I attended the Telco 2.0 conference in Orlando last week. Congratulations to STL Partners and the sponsors for a successful event. The quality of the content and participants was very high. I would encourage a search for other blogging about the event.
Here is my too quick recap with my prioritization,questions, and my agenda notes.
1. Leveraging Telco Customer Data as a potential gold mine is a widely agreed upon strategy. Tactically, no Telco has the ability to do it without tons of effort. It is too hard technically, physically, and organizationally. Can others aggregate similar client data, cdr, learnings in a fashion that generate real, ongoing business intelligence? Can an overlay of Telco business intelligence or other sources of data be on top?
Atigeo and Sense Networks are working to add contextual insight to these efforts.
2. Changing industry language and message focus caught my attention.
a. Telcos are starting to talk about a new metric of measurement. Instead of ARPUs ( Average Revenue Per User) they describe ATPU ( Average Transaction Per User) or AMPU ( Average Margin Per User). STL Partners soon to be launched white paper with Tom Howe will highlight these new metrics relative to CEBP... we will be looking for that soon.
b. Within the conference there was an ongoing challenge to balance forward thinking strategic presentations with what is real. Of the 11 themes, CEBP clearly came across as the most real especially when using new ATPU or AMPU metrics. My bias is showing.
c. Moving the needle for Telcos requires new business initiatives that generate in excess of 100 million annual revenue within 5 years or less. During my conversations with Sprint strategist Brad Grau, he laughed and said that every business plan that came across his desk had a 5 year target of $105 million. Margin rather than revenue is the real discussion point.
Can STL PARTNERS send every executive in the Telco 2.0 ecosystem a copy of the Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen? This is a classic case study waiting to be written.
d. Vendors and Telcos alike love the big picture idea of 50 billion connected devices around the world by 2020. Independently, I heard calculations that there are 5 billion connected devices now. (2020 estimates ranged from 20 billion to 60 billion.) Verizon speaks of moving from 80-90% market adoption to 500% market adoption in their regions. The thought experiment is fun..what 5-10 devices will be networked in my life?
DAY ONE AGENDA
1. Strategy and Finance 2.0
STL explained the Two- sided business model. STL defined TELCOS' potential new upstream customers along these 7 verticals.
Developers, Retailers, Government, Media, Advertisers, Utilities, Financial Services
Did they steal the VoiceSage customer list!! I almost jumped up and shouted Bingo, matched them all! ( I would argue about developers being a unique vertical). Very cool for VoiceSage.
2. Media 2.0
The Bit Torrent founder showed up and talked about ways to prioritize traffic. Brave Man, Smart Man. It costs Telcos money to support online media. No one actually believes Telcos will make much money in this sector unless they buy content companies.....see CableCos.
3. Consumer Services 2.0= App stores for consumers
Few thought the Telcos will make money in this sector other than at the infrastructure level. It could provide customer stickiness. It sells devices that enable the broader ecosystem. Again, this conversation was focused on consumer apps. However, the discussion began to move the conversation beyond consumer apps to enterprise apps. Scott Adler of Amdocs did a nice presentation. That seems like a winning space for Telcos.
4. Customer Data 2.0: Telco goldmine?
Most everyone agrees this is a goldmine. However, Telco's can't mine it on their own. Lots of start ups being funded around this topic. Privacy is an issue.
STL will be hosting a Privacy 2.0 conference at MIT in Boston in February. This is an important topic for lots of very big companies in the Web world too.
5. Digital Advertising 2.0:
An advertising panel that talked about viewers and impressions etc..
STL did a case study on an sms search service that tried to show there was real money in this space.
6. Mobile Money 2.0:
Lots of good analyst work on this topic. I was impressed with Lopez research. Plenty of startups working in this space. Vendors making money in Kenya (Safariicom) and Japan (DocoMo NTT) after lots of investment from major brands were the focus of the STL presentation.
DAY TWO
7. Internet Access 2.0: Mobile Broadband
We all are using a lot of mobile broadband. New devices and pricing models needed. Telcos can't keep up with the demand and getting commoditized. Dean Bubley presentation
8. Voice and Messaging 2.0= Ask Thomas Howe for his CEBP presentation. Irv Shapiro's Ifbyphone presentation.VoiceSage was highlighted well by Tom and Irv. CEBP is a clear path to ATPU and AMPU. According to Tom, VoiceSage and Ifbyphone are the leading CEBP companies in the world.
9. M2M opportunities in Health= Machine to Machine communications
Lots of money and time being spent on device to device communications ( some people to people too) by Orange, Intel, and other Vendors. Big opportunity, Big Challenges. Money is down the road. I really liked the work done by Niels Helkov from Orange in this sector.
10. Cloud Computing= Joe Weinman from ATT came across as the smartest guy in the room. Really good presentation. I talked with him afterwards. Nice guy too. Read his many blog posts highlighted by GigaOm
11. APIs and Open 2.0:
Tom Howe did a great skit with Sanjay Jhawar describing a conversation between a Telco and an API Developer. Half the room was semi- insulted. Half the room was laughing. Sanjay's firm Ideas and Plans looks sharp. I know this API topic all too well.
Bottomline, the Telco 2.0 event in Orlando was the best conference I've attended in years.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage, North America
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Voicesage and the future of CEBP
Having joined Dublin, Ireland based Voicesage this month, I feel fortunate to be involved with a company that clearly is the future of CEBP.
Although under the radar in the US, Voicesage has been around since approximately 2002 working on the tough stuff. The SaaS application has gone through multiple product development releases. Thus, it is ahead of anyone else in our space already. There is no legacy application or infrastructure weighing it down. The UK client base already includes many of the strongest brands. These clients are committed to leveraging the Voicesage solution throughout their business since they have experienced business metric improvement over and over again
The business model is working quite well with revenue driving skyward over the last year despite the economic downturn. Profitability for a small angel/vc funded company is a good thing in these times. Voicesage has committed investors without the curse of having taken "too" much funding too soon relative to other businesses in the industry.
There is a nice balance of strategy and tactics blended throughout the company. The team drives customer value while behaving like a real business.
Finally, the advisory team (TBA) is made up of some of the most respected names in the business.
There is lots of work still to do. One of our first tasks is to publish use cases that show how the Voicesage application builds business processes and moves business metrics better than anything else I've seen in the CEBP industry.
Our North American launch will be done thoughtfully and in a timely manner. I do guarantee big things are coming.
Patrick Murphy
Voicesage, North America
Although under the radar in the US, Voicesage has been around since approximately 2002 working on the tough stuff. The SaaS application has gone through multiple product development releases. Thus, it is ahead of anyone else in our space already. There is no legacy application or infrastructure weighing it down. The UK client base already includes many of the strongest brands. These clients are committed to leveraging the Voicesage solution throughout their business since they have experienced business metric improvement over and over again
The business model is working quite well with revenue driving skyward over the last year despite the economic downturn. Profitability for a small angel/vc funded company is a good thing in these times. Voicesage has committed investors without the curse of having taken "too" much funding too soon relative to other businesses in the industry.
There is a nice balance of strategy and tactics blended throughout the company. The team drives customer value while behaving like a real business.
Finally, the advisory team (TBA) is made up of some of the most respected names in the business.
There is lots of work still to do. One of our first tasks is to publish use cases that show how the Voicesage application builds business processes and moves business metrics better than anything else I've seen in the CEBP industry.
Our North American launch will be done thoughtfully and in a timely manner. I do guarantee big things are coming.
Patrick Murphy
Voicesage, North America
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Telco API problem= 2 sided markets are winner take all
I noticed several unique posts this week that seemed to come together in my mind. First, Voxeo made yet another strategic partnership announcement with Motorola and their VXML broswer. Secondly, Google and Verizon announced a strategic partnership. Third, Amazon payments api went mobile. Finally, my friend, Tom Howe started posting again with some comments about what he calls the Telco API problem.
Here is my answer to the "Telco API" problem posed by Tom.
