a global set of WiFi points all over the globe is a really good reason to buy a Fon WiFi. Unfortunately non-technical people might be lost in the technical details about how you can access somebody’s else Internet and might be scared of other people using their Internet. So for most people the Fon offering is like a vitamine and not really a painkiller.

By changing the value proposition of Fon towards becoming a painkiller for more people, Fon would be able to get more active demand for its products from consumers and also via telecom operators.

Fon painkiller example: Parental Control

Most parents would not care less which router is used to access the Internet. The only thing they know is that their offspring knows a hundred times more about Internet then they do. Additionally they know that Internet is full of dangers for kids and teenagers. Children always tell their parents they need Internet to do their home work. But reality is that most surfing is not done for homework

So what if Fon would have an OpenFlow compatible WiFi router with FlowVisor combined with a Cloud solution. To spare the technical details, the summary is that parents would be able to partition their Internet access based on who is accessing. What would this bring?

Kids Internet – 3-8 year olds would only have access to a strict whitelist of Internet pages. Parents would not have to find this white page themselves. Instead people and companies could make white lists and parents could subscribe to them. Examples could be a Disney white list, a SuperNanny [the television show] whitelist. Parents would know that their young children could never go to pages that are unsuitable. Young children would have a start page with icons like the iPad in which they can click on the page and immediately go their favourite games or watch cartoons. Children could be limited in the time they can spend on Internet and special bonus points for good behaviour could buy them more time or bad behaviour could be punished with less time. Parents would need an “Apple” friendly interface to pick whitelists and set-up and manage Internet access times.

Pre-teens / Teens Internet – 9-17 years od – restrictions apply. Parents could define studying time slots in which only certain Internet content can be accessed, e.g. Wikipedia. Also here external entities could define whitelists. Time-based filters for open Internet access could also be set. Additionally special purpose filters are set-up, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Skype, eMule, Google+ etc. This would allow teens to access Facebook and other sites but to have their behaviour screened. Teens could be prohibited to upload pictures of persons, share email/telephone or physical addresses, use F* words, access adult content, etc. There would be a dynamic firewall for each service. Parents could have a high-level reporting interface to see what their kids are doing.

Other painkillers

Parental control is just one example of how a generic router that is connected to a niche Cloud application could be a painkiller for parents. Operators could have other pain points, e.g. reduce botnets, spam, P2P content optimization, etc. Shop owners could have other pain points, e.g. social games for bars, etc.

A lot of possibilities are opening up if routers could be externally managed and very specific easy to use interfaces and solutions are build towards which communities and external companies can contribute and generate new revenue with.

The fact that every Fon router will give you access to a global free broadband network will be a nice add-on for most…

Most telecom operators are still thinking that software should be upgraded at most twice a year. Oracle RAC is the only valid database solution. RFQ’s bring innovation. If you pay higher software licenses, the software will have more features and as such will be better.

All of these myths will have to be changed in the coming 12 months if operators want to be stay on top of the game.

Upgrade twice a year

For telecom network equipment, two upgrades a year are fine. However for everything related to services that are offered to consumers or businesses, that means that operators are 180 times less competitive then their direct competition. The large dotcoms like Facebook and Google make software upgrades on a daily basis. 50% of all the files that contain Google software code change every month. Even if “a revolution” would happen and software upgrades would come every month, it would still mean a 30 times lag.

Operators need to start using cloud computing, even if they are private clouds, to deploy their back-office systems. The business needs software solutions to move at market speed. That means that if a new social networking site is hot, then it should be integrated into telecom solution offerings in days. Not in months or a year.

There are many techniques to make deployments more predictable, more frequent and more reliable. Offering extra features or integrations quickly can be done via plugins. You can have a group of early adopters, give feedback. If they don’t survive this feedback, kill them. If they do, scale up quickly.

Oracle RAC

Nothing bad about the quality of Oracle RAC but it is a very expensive solution that needs a lot of man-power to keep on running smoothly. Operators often pay a premium for services that could run equally well on cheaper or Open Source alternatives. Also NOSQL should be embraced.

If the cost of deploying a new service is millions, then only a couple of them will be deployed. By lowering hardware and software costs, innovative projects are more likely to see daylight.

