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
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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
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