In my CEBP status report,I compared ( with Alan Quayle) the success of the CEBP application vendors to the api/platform vendors. Tom reiterates the report's findings in that it is clear the application vendors as a group have been much more successful. VoiceSage is just my latest example of a CEBP application company driving real revenue, fantastic product innovation, and seeing crazy growth.
It is also clear to me that the Telco API/Platform opportunity is a classic example of a 2 sided network or 2 sided market. According to Harvard Business School research, one of the defining characteristics of two-sided markets is they tend to quickly evolve into winner take all competitive environments.
Now, the world of Telco is huge. So, the winner take all competitive environment may ultimately mean there are 2 or 3 dominant market leaders globally in the Telco API/Platform space. Here is the problem. One of those spots has been nailed down already by Voxeo.
Another winner's position may have just been nailed down by Google Voice if they can leverage the Verizon/Google partnership just announced. While this may fail due to egos, when it gets down to execution, the Google Android Verizon announcement gets my early bet for the second platform/api winner. Google is a platform. Verizon is a platform. Combining the two of them makes THE global platform. Google Voice is just one of many CEBP style solutions to come. Click to connect advertising and real time lead generation is being tested now.
In terms of who might be the final api/platform winner I am keeping my eyes open for the first player who wakes up and proactively integrates with mobile payment players especially Amazon. Will Ribbit/BT get there first? Adobe Flash ( a Ribbit tool set) is certainly pushing towards mobile.
So, this is the beginning of a debate. I say the Telco API/Platform winners have basically been decided. My guess is Thomas Howe believes otherwise. We both agree there is plenty of opportunity left in the CEBP application space. I've kept some of my powder dry to respond to Tom's arguments.
Here is my answer to the "Telco API" problem posed by Tom.
In my CEBP status report,I compared ( with Alan Quayle) the success of the CEBP application vendors to the api/platform vendors. Tom reiterates the report's findings in that it is clear the application vendors as a group have been much more successful. VoiceSage is just my latest example of a CEBP application company driving real revenue, fantastic product innovation, and seeing crazy growth.
It is also clear to me that the Telco API/Platform opportunity is a classic example of a 2 sided network or 2 sided market. According to Harvard Business School research, one of the defining characteristics of two-sided markets is they tend to quickly evolve into winner take all competitive environments.
Now, the world of Telco is huge. So, the winner take all competitive environment may ultimately mean there are 2 or 3 dominant market leaders globally in the Telco API/Platform space. Here is the problem. One of those spots has been nailed down already by Voxeo.
Another winner's position may have just been nailed down by Google Voice if they can leverage the Verizon/Google partnership just announced. While this may fail due to egos, when it gets down to execution, the Google Android Verizon announcement gets my early bet for the second platform/api winner. Google is a platform. Verizon is a platform. Combining the two of them makes THE global platform. Google Voice is just one of many CEBP style solutions to come. Click to connect advertising and real time lead generation is being tested now.
In terms of who might be the final api/platform winner I am keeping my eyes open for the first player who wakes up and proactively integrates with mobile payment players especially Amazon. Will Ribbit/BT get there first? Adobe Flash ( a Ribbit tool set) is certainly pushing towards mobile.
So, this is the beginning of a debate. I say the Telco API/Platform winners have basically been decided. My guess is Thomas Howe believes otherwise. We both agree there is plenty of opportunity left in the CEBP application space. I've kept some of my powder dry to respond to Tom's arguments.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
CEBP status report update= 4500 downloads and counting
With a little help from colleagues across our CEBP industry my own minor concerns related to the CEBP Status report have all been addressed.
1. Distribution of the report
Alan Quayle's blog has some serious reach across the industry. He sent me an update that the report has been downloaded over 4500 times already. I was expecting less than 5% of that number...after a year.
2. Market Valuation
I was very hesitant to calculate a market value for CEBP. Eventually,I settled on an estimate from a very conservative perspective. I simply aggregated how much of the core communication functionality of CEBP is being used right now. However, the other side of the CEBP market valuation is, of course, the business process component. In a recent conversation with our CEBP colleague at Voice Sage, Paul Sweeney mentioned that he independently had taken that approach. His conservative estimate was based on business process solutions that CEBP is successfully addressing right now. By definition, these are the early adopters. The good news is that Paul's numbers and my numbers match. Contact VoiceSage and encourage Paul to blog about his findings.
3.Go-To Market tactics and adoption.
I just found out that a recent Gartner report states that CEBP applications and functionality are expected to be commonly found within the platforms/ecosystems of the Big 4 vendors(IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP). This clearly says that TELCO API functionality will start to get embedded in many, many premise based offerings let along SaaS solutions. More importantly, the leading consulting firms and integrators will begin to create CEBP practice areas as an extension of their current software practice areas.
4. Telco attention to CEBP
At the recent VON show, Thomas Howe blogged about a talk from Verizon that mentioned the importance of CEBP. My guess is that Verizon is starting to see the value add opportunities from the perspective of their largest clients. Selling CEBP's ROI, especially in this economy, is one way to get out of the commodity business.
It is certainly nice to receive validation from multiple sources. Maybe now I will admit to myself that I really do know what I'm talking about across the CEBP space.
Patrick Murphy
1. Distribution of the report
Alan Quayle's blog has some serious reach across the industry. He sent me an update that the report has been downloaded over 4500 times already. I was expecting less than 5% of that number...after a year.
2. Market Valuation
I was very hesitant to calculate a market value for CEBP. Eventually,I settled on an estimate from a very conservative perspective. I simply aggregated how much of the core communication functionality of CEBP is being used right now. However, the other side of the CEBP market valuation is, of course, the business process component. In a recent conversation with our CEBP colleague at Voice Sage, Paul Sweeney mentioned that he independently had taken that approach. His conservative estimate was based on business process solutions that CEBP is successfully addressing right now. By definition, these are the early adopters. The good news is that Paul's numbers and my numbers match. Contact VoiceSage and encourage Paul to blog about his findings.
3.Go-To Market tactics and adoption.
I just found out that a recent Gartner report states that CEBP applications and functionality are expected to be commonly found within the platforms/ecosystems of the Big 4 vendors(IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP). This clearly says that TELCO API functionality will start to get embedded in many, many premise based offerings let along SaaS solutions. More importantly, the leading consulting firms and integrators will begin to create CEBP practice areas as an extension of their current software practice areas.
4. Telco attention to CEBP
At the recent VON show, Thomas Howe blogged about a talk from Verizon that mentioned the importance of CEBP. My guess is that Verizon is starting to see the value add opportunities from the perspective of their largest clients. Selling CEBP's ROI, especially in this economy, is one way to get out of the commodity business.
It is certainly nice to receive validation from multiple sources. Maybe now I will admit to myself that I really do know what I'm talking about across the CEBP space.
Patrick Murphy
Monday, September 21, 2009
CEBP status report is now available
Our CEBP status report is now available. It is a free report. Thank you to Alan Quayle for contributing content and his skills as an editor. If interested in the this report and any other future versions simply email one of us with your contact information. Join the CEBP LinkedIn group to contribute insights or follow the discussions. You can request the report by emailing me via gmail at pmcape.
Sincerely
Patrick Murphy
Sincerely
Patrick Murphy
Friday, September 18, 2009
CEBP use case for Government
I noticed this post from Voxeo. Awesome stuff.
This is a great write-up in the blog of the New York State Senate Office of the CIO, “Dialing in to the NYSenate OpenLeg API“, that outlines the great work that independent developer Mark Headd has done.
As the article notes, Mark has used the IMified platform to let people find out the status of legislation before the NY State Senate using:
▪ Instant Messaging Client (Jabber): opensenate@bot.im
▪ Twitter Client: Send a tweet formatted as a @reply to @opensenate
▪ Short Message Service (SMS): Send a text message to (315) 308-1943
▪ Regular Telephone: Call (646) 736-2439 (see note below)
Through whichever channel people want to use, they can now query the NY State Senate legislation database and find out the status of various bills. As the NY State Senate blog post author, Nathan Freitas, stated:
These services fit very well with the Office of the CIO’s vision for a fully mobile-accessible legislative body, where everyone from elected officials to their consituents can fluidly connect with eachother around issues that matter to them no matter where they are. Access of information via mobile phones also signficantly leverages the playing field when it comes to cost… a $99 iPhone is a pretty fantastic computing device.