RFQ’s and Innovation

It takes 3 months from idea to finalizing an RFQ document. 1,5 month to get a reply. 1,5 month to do procurement. Half a year in total. Not counting the deployment time which is likely to be another 6 months. The result is that the operator takes 12 months for any “new” system.

Now the question is if that system is really new. Because if an operator was able to define in detail what they want and how they want it, then the technology was probably quite mature to begin with. So operators spend fortunes installing yesterday’s technology 12 months late. Can anybody explain what innovation this is going to bring?

First of all operators should not organize multi-million RFQs for business or end-user solutions. These are likely to come late to market and can only be focused on mass markets.

Instead operators should focus on letting the customer decide what they want by offering a large open eco-system of partners the possibility to offer a very large list of competing services to their customers. The operator should offer open APIs to key assets (charging, numbering plans, call control, network QoS, etc.). As well as offer revenue share and extra services like common marketplaces and support 2.0 (social CRM, helpdesk as a service, etc.). This is called Telecom Platform-as-a-Service or Telco PaaS.

High licenses, more features, better

More features does not mean better. Most people want simplicity, not a long list of features. Easy of use comes at a premium price. Look at Apple’s stock price if you don’t believe it.

It is better to have basic systems that are extremely easy to use with open APIs and plug-ins. A feature by feature comparison will make you choose the most expensive one. However it is hard to put as a feature that the system needs to be easy to use.

In telecom, there is a natural tendency to make things hard. In Web 2.0 the tendency is the opposite. You can see the difference between Nokia and Apple. The Nokia phone would win every feature on feature comparison but the iPhone is winning the market battle…

Instead of organizing an RFP, let end-users and employees play around with early betas or proof-of-concepts. No training, no documentation. Let’s see which solution makes them more productive, the feature rich or the more straight forward. Just ask open APIs and a plugin-mechanism and you will be set…

Large operators are focusing on building the fastest and most reliable networks; increasing call and SMS traffic; offering the best data plans for surfing; offering excellent business communication services; building a machine to machine business; offering impressive IPTV; etc. Management effort has to be divided between all these and other businesses. The quest to get departmental budget is long and hard.

So if you are a telecom CxO and you get three business cases, which one do you choose?
1) LTE business case – heavy investment but strategically key and very good ROI
2) IP PBX vs on-site equipment business case – low initial investment and clear business model
3) Telco PaaS business case – low initial investment but unclear business model

Any business leader would say 1 is best, then 2 and do not invest in 3. However there is something called “The Innovator Dilemma“.  LTE will make it easier for dotcoms to offer IP PBX as well as cannibalize voice and SMS revenues because over-the-top players will be able to offer mobile VoIP and IM. Even if a CxO would invest outside of LTE in disruptive technologies then it is still very likely that the best people will want to work in the LTE project and not in a disruptive technologies project.

So what should operators do?

Create a holding company and three independent sub-companies:

1. The bit-pipe
2. The cash-cow manager
3. The future

The bit-pipe company is focusing on the network and its operations. Cost reductions, stability, network quality and new network technologies, e.g. LTE, are key for this company. This company should be able to work on low margins and even work together with competitors if it makes financial sense, e.g. share network resources or resell capacity to competitors.

The cash-cow manager should also be a company focused on maximizing profits and minimizing costs. The cash-cow manager gets to manage the circuits and deliver voice, SMS and traditional telco services. They have the liberty to provide these services on top of other networks if it makes financial sense.

The future is a company that will have the bulk of the people and some seed capital that will pay salaries for the next 18-24 months. The mission should be clear: “Focus on new revenues coming from data”. There will be no cross-charging between the other two companies. Either you get new revenues or your future is looking very bad. Why would you be so extreme? Look at McKinsey, Telco2Research, etc. they all say the same. Key telco assets will loose their value in the coming 2-3 years as has happened with location. Or operators start to work on new data revenues NOW or they will have to fire tens or hundreds of thousands of employees in 2-3 years. Telefonica already started a process to fire 20% of the workforce. Separating employees into a new company and giving them one mission will make everybody focus on success. Innovative revenue-generating data services is what the telecom industry needs. Without it everybody will start feeling the pain very soon…

Telecom operators have always focused on two aspects: ARPU and time-to-market. In the latest technology craze – Cloud Computing – a lot of telecom operators are seeing a new golden grail. Those that can see further than SaaS marketplaces and moving their hosting to IaaS are only the happy few. Since Cloud Computing = SaaS + PaaS + IaaS, it is normal that operators start talking about Telco PaaS. However Telco PaaS is a lot more than combining telco assets with an IT PaaS.

