Is the Software Evolution of Telecom Now A Revolution?

The Next, Next Generation of Software Driven Networking & Real-Time Communications

I’m blogging this week from the beautiful landscape in Utah where GENBAND is sponsoring the Air Force Association golf tournament at Hill Air Force Base. Utah is truly heaven on earth. With such rich scenery, it’s truly captured in its slogan:  Life Elevated!  

At the end of the day, it’s all about the bottom-line. As partners look at managing their business to increase profitability and making decision on which line-cards to carry, which services to offer, workforce management and which growth areas to drive to solidify the monthly recurring revenue (MRC) streams. However, it’s important as you look at your business to also understand what vendor partner ecosystem are you in.

There is a lot of buzz in the industry about Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN) and cloud technologies. So what is all the buzz about? It is about the insatiable demand of consumers for reliable, personalized and innovative services accessible from anywhere and at any time, and more pointedly, about the ability for service providers and their networks to meet these demands.

Today GENBAND was quoted in a news release from X-Factor Communications, one of our Innovation Exchange members.  X-Factor is demonstrating our WebRTC solutions as part of their presence in Samsung’s Smart Signage exhibition at the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas.  We’re proud to have connected X-Factor with Samsung and Avnet, creating an awesome partnership.

Earlier this week we introduced Generation Enterprise, our new enterprise framework, and SMART OFFICE 2.0, the next generation of our real-time communications platform. The response to both announcements from our customers, partners, analysts and the media has been overwhelmingly positive.

The technology and telecommunications industries are littered with cautionary tales of innovative companies surrendering market dominance due to their inability to react quickly enough to new and disruptive competitive forces.

The fate of BlackBerry, the one-time 800 pound gorilla of the mobile device market, currently hangs in the balance, the result of a deer-in-the-headlights response to Apple’s introduction of the consumer-friendly iPhone, or so surmises a consensus of industry observers.

Every couple of decades or so, the telecommunications industry goes through a technology transition – analog to digital, for example – that profoundly impacts the way services are created and delivered, as well as the business models behind them. The ongoing and steady distillation of communications functions and features into pure software, which can be executed on generic and elastic hardware resources, is one of those industry-altering transitions.

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a major communications solutions provider, I am constantly identifying and investigating trends that indicate the direction of communications in our society. One trend that everyone planning for the future should understand is the generational shift in communications driven by the 18-29 demographic, known as GEN-Y.