Mark went into more details on his own blog in a post, “Leveraging the Government 2.0 Platform“, specifically noting that the exposure of an open API by the NY State Senate was the exciting part to him:
When governments make their data available in public formats, and expose APIs for querying such data, they are throwing the door open to outside developers to build useful things. That’s significant, and the NY Senate should get some major props for being among the first (if not the first) legislative body in the country to provide an API for their legislative information.
When governments make data available through an API, they are telling developers: “Use any platform or programming language you want to access our data.” The basic requirements for invoking an API like the NY Senate’s (or the District of Columbia’s 311 API) is the ability to communicate via HTTP and to parse XML, or JSON. Since pretty much every modern programming language and development platform can do these things, it creates opportunities for developers of all stripes.
But if APIs are platform and language agnostic, they are also modality agnostic – if the data exposed through an API is compact enough, there are lots of different ways to present this data to an end user.
This is a great write-up in the blog of the New York State Senate Office of the CIO, “Dialing in to the NYSenate OpenLeg API“, that outlines the great work that independent developer Mark Headd has done.
As the article notes, Mark has used the IMified platform to let people find out the status of legislation before the NY State Senate using:
▪ Instant Messaging Client (Jabber): opensenate@bot.im
▪ Twitter Client: Send a tweet formatted as a @reply to @opensenate
▪ Short Message Service (SMS): Send a text message to (315) 308-1943
▪ Regular Telephone: Call (646) 736-2439 (see note below)
Through whichever channel people want to use, they can now query the NY State Senate legislation database and find out the status of various bills. As the NY State Senate blog post author, Nathan Freitas, stated:
These services fit very well with the Office of the CIO’s vision for a fully mobile-accessible legislative body, where everyone from elected officials to their consituents can fluidly connect with eachother around issues that matter to them no matter where they are. Access of information via mobile phones also signficantly leverages the playing field when it comes to cost… a $99 iPhone is a pretty fantastic computing device.
Mark went into more details on his own blog in a post, “Leveraging the Government 2.0 Platform“, specifically noting that the exposure of an open API by the NY State Senate was the exciting part to him:
When governments make their data available in public formats, and expose APIs for querying such data, they are throwing the door open to outside developers to build useful things. That’s significant, and the NY Senate should get some major props for being among the first (if not the first) legislative body in the country to provide an API for their legislative information.
When governments make data available through an API, they are telling developers: “Use any platform or programming language you want to access our data.” The basic requirements for invoking an API like the NY Senate’s (or the District of Columbia’s 311 API) is the ability to communicate via HTTP and to parse XML, or JSON. Since pretty much every modern programming language and development platform can do these things, it creates opportunities for developers of all stripes.
But if APIs are platform and language agnostic, they are also modality agnostic – if the data exposed through an API is compact enough, there are lots of different ways to present this data to an end user.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Change is a good thing when you learn something.
With this post about Thomas Howe resigning from Jaduka by Phil Wolfe of the Skype Journal, the many changes at Jaduka and NetworkIP are coming out.
From my perspective, change is a good thing. I'm not in any way predicting the demise of Jaduka or NetworkIP. As you can tell from the Jaduka website, we made several great Bus.Dev. announcements this summer. They are real. Before leaving Jaduka I collaborated with my good colleague Jack Rynes on a next steps plan. With a tight focus,a little luck, and good execution the plan will certainly bear some fruit. I want Jack Rynes and the rest of the guys left at Jaduka to succeed.
I've had three similar conversations this past week that might fall under the category of what Andy Wood ( Head of Consultancy Practice at UK based Affinity), refers to as Context Delivery or Event Driven Architecture.
What caught my attention is that CEBP tools sets and solutions are really starting to focus on the business process creation and logic sets as the path to building value added relationships with clients. From a business development perspective this really fires up my imagination.
Three plus years ago the biggest objection/question to overcome arguably was something related to SaaS versus premise based deployment. For many reasons that obstacle has been overcome.
I'm sure the client statement that sounds something like " what is your per minute or per message rate? Or can I get it cheaper?" is clearly at the top of the most annoying questions/objections in the CEBP space now.
My bet is this commoditization pressure goes away as soon as real innovation within the business process and logic tools of CEBP solutions hit their stride. These innovations become the tools that allow businesses to trial, implement, and iterate.
It is fantastic to see the CEBP space move rapidly beyond clunky, useful, but dumb tool sets towards applications and platforms that drive real change and learning for our clients.
I am not certain if "hanging out my own sign" under the CEBP.biz domain is a short term or long term move. I truly love working with smart teams of technologists and entrepreneurs both domestic and international. So, if there is any need for Go-To Market,Business Development, Sales strategy and tactical help in this CEBP /Telco 2.0 space lets schedule a conversation.
As the saying goes timing is everything.
Patrick Murphy
Principal Consultant for CEBP.biz
From my perspective, change is a good thing. I'm not in any way predicting the demise of Jaduka or NetworkIP. As you can tell from the Jaduka website, we made several great Bus.Dev. announcements this summer. They are real. Before leaving Jaduka I collaborated with my good colleague Jack Rynes on a next steps plan. With a tight focus,a little luck, and good execution the plan will certainly bear some fruit. I want Jack Rynes and the rest of the guys left at Jaduka to succeed.
I've had three similar conversations this past week that might fall under the category of what Andy Wood ( Head of Consultancy Practice at UK based Affinity), refers to as Context Delivery or Event Driven Architecture.
What caught my attention is that CEBP tools sets and solutions are really starting to focus on the business process creation and logic sets as the path to building value added relationships with clients. From a business development perspective this really fires up my imagination.
Three plus years ago the biggest objection/question to overcome arguably was something related to SaaS versus premise based deployment. For many reasons that obstacle has been overcome.
I'm sure the client statement that sounds something like " what is your per minute or per message rate? Or can I get it cheaper?" is clearly at the top of the most annoying questions/objections in the CEBP space now.
My bet is this commoditization pressure goes away as soon as real innovation within the business process and logic tools of CEBP solutions hit their stride. These innovations become the tools that allow businesses to trial, implement, and iterate.
It is fantastic to see the CEBP space move rapidly beyond clunky, useful, but dumb tool sets towards applications and platforms that drive real change and learning for our clients.
I am not certain if "hanging out my own sign" under the CEBP.biz domain is a short term or long term move. I truly love working with smart teams of technologists and entrepreneurs both domestic and international. So, if there is any need for Go-To Market,Business Development, Sales strategy and tactical help in this CEBP /Telco 2.0 space lets schedule a conversation.
As the saying goes timing is everything.
Patrick Murphy
Principal Consultant for CEBP.biz
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Voxeo Labs and Adhearsion are spreading their wings
I had a terrific conversation with Jay Phillips and Jason Goecke about Adhearsion and their new gig with Voxeo Labs. Here is a press release describing the Voxeo/Adhearsion announcement this summer.
Having been introduced to the wonderful world of Open Source tools,projects, and communities during my time with a regional ISP and web development shop I have always been amazed by the creativity and brilliance found within many of these communities. As a Bus. Dev/Sales type I would scroll through SourceForge and look at projects to figure out how they might be valued by various types of customers. (Yes, that's about as geeky as a non- technical Bus. Dev. guy gets!)
So, I love the direction the VoxeoLabs team is driving. They want to create iterations on the Adhearsion/Tropo frameworks so that other communities of developers can take advantage of Voxeo services. Voxeo has done a fantastic job building a vxml developer community. Why not excite or encourage the Ruby community or other developer communities into leveraging the Voxeo network too?
It makes a lot of logical sense and Voxeo Labs will absolutely be able to leverage the existing Voxeo and Asterisk community to gain even more traction. They will absolutely see some real success!