IT PaaS are aimed at quickly launching applications. The IT grail is to launch thousands of applications to find the one that everybody likes and become an overnight millionair. Telecom operators might be easily fooled that opening their telecom assets to IT PaaS developers will bring that one application that will turn the telecom sector around: “The Killer App”.

Unfortunately a telecom application is more than an SDK+app server in the Cloud that can do VoIP. The reason why companies pay a plus to telecom operators is “trust”. “Trust” that you can pick up the phone and call somebody. “Trust” that if something is not working that you can call their call center. “Trust” that tomorrow they will offer you the service.

All this “Trust” has to do with the way operators have their backoffice systems and processes set-up. Having thousands of developers creating applications that mix telecom with SaaS might give some nice innovation. However telecom operators are not prepared to handle thousands of end-users that find bugs in a long list of applications and start calling call-centers massively. End-user expectations are different for telecom applications then for IT applications. This definitely has to do with the price they pay for them.

What should a Telco PaaS offer?

More than a fixed feature set, the most important changes for an operator that wants to offer a Telco PaaS might be internal. Operators will need a large shift in thinking to be able to accept some of the new realities:

1. Telco PaaS services need to be launched in weeks not years.
2. Telco PaaS services will be buggy, unstable and fail.
3. Telco PaaS services can not be supported via a call center.
4. There are no Telco PaaS standards and there are likely not to be any until it is too late.
5. Telecom can not be greedy

Launching in weeks instead of years

If IT PaaS is bringing something then it is speed of development. Telco PaaS needs the same type of speed. In practice this means that REST and JSON should be the operator’s vocabulary, not SIP and CDRs. Telco Assets need to be exposed to non-telco programmers. Developer communities need to be created. Marketplaces that allow developers to sell their creations by the click of a button and not to worry about complex charging and billing.

Unstability, bugs and failure

Not every IT programmer is a genius. There are probably quite a few geniuses. Instead you need to expect that people will do things incorrectly, by error but also on purpose. Application virtualization and sandboxing are key to make sure “mistakes” don’t bring down the whole platform. On the other hand customers need to be segmented. There are customers that can see further than the bugs and see the potential. These are called visionaries or early adopters. It is critical that operators allow these early adopters to play around with buggy services. However it is equally important that the majority of users know that the sandbox might contain buggy apps and that the call center is not the place they can find help.

No support via the call center

All sandbox applications can not be supported via a call center. Agents will not know anything about these thousands of apps but neither should they. The only one that knows is the one that developed the service. He or she should get the right tools to quickly understand which bugs or feature requests are important, e.g. via a social CRM. The operator should monitor those promising apps that are ready to graduate the sandbox. They should be place in an incubation program. Incubation will see if the applications can go mainstream and will professionalize support, availability and reliability.

No Telco PaaS standards

In the dotcom world the first one that creates a solution, creates the standard. In Telco PaaS this will be the same. If we do not know how users will use a Telco PaaS, how can we expect that standardization bodies will define the correct standards. However in disruptive innovation, unlike technology evolution, first movers have an ever lasting advantage.

Telecom Greediness

If you have a monopoly, you can be greedy. No competitor will offer anybody a better deal. However in Cloud Computing, greediness will kill your best innovation. It is better to get a small percentage, signup or usage fee per application when you have thousands of applications then to get nothing at all. Many cents can make billions. Think Adwords…

The IT cloud has taken shape. The next step is to offer a mobile cloud. How will it be different and what should a telco offer? For clarity, mobile cloud applications are combinations between mobile apps and cloud computing and telecom backoffice services, not iPhone or Android apps.

Mobile screens of all colours and sizes…

Where the PC worlds only has a handful of web browsers, the mobile world is completely different. Old mobiles live together with the latest smartphones. Applications can be native or web-based. Screens can go up to 11 inches (28cm) on tablets and even if we consider television screens to 50 inches (1.27m).  We can even find mobile applications without screens (M2M) or via very limited character entries (SMS).

