Category Archives: Data and Analytics

What is it that you do?

I’m asked this question surprisingly often, “Alan, what is it that you do?” My stock answer is, “I wander the world helping people.” Which generally results in a wry smile from those who know me; else a questioning or annoyed look from someone who was expecting a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. When I […]

Big Data 13, 30 Sep to 1 Oct, Dubai

The Big Data 13 conference will run from 30 Sep to the 1 Oct in Dubai, the agenda is now available.  Its focused on the practical application of Big Data and Real-Time Analytics with a particular emphasis on the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region. To kick off the conference we’ll have a fun live interactive […]

Telecom Application Developer Summit

Most of my working life has been spent building telecom applications within telcos (BT), vendors (Lucent, Cambridge Technology Partners), in my start-up Teltier (mobile presence applications), and working with many tens of telecom application developers as an independent. Based on this experience, telecom application developers exist and are grossly under-served by the telecom industry.  A […]

End of 2012 Entry: An Eventful and Noisy Year

In this end of year article I’ll review 2012 and look at a few of the things coming up in 2013.  2012 has been an eventful year, we tend to miss how eventful as we’re busy working and raising our families (a life-long commitment!).  The year opened with some operators finally admitting revenues are in […]

Telco Big Data Conference 2012

The Telco Big Data conference ran from the 3-5 December in London.  This is the first time for this event, which was well attended, and packed with operator presentations on their experiences in using Hadoop clusters in conjunction with their existing business intelligence (BI) systems.  This is a key point, telcos are not new to […]

Telco Big Data and Real Time Analytics Summit

I’ll be in London next week (3-5 Dec) at the Telco Big Data and Real Time Analytics Summit, it’s the first time this conference has run, and I think presents an important opportunity to cut through all the hype and BS we’re seeing on Big Data.  The conference itself is packed with operator presentations sharing […]

MWC 2012 Summary: The Trials and Tribulations of Entering Middle Age

This year I brought my wife and 2-year-old son to Barcelona; we arrived on the Thursday before MWC (Mobile World Congress).  Barcelona is great for small children with lots of playgrounds, some with crèches that bring out their toys to play with making it great fun.  The restaurants go the extra mile in making the […]

Cloud Asia 2011 Interesting Tidbits

Below are a few slides that capture some of the interesting tidbits discussed at Cloud Asia 2011. Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will grow at 40% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) over the next 3 years in Cloud services to $5B by 2014. Most Operator’s role in cloud remains unclear Focused on the importance of end-to-end […]

Cloud Asia 2011 Summary

Cloud Asia ran from 30 May – 2 June 2011 in Singapore.  It was co-organized by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, who is investing heavily in Cloud to make Singapore a hub for the region, and Informa.  In attendance were around 250 delegates from enterprises of all kinds, cloud technology suppliers, cloud service providers […]

End of Year Review, Awards and Predictions: Its been a quiet year in Telecoms, but not Elswhere…

Given all the activity in the technology industry: Sun disappearing into Oracle (aka The Borg); HP’s ex-CEO’s escapades with an actress (normally in the joke its a bishop) and then joining The Borg; Microsoft finally getting its PC OS right and making Office 2010 a pleasure to use; Twitter, Facebook and other’s crazy valuations; Wikileaks; […]