However, there is a caveat. Others have tried and failed to build highly scaleable business models based upon open source efforts. This needs to be looked at clearly and honestly. It doesn't mean that LAMP,for example, isn't the most widely adopted web server platform. I think? There are real limitations to building a business off these types of projects or by simply opening up apis. Orange suggests their API developer community exceeds 50,000 members. Is the business model a success? Unfortunately, No.
In my mind, communications services continue to be valued by end users so FREE isn't an absolute requirement. But, profitability is severely constrained if you are limited to charging per port, per minute, per channel.
One of the points I have made frequently is that we will be seeing a land grab mentality very soon. The land grab is NOT simply for developers but ultimately for the enduser applications purchased by businesses or consumers. Eventually, communication services will be embedded and adding value to almost every application and business process extending itself beyond the company firewall or household PC.
The closer one gets to the end user is where the maximum value can be identified and monetized. When done well, CEBP solutions help us better communicate with and understand customers. Then, profitability is assured.
Patrick Murphy
CEBP.biz
Having been introduced to the wonderful world of Open Source tools,projects, and communities during my time with a regional ISP and web development shop I have always been amazed by the creativity and brilliance found within many of these communities. As a Bus. Dev/Sales type I would scroll through SourceForge and look at projects to figure out how they might be valued by various types of customers. (Yes, that's about as geeky as a non- technical Bus. Dev. guy gets!)
So, I love the direction the VoxeoLabs team is driving. They want to create iterations on the Adhearsion/Tropo frameworks so that other communities of developers can take advantage of Voxeo services. Voxeo has done a fantastic job building a vxml developer community. Why not excite or encourage the Ruby community or other developer communities into leveraging the Voxeo network too?
It makes a lot of logical sense and Voxeo Labs will absolutely be able to leverage the existing Voxeo and Asterisk community to gain even more traction. They will absolutely see some real success!
However, there is a caveat. Others have tried and failed to build highly scaleable business models based upon open source efforts. This needs to be looked at clearly and honestly. It doesn't mean that LAMP,for example, isn't the most widely adopted web server platform. I think? There are real limitations to building a business off these types of projects or by simply opening up apis. Orange suggests their API developer community exceeds 50,000 members. Is the business model a success? Unfortunately, No.
In my mind, communications services continue to be valued by end users so FREE isn't an absolute requirement. But, profitability is severely constrained if you are limited to charging per port, per minute, per channel.
One of the points I have made frequently is that we will be seeing a land grab mentality very soon. The land grab is NOT simply for developers but ultimately for the enduser applications purchased by businesses or consumers. Eventually, communication services will be embedded and adding value to almost every application and business process extending itself beyond the company firewall or household PC.
The closer one gets to the end user is where the maximum value can be identified and monetized. When done well, CEBP solutions help us better communicate with and understand customers. Then, profitability is assured.
Patrick Murphy
CEBP.biz
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
CEBP research and lessons learned using Linkedin.
I have been compiling content and writing a document on CEBP from a business development perspective off and on over the summer. The short term goal is to use it to educate our new partners. Obviously I hope to learn something too.
As far as I can tell since Gartner launched the term CEBP a few years ago there hasn't been a formal update on the topic by any independent analyst groups. Please let me know if I am wrong. Obviously, the failure of the premise based solutions by the big telco vendors shows the space may not be a ripe one for the analyst business model. However, we clearly know there are plenty of hosted services providing successful solutions to an array of clients globally. My report will sample both api or platform providers as well as application vendors. I am not making "magic quadrant style" technical comparisons. We are focused on lessons learned so far and effective go-to market strategies.
For those of you on Linkedin, I have a CEBP group that is open with a fascinating mix of people from around the world. Please request an invite. The fact that this Linkedin group is made up of people and firms with a truly global perspective has really caught my attention. It simply formed on its own with little or no attention from me. I promise to pay more attention.
I do try to prevent myself from limiting my perspective to a US centric approach and especially a Telco centric approach. So, I would like to make an offer to blog readers and Linkedin members of our CEBP group. If you are willing to answer a couple of open ended questions about CEBP I will include your attributed comments (with your permission) and share the complete report with you.
As you might guess if I make a public commitment to getting this CEBP report done I might actually finish it!
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka, VP Business Development
As far as I can tell since Gartner launched the term CEBP a few years ago there hasn't been a formal update on the topic by any independent analyst groups. Please let me know if I am wrong. Obviously, the failure of the premise based solutions by the big telco vendors shows the space may not be a ripe one for the analyst business model. However, we clearly know there are plenty of hosted services providing successful solutions to an array of clients globally. My report will sample both api or platform providers as well as application vendors. I am not making "magic quadrant style" technical comparisons. We are focused on lessons learned so far and effective go-to market strategies.
For those of you on Linkedin, I have a CEBP group that is open with a fascinating mix of people from around the world. Please request an invite. The fact that this Linkedin group is made up of people and firms with a truly global perspective has really caught my attention. It simply formed on its own with little or no attention from me. I promise to pay more attention.
I do try to prevent myself from limiting my perspective to a US centric approach and especially a Telco centric approach. So, I would like to make an offer to blog readers and Linkedin members of our CEBP group. If you are willing to answer a couple of open ended questions about CEBP I will include your attributed comments (with your permission) and share the complete report with you.
As you might guess if I make a public commitment to getting this CEBP report done I might actually finish it!
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka, VP Business Development
Friday, August 14, 2009
CEBP and Two-sided markets
One of the truisms in the technology industry is that waves of technical innovations are followed by waves of business model evolution. The wave of Telco APIs, platforms, and communication applications clearly brought innovation to the industry. As I've stated previously, STL partners' theme of Two-sided business models represents the business model evolution.
An assumption I make is that Communications Enabled Business Processes is one if not THE most important tactic in helping Global Telcos to move toward Two-sided Business Models. Simply CEBP becomes a method for smart Telcos to not only maintain but extend their voice ( and sms) products rather than lose them to commoditization pressures. There are other important tactics available to Telcos including transactional processing but given that voice is the original cash cow it needs to be a priority.
The research on two-sided networks or markets shows this model can be very tricky to implement. To purchase background articles, go to Harvard Business Review
There are many complexities to putting the idea into practice but an HBS article by Eisenmann, Parker, and Van Alstyne identify three of the most important decisions.
1 .Get Pricing Right
a. subsidize quality and price sensitive users
b. secure marquee users or anchor tenants
2. Cope with Winner-Take All Competition
a. Will the market eventually be decided by one standard or platform?
b. Does this suggest a share or fight attitude with competitors?
3. Avoid Envelopment
Many platforms have overlapping user groups. Be aware of competition from outside your typical industry. Look for opportunities to extend.
Given the evolution of Jaduka and our parent company NetworkIP we are in an awfully strong position to enable two-sided networks. I can identify 2 possibly 3 other firms with strong positions too.
One of the arguments I have with STL's work is they do not adequately discuss the technical, regulatory, and cultural challenges a global telco will have to overcome in order to implement a successful two- sided business model. The academic research puts into context both the challenges and opportunities. In my opinion, the M&A or Strategic Partnership approach to implementing the two-sided network strategy will certainly gain traction.
There will be winners but not many.
An assumption I make is that Communications Enabled Business Processes is one if not THE most important tactic in helping Global Telcos to move toward Two-sided Business Models. Simply CEBP becomes a method for smart Telcos to not only maintain but extend their voice ( and sms) products rather than lose them to commoditization pressures. There are other important tactics available to Telcos including transactional processing but given that voice is the original cash cow it needs to be a priority.
The research on two-sided networks or markets shows this model can be very tricky to implement. To purchase background articles, go to Harvard Business Review
There are many complexities to putting the idea into practice but an HBS article by Eisenmann, Parker, and Van Alstyne identify three of the most important decisions.
1 .Get Pricing Right
a. subsidize quality and price sensitive users
b. secure marquee users or anchor tenants
2. Cope with Winner-Take All Competition
a. Will the market eventually be decided by one standard or platform?
b. Does this suggest a share or fight attitude with competitors?