Although HTML 5 is bringing a good potential stardard, there are still quite some differences between different mobile browsers. So it will probably take some years before a reliable standard is omni-present.

In the mean time operators will have to offer solutions on their mobile cloud. Applications will have to be available on a wide set of platforms. Any help an operator can bring to developers will be highly appreciated.

Mobile testing nightmare

Having to test an html5 application on hundreds of mobiles is a nightmare. Some companies already offer partial solutions. However providing a solution via mobile hardware virtualization and automated testing would help developers bring apps to market quickly. Testing could be paid for by minute (instead of hours in the IT cloud). Mobile makers and testing software companies could get a revenue share for every developer that uses their virtualized solution. This would release the operator from having to do all the mobile OS virtualization and sensor testbeds themselves. It would be similar to having third-parties selling access to their Amazon AMIs but instead they would be for a Nokia Symbian or iPhone 4.

Mobiles have sensors

The latest mobiles have a long list of sensors (GPS, accerelometer, etc.). Mobile clouds should offer developers help in using these sensors and automating testing. You don’t want to physically move a mobile abroad to test if you get a roaming event, would you? Push notifications to the mobile have to be supported in a uniform way accross different platforms.

Latency and network connectivity can be a nightmare

Content caching on the mobile device is key. HTML5 offers an off-line key-value store but unfortunately not all mobiles support it so custom solutions are necessary.

Advertisment support is key

Offering a ready-made integration with major mobile advertisement solutions is important. Some applications can not be charged for, so advertisement is the only means of income. Inline content sales should be supported and hopefully at more competitive rates than the App Store’s 30% revenue cut.

Telecom assets should be the differentiator

All of the above can be offered by IT and dotcoms. Integration with unique telecom assets is a must. Sending an SMS is no longer a unique asset. Neither is location. They have to be real assets: micro-payments via telecom billing, custom numbering plans, zero-cost call forwarding, voice transcription, quality of service, etc.

Become the Elastic Beanstalk of the mobile cloud, not the Google App Engine

The Amazon Elastic Beanstalk is a service that allows java developers to deploy their applications and instantly benefit from auto-scaling, elastic loadbalancing, etc. However in contrast to Google App Engine, there is no one way of doing things. Developers have the liberty to swap out Amazon’s initial configuration by customized configurations.

Mobile to Cloud and Telco connectors

The mobile app, tablet app, TV app, M2M app should be seamingly integrated with cloud applications as well as telecom services. Having single sign-on via OpenID or getting data from the cloud via oAuth are basics. Setting up a conference call, managing call forwarding, voice transcription, etc. are others.

Selling the mobile cloud via a telco marketplace

Mobile cloud applications are combinations between mobile apps/M2M/SMS/Calls/TV Apps/…, cloud computing and telecom backoffice services. Programmers should be able to add them to a telco marketplace and sell them to different customer segments (consumers, soho, small/medium/large enterprises, M2M, etc.). However offen mobile cloud applications should be given away for free and programmers should get a revenue share on telco assets that are used, e.g. calls made, SMS sent, etc.

Mobile Social Networking

Adding social networking concepts are key. Operators know who you call most often. This information can be key when combined with cloud social networks. As long as privacy and opt-in are used, then users should only see benefits.

The long tail mobile cloud is nearby…

The long tail mobile cloud is nearby and operators can be the key players in it. However they will need to suppress their urges to be greedy. Revenue shares should be inline with the dotcom and IT industry. So should individual mobile cloud application pricing.

Cloud speed in time-to-market is necessary. Operators should not try to build things themselves. Instead they should partner with dotcoms and IT/network providers in real partnerships.

Finally the rules are changing. Old rules can no longer apply. Users need to be able to choose between multiple competing mobile cloud apps. No longer can the operator’s marketing department decide what will be a hit. The user community is the only one with this power. Social CRMs and other long tail support solutions can be used to avoid massive call center calls.

In the past automatic deployment of software was something that a handfull of data center specialists dominated. However the cloud is changing this needs. If you need to deploy a battery of web servers, application servers, database clusters, nosql farm, etc. then you need to think of automatic software deployment from day one. Additionally you might have to deploy applications on Google App Engine, Azure, Amazon EC2/S3/etc., Rackspace, GoGrid, etc.