3. Avoid Envelopment
Many platforms have overlapping user groups. Be aware of competition from outside your typical industry. Look for opportunities to extend.
Given the evolution of Jaduka and our parent company NetworkIP we are in an awfully strong position to enable two-sided networks. I can identify 2 possibly 3 other firms with strong positions too.
One of the arguments I have with STL's work is they do not adequately discuss the technical, regulatory, and cultural challenges a global telco will have to overcome in order to implement a successful two- sided business model. The academic research puts into context both the challenges and opportunities. In my opinion, the M&A or Strategic Partnership approach to implementing the two-sided network strategy will certainly gain traction.
There will be winners but not many.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Partnerships that push CEBP adoption
Jaduka is in the process of announcing three new partnerships during these summer months. We have created interesting and unique technology enabling partnerships with Strikeiron, Appian, and Dialogic.
Over the last 5 months, we have carved out a role as a technology enabling vendor of CEBP functionality. Although there are competitors in our space who have gained quicker market traction by building and selling voice applications the longer and bigger view is that practically ALL apps will have communications enabled features eventually. We know that over time voice and sms features will simply become a prime (but disguised) ingredient in other software and many business processes.
Our three partnership announcements help to pave this path.
The Strikeiron offering is the most direct method of appealing to Enterprise developers interested in buying web service solutions from one trusted vendor.
Our Appian partnership provides one of the leading pure play Business Process Management solutions a simple and scaleable method for extending the business process outside the walls of an organization. BPM becomes truly effective only when the mobile workforce, customers, and preferred vendors can be brought in as needed. The virtual or physical walls of the company's office need not act as a barrier to communicating a business process.
Finally, our long time vendor relationship with Dialogic is ready to be leveraged in a highly creative manner. By offering a mix of Dialogic's premise based and Jaduka's hosted offerings ( powered by Dialogic) to the Enterprise client we can push the CEBP space even further.
There are more partnership announcements in the pipeline.
Patrick Murphy
VP, Business Development
Jaduka
Over the last 5 months, we have carved out a role as a technology enabling vendor of CEBP functionality. Although there are competitors in our space who have gained quicker market traction by building and selling voice applications the longer and bigger view is that practically ALL apps will have communications enabled features eventually. We know that over time voice and sms features will simply become a prime (but disguised) ingredient in other software and many business processes.
Our three partnership announcements help to pave this path.
The Strikeiron offering is the most direct method of appealing to Enterprise developers interested in buying web service solutions from one trusted vendor.
Our Appian partnership provides one of the leading pure play Business Process Management solutions a simple and scaleable method for extending the business process outside the walls of an organization. BPM becomes truly effective only when the mobile workforce, customers, and preferred vendors can be brought in as needed. The virtual or physical walls of the company's office need not act as a barrier to communicating a business process.
Finally, our long time vendor relationship with Dialogic is ready to be leveraged in a highly creative manner. By offering a mix of Dialogic's premise based and Jaduka's hosted offerings ( powered by Dialogic) to the Enterprise client we can push the CEBP space even further.
There are more partnership announcements in the pipeline.
Patrick Murphy
VP, Business Development
Jaduka
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The CEBP ecosystems begin to mature
Within the past week or so, three interesting announcements show that the CEBP ecosystem is beginning to mature in fascinating ways.
1. Nuance purchased Jott. I find this announcement to be curious. I am a big fan of both companies. Jott has done a great job with their consumer and small business focused diary application that leverages a non Nuance based engine. Nuance is the dominant player in speech recognition technology. I haven't seen any serious analysis of why this is an intelligent move for Nuance or Jott. Competition from Google and Microsoft is one off the cuff answer. The VCs created an exit for themselves is another answer. I am interested in learning more about this deal.
2. Voxeo hires the Adhearsion guys
Since you can't technically purchase an open source project, hiring the founders is the next best thing. Again, all the principals in this deal are people I really respect. This could be a very smart move IF they don't get pulled into the trap of so many open source projects...the perception that everything is Free! Yes, I have reviewed Chris Anderson's latest book FREE.
However, getting pulled deeper into the per minute commoditization game will eventually destroy the valuation that Voxeo has tried to build up.
3. Jaduka announces relationship with Strikeiron.
This is the first of several announcements Jaduka will be making with Strikeiron. As I have mentioned previously many times, creating a developer strategy is just one phase in the 4 pronged strategy for a CEBP go to market effort.
From our perspective Strikeiron provides a dream channel for Jaduka's services to developers.
* StrikeIron is not only the largest provider of web services, but they have the largest number of Enterprises that uses these services
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into NetBeans, allowing our services to be available to the millions (4 million downloads last year!) of Enterprise developers already working on SOA and WOA applications
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into IBM’s Mashup Center, allowing IBM, its partners and customers to voice enable any application without costly and expensive integration efforts
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into SalesForce, the largest SaaS provider in the world
Our little edge of the Telecom industry is starting to heat up.
1. Nuance purchased Jott. I find this announcement to be curious. I am a big fan of both companies. Jott has done a great job with their consumer and small business focused diary application that leverages a non Nuance based engine. Nuance is the dominant player in speech recognition technology. I haven't seen any serious analysis of why this is an intelligent move for Nuance or Jott. Competition from Google and Microsoft is one off the cuff answer. The VCs created an exit for themselves is another answer. I am interested in learning more about this deal.
2. Voxeo hires the Adhearsion guys
Since you can't technically purchase an open source project, hiring the founders is the next best thing. Again, all the principals in this deal are people I really respect. This could be a very smart move IF they don't get pulled into the trap of so many open source projects...the perception that everything is Free! Yes, I have reviewed Chris Anderson's latest book FREE.
However, getting pulled deeper into the per minute commoditization game will eventually destroy the valuation that Voxeo has tried to build up.
3. Jaduka announces relationship with Strikeiron.
This is the first of several announcements Jaduka will be making with Strikeiron. As I have mentioned previously many times, creating a developer strategy is just one phase in the 4 pronged strategy for a CEBP go to market effort.
From our perspective Strikeiron provides a dream channel for Jaduka's services to developers.
* StrikeIron is not only the largest provider of web services, but they have the largest number of Enterprises that uses these services
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into NetBeans, allowing our services to be available to the millions (4 million downloads last year!) of Enterprise developers already working on SOA and WOA applications
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into IBM’s Mashup Center, allowing IBM, its partners and customers to voice enable any application without costly and expensive integration efforts
* StrikeIron is pre-integrated into SalesForce, the largest SaaS provider in the world
Our little edge of the Telecom industry is starting to heat up.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Google helps to push CEBP and Telco 2.0 whether they know it or not.
I use Google tools. However, I know that I am different than many corporate workers who are tightly tied into the technology platforms implemented by their IT departments years ago. Google Voice and Google Wave have been making announcements over the past month that should catch the attention of any consumer user. Enterprise users will need to wait a few quarters or release cycles.
What has been well documented by many analysts is the trend referred to as the consumerization of IT and the Enterprise application environment. The meaning is simple. All of us folks who fall in love with web applications (Google) or consumer hardware ( Apple) in our private lives want to leverage these tools in our professional lives. Unfortunately for CIOs meeting this consumer demand from staff for features and functionality within their world becomes very challenging.
So, CIOs do what they do best. They ask (demand) that their ISVs add these features into the existing software now! Vendors tell CIOs the next release will certainly have these features...and the dance begins.
From Jaduka's perspective, the Google Wave and Google Voice announcements are just the most recent wake up call to every software vendor to add real time communications functionality into your core offerings. If it is not in your feature list for the next version launch start advocating now.
If you are a Telco Service Provider then make sure you are reading these two blog post from Om Malik and Jon Arnold.
Momentum is building. Telephony is no longer an application that sits in its own unique device. It is the spice added to all applications.
Pat Murphy
Jaduka
VP, Business Development
What has been well documented by many analysts is the trend referred to as the consumerization of IT and the Enterprise application environment. The meaning is simple. All of us folks who fall in love with web applications (Google) or consumer hardware ( Apple) in our private lives want to leverage these tools in our professional lives. Unfortunately for CIOs meeting this consumer demand from staff for features and functionality within their world becomes very challenging.
So, CIOs do what they do best. They ask (demand) that their ISVs add these features into the existing software now! Vendors tell CIOs the next release will certainly have these features...and the dance begins.
From Jaduka's perspective, the Google Wave and Google Voice announcements are just the most recent wake up call to every software vendor to add real time communications functionality into your core offerings. If it is not in your feature list for the next version launch start advocating now.
If you are a Telco Service Provider then make sure you are reading these two blog post from Om Malik and Jon Arnold.
Momentum is building. Telephony is no longer an application that sits in its own unique device. It is the spice added to all applications.
Pat Murphy
Jaduka
VP, Business Development
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Strikeiron as a Trust Agent and platform for CEBP developers
We are in beta with Strikeiron right now but plan to announce a full launch next week.
Here is a link to our first service offering within the Strikeiron platform. It is a simple and easy to use notification service for developers. Please go in a try it out. A lot more will be coming in the not too distant future.
Obviously, Strikeiron provides very cool services from developers' perspectives. So many tools and data feeds are accessible from one company and platform. Strikeiron has evolved their business model over the past few years to build a focused catalogue of services offered by trusted partners. In time, my understanding is they will continue to "package" groups of services together that appeal to various vertical markets. So, for example, notification services and a do not call service might be grouped together.
In addition to their Trust Agent gatekeeper role in aggregating high value services for coders I am very impressed with their reach out to developer or even business analyst type communities. Take some time to surf through Strikeiron's efforts to enable large developer/analyst communities via NETBEANS integration, Excel LiveData methods, and even SalesForce templates.
Although, in my previous post, I mentioned Orange's positive efforts, at Jaduka we believe that telco services are not the main course anymore. Voice services or any telco services are an important ingredient but not the main dish. Strikeiron does a wonderful job of pulling lots of ingredients together and allowing developers to cook up whatever they choose.
Pat Murphy
Jaduka
VP, Business Development
Here is a link to our first service offering within the Strikeiron platform. It is a simple and easy to use notification service for developers. Please go in a try it out. A lot more will be coming in the not too distant future.
Obviously, Strikeiron provides very cool services from developers' perspectives. So many tools and data feeds are accessible from one company and platform. Strikeiron has evolved their business model over the past few years to build a focused catalogue of services offered by trusted partners. In time, my understanding is they will continue to "package" groups of services together that appeal to various vertical markets. So, for example, notification services and a do not call service might be grouped together.
In addition to their Trust Agent gatekeeper role in aggregating high value services for coders I am very impressed with their reach out to developer or even business analyst type communities. Take some time to surf through Strikeiron's efforts to enable large developer/analyst communities via NETBEANS integration, Excel LiveData methods, and even SalesForce templates.
Although, in my previous post, I mentioned Orange's positive efforts, at Jaduka we believe that telco services are not the main course anymore. Voice services or any telco services are an important ingredient but not the main dish. Strikeiron does a wonderful job of pulling lots of ingredients together and allowing developers to cook up whatever they choose.
Pat Murphy
Jaduka
VP, Business Development
Monday, July 6, 2009
Innovation and Change at Orange
I received an email from Orange stating that their Partner guy Steve Glagow was leaving. Here is a bit of his summary statement.
The Orange Partner focus over the last five years has been about taking your applications to our customers. We have successfully launched Application Shops in the UK, France, Belgium and Spain, reaching over 50 million customers in just those 4 countries. In the near future, we will add more.
After 5 great years, it is time for me to say farewell. I have seen our community grow from a handful of dedicated developers to over 55000 today. I am proud to have been a part of it working with you.
I was always very impressed with the breadth and scope of the Orange API offering. However, I've seen the developer play as only one leg in a complete go to market strategy. For those doubters, remember Apple has made something like $30 Billion with their one device and less than $100 million on the Appstore. The Appstore is a rounding error for Apple. For another example, SalesForce doesn't even break out their App Exchange revenue numbers clearly. At best estimate looking at their professional services line item the AppExchange is less then 10% of revenue. However, for Apple and SalesForce, their platform strategy has clearly helped to make their core offerings dominant.
Yet, Orange has done a lot of things right. Although BT received the most initial praise as a Global Telco launching their own API strategy, from my perspective Orange's API offerings ended up far ahead of the pack.
Obviously, I don't have a crystal ball but the rest of the go to market strategy for Orange should include:
A. Becoming a technology enabling vendor with ISVs and SaaS partners.
B. Creating and leveraging the SI ecosystem attached to ISVs and SaaS partners
C. Creating two sided business models leveraging analytics with these various partners
D. Building workflows or integration methods to leverage other development tools more commonly used by developers.
There is a lot of operational sales, prod. dev, integration, bus. dev. and marketing work to move forward with these four legs of a go-to market strategy. Be assured, the Telco that does it first and best will maintain healthy margins, keep customers happy, and drive their competitors crazy. At least in the US, I plan on making Jaduka the winner. Across the EU, I was expecting Orange to win.
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka
VP. Business Development
The Orange Partner focus over the last five years has been about taking your applications to our customers. We have successfully launched Application Shops in the UK, France, Belgium and Spain, reaching over 50 million customers in just those 4 countries. In the near future, we will add more.
After 5 great years, it is time for me to say farewell. I have seen our community grow from a handful of dedicated developers to over 55000 today. I am proud to have been a part of it working with you.
I was always very impressed with the breadth and scope of the Orange API offering. However, I've seen the developer play as only one leg in a complete go to market strategy. For those doubters, remember Apple has made something like $30 Billion with their one device and less than $100 million on the Appstore. The Appstore is a rounding error for Apple. For another example, SalesForce doesn't even break out their App Exchange revenue numbers clearly. At best estimate looking at their professional services line item the AppExchange is less then 10% of revenue. However, for Apple and SalesForce, their platform strategy has clearly helped to make their core offerings dominant.
Yet, Orange has done a lot of things right. Although BT received the most initial praise as a Global Telco launching their own API strategy, from my perspective Orange's API offerings ended up far ahead of the pack.
Obviously, I don't have a crystal ball but the rest of the go to market strategy for Orange should include:
A. Becoming a technology enabling vendor with ISVs and SaaS partners.
B. Creating and leveraging the SI ecosystem attached to ISVs and SaaS partners
C. Creating two sided business models leveraging analytics with these various partners
D. Building workflows or integration methods to leverage other development tools more commonly used by developers.
There is a lot of operational sales, prod. dev, integration, bus. dev. and marketing work to move forward with these four legs of a go-to market strategy. Be assured, the Telco that does it first and best will maintain healthy margins, keep customers happy, and drive their competitors crazy. At least in the US, I plan on making Jaduka the winner. Across the EU, I was expecting Orange to win.
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka
VP. Business Development
Thursday, July 2, 2009
CEBP pricing is moving beyond cpm
From the perspective of a service provider like Jaduka and our parent Network IP, the bottom line reason for all this time and energy being spent on Communications Enabled Business Process is one of margin.
The phrase "Falling ARPUS" is one of those really weird pieces of jargon that is common in the Telco space. Because of competition, deregulation, and technological advances (VoIP, IM, Email) the cash cow of voice traffic has been getting skinnier and skinnier for Telcos all around the world.
We ran a quick but useful thought exercise earlier this week with our team. List out all the pricing models that we were aware of in this space.
To be clear, we are only focused on hosted CEBP using a transactional model for billing. With Avaya dropping their CEBP messaging and staffing, I am not aware of any vendor still trying to sell upfront licenses in the manner of the legacy software industry.
Per minute
Per call
Per leg
Per lead
Per record
Per seat
Per contact
Per hit
The cynical might suggest that the cost basis underneath all these different pricing labels is still a price per minute. Thus, we are simply trying to make some actuarial type guesses on usage. Yes, that is partly true. However, with good reporting, good communication with your clients, and a robust telco infrastructure underneath Jaduka the ability to make these usage estimates is not particularly risky. International interconnect or peering agreements are done every day and are based upon similar estimates of future usage patterns.