The three core areas to automate are:

1. Cloud Provisioning
2. Configuration Management and Automation
3. Monitoring

Cloud Provisioning

The main advantage of the Cloud is its capability to autoscale. If you get more requests during the day, you turn up more machines. If you get less during the night then you switch some off. You can even do autoscaling by the hour or less. Since you pay by the hour, your costs will match your revenues.

There are many tools available to provision a Linux machine: Cobbler, Kickstart, OpenQRM (includes Windows), Spacewalk, Viper, xCat, Fully Automated Installation (FAI), etc.

These installers can be handy when we are talking about a private cloud. However in case a public cloud is used, we are more likely to want to use the public APIs offered by public Cloud providers to provision machines. Unfortunately there are no standard APIs in public Cloud land yet. The best option is to use tools or APIs that can handle multiple clouds: e.g.  Openstack, JClouds, Fog, Deltacloud, etc. Using one API to deploy on multiple clouds is key to avoid vendor lock-in.

The truth to be said, there is no clear winner in this space yet because most solutions have limitations and customization will be required. However expect very active development to happen in the coming months.

Configuration Management and Automation

The clear marketleader in this area is Puppet, which becomes even better when combined with mCollective. Puppet is a client/server configuration management solution that allows you to describe what you want to install and configure in a abstraction language. mCollective adds real-time notification. The whole solution is very powerful, although some learning will be required before you are up and running.

Other solutions in this space are: AutomateIT, bcfg2, cfengine, chef,  SmartFrog, etc.

Additionally there are tools whose focus is not on the software installation but instead on the deployment of applications once the main software stack is installed. Examples are: ControlTier, Capistrano, Fabric, etc.

Monitoring

With multiple servers, solutions and applications spread over multiple cloud providers, you need to monitor. Monitor to see if they are available, but also monitor to see if you need to switch on extra capacity or if it is safe to switch off some capacity.

The main solutions in this domain are: Nagios, Zenoss, OpenNMS, Zabbix, etc.

Other thoughts

Creating an automatec stack of tools to provision, deploy and monitor is an initial investment that will pay itself back very quickly. Other systems could be added to the stack like inventory and asset tracking, software version control, build automation, etc. In general there is no easy solution that gives you everything and this is where open source communities should focus their attention: bringing it all together and simplifying so we do not need experts…

Ask a Telecom architect how you create a telecom network application, often dubbed as value-added services. He or she will focus on SIP/SS7 standards, service delivery platforms, etc.

The future of cloud-based telecom network apps, let’s call them tapps, is going a totally different direction. For the former telecom architect they probably like open source solutions like Mobicents that allows you to create SIP-based applications on Java. The Asterisks and other types of VoIP application servers are other alternatives.

However for a new generation of Web-based programmers this is all too complex. These are the programmers that like Javascript, Ajax, JSON,  PHP, Ruby, etc.

The majority of them will be fine with whatever Twilio or Tropo offer via easy to use REST APIs or embedded in their favorite scripting language. Which cloud-based application needs more than calling, SMS, answering the phone, getting feedback from the user, telling the use what to do, putting multiple users in a conference, transcribing what the user does, forwarding a call, etc.? 95% of the functionality is covered with a handful of REST APIs.

For business developers that are more used to Java, they can also use Java APIs to access for instance Twilio. To be able to cheaply launch an application and scale it afterwards they could deploy it on Google App Engine. A new alternative has just come around from Amazon: Elastic Beanstalk. A developer can write their app and deploy it on Beanstalk. They no longer have to worry about monitoring, scaling, opening firewalls, etc.

Other alternatives are to extend Cloud-ready telecom applications via plug-ins. An example here could be Twilio’s OpenVBX in which you can easily add new plug-ins.

The conclusion is that 2011 will be the year in which Web 2.0 and the Cloud meet the Telephone 2.0. However the Telephone 2.0 will unlikely pass through Bluevia and other operator initiatives given the fact that they are running about two years late and are very scattered, slow-moving initiatives.

Operators should embrace the new reality and try to help these new applications find new users. The Appstore brought a new eco-system to life. Millions of small and medium-sized Telephone 2.0 applications are waiting to be discovered by Billions of users. Remember that not everybody can pay an expensive mobile with an expensive data plan. However there are billions that can pay for cheap call and SMS-based applications. We need to help the billions find those tapps that are useful to them…