The more important point is that we are moving towards these new pricing labels in order to model the language our Enterprise clients use. Guess what, new packaging matters, it adds perceived value, thus margins are dramatically improved!
This isn't the end point in our drive towards value added pricing. The goal is to price our efforts based on the value driven by the transaction taking place during the call or message. Honestly, there is a lot more to learn on this topic. It is what the Two-sided business model strives to accomplish. More discussion needed.
If you don't believe me, put down that $3 bottle of water and think a little harder.
The phrase "Falling ARPUS" is one of those really weird pieces of jargon that is common in the Telco space. Because of competition, deregulation, and technological advances (VoIP, IM, Email) the cash cow of voice traffic has been getting skinnier and skinnier for Telcos all around the world.
We ran a quick but useful thought exercise earlier this week with our team. List out all the pricing models that we were aware of in this space.
To be clear, we are only focused on hosted CEBP using a transactional model for billing. With Avaya dropping their CEBP messaging and staffing, I am not aware of any vendor still trying to sell upfront licenses in the manner of the legacy software industry.
Per minute
Per call
Per leg
Per lead
Per record
Per seat
Per contact
Per hit
The cynical might suggest that the cost basis underneath all these different pricing labels is still a price per minute. Thus, we are simply trying to make some actuarial type guesses on usage. Yes, that is partly true. However, with good reporting, good communication with your clients, and a robust telco infrastructure underneath Jaduka the ability to make these usage estimates is not particularly risky. International interconnect or peering agreements are done every day and are based upon similar estimates of future usage patterns.
The more important point is that we are moving towards these new pricing labels in order to model the language our Enterprise clients use. Guess what, new packaging matters, it adds perceived value, thus margins are dramatically improved!
This isn't the end point in our drive towards value added pricing. The goal is to price our efforts based on the value driven by the transaction taking place during the call or message. Honestly, there is a lot more to learn on this topic. It is what the Two-sided business model strives to accomplish. More discussion needed.
If you don't believe me, put down that $3 bottle of water and think a little harder.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
How the mighty have fallen
If this post from GigaOm doesn't help you to understand why there is so much energy being put into niches like CEBP and the broader topic of Telco 2.0 then you are still buying buggywhips.
Given the major telcos focus on huge capex investments in wireless or fios and their current debt structures it is hard to see how the US players are going to continue to dominate. At least the European players are being aggressive in trying to reinvent themselves using new and competitive business models.
I would love to see a comparison of US Telcos now relative to US Automobile manufacturers a generation ago. As we have seen with GM it becomes a long, slow slide into bankruptcy.
More importantly, given that the telco hardware/software vendors tend to provide the forward thinking R&D work required by the Telco service providers it is hard to believe these service providers will once again get back into the R&D business.
This GigaOm article should be saved and reposted in 2019 as an explanation for what happened to the US Telco market.
Given the major telcos focus on huge capex investments in wireless or fios and their current debt structures it is hard to see how the US players are going to continue to dominate. At least the European players are being aggressive in trying to reinvent themselves using new and competitive business models.
I would love to see a comparison of US Telcos now relative to US Automobile manufacturers a generation ago. As we have seen with GM it becomes a long, slow slide into bankruptcy.
More importantly, given that the telco hardware/software vendors tend to provide the forward thinking R&D work required by the Telco service providers it is hard to believe these service providers will once again get back into the R&D business.
This GigaOm article should be saved and reposted in 2019 as an explanation for what happened to the US Telco market.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
CEBP, business analysts, and developers= lots of work can now get done
I've mentioned this four step approach for business model evolution in our space previously. From my perspective, service providers like Jaduka ( or Orange or BT) need to move forward to build all four steps in order to create a robust, valuable Telco 2.0 style business.
Here are the four steps:
1. Empowering developer communities.
2. Enriching go-to-market strategies to benefit partners and clients.
3. Value-based transactional pricing versus commodity pricing.
4. Two-sided business model iterations.
On the first item, empowering developer communities, Jaduka has always been focused on providing tools to the broadest swath of enterprise developers. As an alternative example, our respected competitor, Ribbit has focused on providing tools for the Flash/Adobe developer community. With VXML vendors, they focus on their developer community. I can never argue with a strategy that requires true intimacy with a particular user group. These guys do a great job.
Jaduka's desire has always been to provide tools for a global development and business analyst community. Although, we are in beta now and plan to launch the service in early July I am thrilled to see that we will have the ability to extend our notification service to the Netbeans community ( many millions of downloads) and the Excel community. More announcements are in the works too.
To the Telco API industry players, suggesting that we have extended our notification service into Excel should make you pause. Why is that important, you may ask?
From my non developer background, Excel was the first platform that allowed business analysts to create business reports and processes with a tool set that relied on easily understood mathematical symbols and equations rather than arcane coding languages. It is certainly still the most widely adopted spreadsheet offering in the world.
With Microsoft's foray into the SaaS delivery model Excel Live has been turned into the business analyst's equivalent of a mashup platform allowing for Data as a Service integration.
Some would suggest that offering wider and more developer and analyst communities easy access to notification, conferencing, diary, or click and connect type functionality will simply result in commoditization. Let me be clear, our goal at Jaduka is NOT to commoditize but to package our functionality in many different manners. Then, it can be broadly and globally adopted. Granted having a full built telco infrastructure allows us to compete on price if we choose.
However, leveraging the global tools that enterprise developers and analysts already use is certainly a step in the direction of empowering the broadest number of developers and analysts.
Watch Jaduka Exchange in mid-July for a more detailed announcement.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka
VP. Business Development
Here are the four steps:
1. Empowering developer communities.
2. Enriching go-to-market strategies to benefit partners and clients.
3. Value-based transactional pricing versus commodity pricing.
4. Two-sided business model iterations.
On the first item, empowering developer communities, Jaduka has always been focused on providing tools to the broadest swath of enterprise developers. As an alternative example, our respected competitor, Ribbit has focused on providing tools for the Flash/Adobe developer community. With VXML vendors, they focus on their developer community. I can never argue with a strategy that requires true intimacy with a particular user group. These guys do a great job.
Jaduka's desire has always been to provide tools for a global development and business analyst community. Although, we are in beta now and plan to launch the service in early July I am thrilled to see that we will have the ability to extend our notification service to the Netbeans community ( many millions of downloads) and the Excel community. More announcements are in the works too.
To the Telco API industry players, suggesting that we have extended our notification service into Excel should make you pause. Why is that important, you may ask?
From my non developer background, Excel was the first platform that allowed business analysts to create business reports and processes with a tool set that relied on easily understood mathematical symbols and equations rather than arcane coding languages. It is certainly still the most widely adopted spreadsheet offering in the world.
With Microsoft's foray into the SaaS delivery model Excel Live has been turned into the business analyst's equivalent of a mashup platform allowing for Data as a Service integration.
Some would suggest that offering wider and more developer and analyst communities easy access to notification, conferencing, diary, or click and connect type functionality will simply result in commoditization. Let me be clear, our goal at Jaduka is NOT to commoditize but to package our functionality in many different manners. Then, it can be broadly and globally adopted. Granted having a full built telco infrastructure allows us to compete on price if we choose.
However, leveraging the global tools that enterprise developers and analysts already use is certainly a step in the direction of empowering the broadest number of developers and analysts.
Watch Jaduka Exchange in mid-July for a more detailed announcement.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
Jaduka
VP. Business Development
Friday, June 19, 2009
CEBP: where it all really began= ClueTrain Manisfesto?
I've been thinking about the foundations of CEBP and give plenty of credit to the analysts at Gartner for defining the space. I hope to attend Gartner's CEBP Forums later this year.
However, the more I listen and talk to more experienced Telco industry folks the original thinking that began to drive Telco 2.0 style innovation comes from the ClueTrain Manisfesto.
These writings have been around since 1999.
That's enough history on the topic of CEBP from me. I will get back to posting use cases.
But, if anyone has a different perspective on the background of CEBP please fill me in.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
VP. Bus. Dev. Jaduka
However, the more I listen and talk to more experienced Telco industry folks the original thinking that began to drive Telco 2.0 style innovation comes from the ClueTrain Manisfesto.
These writings have been around since 1999.
That's enough history on the topic of CEBP from me. I will get back to posting use cases.
But, if anyone has a different perspective on the background of CEBP please fill me in.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
VP. Bus. Dev. Jaduka
Thursday, June 18, 2009
CEBP: where it all began
I thought it would be important to make sure there is background knowledge available for those who are new to the space or have not seen the term previously.
From everything that I have been able to gather over the years it was a team of smart analysts at Gartner including Bern Elliot, Steve Blood and Bob Hafner who coined the term communications-enabled business process (CEBP). Now, obviously they didn't invent a technology and, at the time, they were hyper focused on one generalized use case (reducing human latency). For good or bad, they certainly coined the phrase.
There was plenty of strong work in both premise based solutions and hosted services going on prior to Gartner coining the CEBP space. Here is a link to a decent write up from 3 years ago. The phrase is only about three years old being publicized by Gartner for the first time on or about April, 4th, 2006.
Here is another link to the Gartner site for those interested in purchasing the original report.
From everything that I have been able to gather over the years it was a team of smart analysts at Gartner including Bern Elliot, Steve Blood and Bob Hafner who coined the term communications-enabled business process (CEBP). Now, obviously they didn't invent a technology and, at the time, they were hyper focused on one generalized use case (reducing human latency). For good or bad, they certainly coined the phrase.
There was plenty of strong work in both premise based solutions and hosted services going on prior to Gartner coining the CEBP space. Here is a link to a decent write up from 3 years ago. The phrase is only about three years old being publicized by Gartner for the first time on or about April, 4th, 2006.
Here is another link to the Gartner site for those interested in purchasing the original report.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Is CEBP the worst name ever for a technology space?
This is a funny CEBP related post from Rich Tehrani of TMC. Yes, he may be correct.
However, when I compare CEBP to ERP, CRM, BPM, HCM, UC or SaaS I don't really feel so bad about being an avid supporter of all Communications Enabled Business Processes.
I refer to CEBP as a subset or child of the Telco 2.0 industry. It is closely related to many things from the UC industry. However, CEBP as a hosted SaaS or CaaS offering is much more scalable, cost effective, and flexible than CEBP's premise based cousins.
We may all die of acronym poisoning.
However, when I compare CEBP to ERP, CRM, BPM, HCM, UC or SaaS I don't really feel so bad about being an avid supporter of all Communications Enabled Business Processes.
I refer to CEBP as a subset or child of the Telco 2.0 industry. It is closely related to many things from the UC industry. However, CEBP as a hosted SaaS or CaaS offering is much more scalable, cost effective, and flexible than CEBP's premise based cousins.
We may all die of acronym poisoning.
How to get started.
I thought this was a relevant postt from STL partners. This is a summary of conversations held at Telco 2.0 in Nice, France.
Much of the post is common sense but it might be a useful reminder.
Much of the post is common sense but it might be a useful reminder.
Monday, June 15, 2009
CEBP and Advertising
I saw this terrific article on GigaOm discussing the micro economics of online advertising.
So, for those who have taken just a few economic courses the big picture idea from the article about the potential disintegration of the online advertising market (other than Google) is easy to follow. For those of you who have taken lots of economics courses follow the thread of comments for the granular details and arguments that exemplify why the general population tends to make fun of economists.
Seriously, I thought the article was great. Check out the author Mike Speiser and his archive . I especially enjoyed the attempts to cost average leads generated by Google and (non search) Yahoo. The author estimates Gooogle generates and average of 49 cents per lead vs. Yahoo's $2.93 for display advertising with costs of 30cents for Google and $2.17 for Yahoo. His argument is that the low cost producer will continue to gain market share. Remember in the online world a simple click though is considered a lead. We can agree or disagree with the numbers but I want to use them as a baseline to show the importance of CEBP driven advertising.
That's some background. Now lets get into the nitty gritty of CEBP and how it can leverage some of the $400 Billion spent globally on advertising.
There are generally three purposes for advertising.
1. Drive consumers to buy something now or very soon.
2. Influence the consumer's perception of a product, service or brand over time to drive decision based purchases. (Cars, Computers, B to B marketing)
3. Position a brand in the marketplace against competition. ( Premium, Cool, Safe, Reliable)
Our (My) experience is that Commmunications Enabled Business Processes can improve advertising efforts at all three levels.
1. Click to Connect functionality can drive real people ( and their phone numbers) to companies advertising. Google is testing this functionality with keywords that are high priced ex. $20 per click through and/or phrases that may have problems with click fraud.
2. Diary functionality is very useful on any product site or community aggregation site that brings consumers together for reviews. It is helpful in providing real time feedback "How's my driving on the back of trucks" or " Tell us about your meal and restaurant experience". It also helps build community around services or products targeted at segments of the population ...new moms looking for help and guidance on product selection, newly diagnosed patients using a drug. ( BazaarVoice)
3. Interactive agencies creating campaigns looking for cool or fun campaigns with an opportunity for a viral upside have successfully added voice functionality. MonkEmail, Tide, Transformers
Each specific advertising campaign is valuable to the client, agency, consumer,and CEBP vendor.
What isn't well understood is how over time the telco service provider could ethically collect ,re-use, or simply datamine the contact numbers driven through lots of these campaigns. To me, that datamining component becomes the linch pin to a true two sided business model for the Advertising vertical.
So, for those who have taken just a few economic courses the big picture idea from the article about the potential disintegration of the online advertising market (other than Google) is easy to follow. For those of you who have taken lots of economics courses follow the thread of comments for the granular details and arguments that exemplify why the general population tends to make fun of economists.
Seriously, I thought the article was great. Check out the author Mike Speiser and his archive . I especially enjoyed the attempts to cost average leads generated by Google and (non search) Yahoo. The author estimates Gooogle generates and average of 49 cents per lead vs. Yahoo's $2.93 for display advertising with costs of 30cents for Google and $2.17 for Yahoo. His argument is that the low cost producer will continue to gain market share. Remember in the online world a simple click though is considered a lead. We can agree or disagree with the numbers but I want to use them as a baseline to show the importance of CEBP driven advertising.
That's some background. Now lets get into the nitty gritty of CEBP and how it can leverage some of the $400 Billion spent globally on advertising.
There are generally three purposes for advertising.
1. Drive consumers to buy something now or very soon.
2. Influence the consumer's perception of a product, service or brand over time to drive decision based purchases. (Cars, Computers, B to B marketing)
3. Position a brand in the marketplace against competition. ( Premium, Cool, Safe, Reliable)
Our (My) experience is that Commmunications Enabled Business Processes can improve advertising efforts at all three levels.
1. Click to Connect functionality can drive real people ( and their phone numbers) to companies advertising. Google is testing this functionality with keywords that are high priced ex. $20 per click through and/or phrases that may have problems with click fraud.
2. Diary functionality is very useful on any product site or community aggregation site that brings consumers together for reviews. It is helpful in providing real time feedback "How's my driving on the back of trucks" or " Tell us about your meal and restaurant experience". It also helps build community around services or products targeted at segments of the population ...new moms looking for help and guidance on product selection, newly diagnosed patients using a drug. ( BazaarVoice)
3. Interactive agencies creating campaigns looking for cool or fun campaigns with an opportunity for a viral upside have successfully added voice functionality. MonkEmail, Tide, Transformers
Each specific advertising campaign is valuable to the client, agency, consumer,and CEBP vendor.
What isn't well understood is how over time the telco service provider could ethically collect ,re-use, or simply datamine the contact numbers driven through lots of these campaigns. To me, that datamining component becomes the linch pin to a true two sided business model for the Advertising vertical.
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