The purpose of this CXTech Week 42 2020 newsletter is to highlight, with commentary, some of the news stories in CXTech this week. What is CXTech?  The C stands for Connectivity, Communications, Collaboration, Conversation, Customer; X for Experience because that’s what matters; and Tech because the focus is enablers.

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Bandwidth Buys Voxbone

I did mention at the start of this year we’d see a fair bit of M&A later in the year 😉

I use this Peter Drucker’s quote quite often, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In part because people often state an aim that is against the organization’s culture.

Bandwidth is culturally US-centric. M&A was its best option for global expansion. Both Voxbone and Bandwidth are semi-monopolies in DIDs (phone numbers), so now become a global semi-monopoly.

They are culturally similar in my experience, I’ve worked with both. Which means the integration should be easier than most.

You can put a mish-mash together of DID deals to almost get around their position in phone numbers, Twilio and MessageBird are 2 examples that take such an approach. But it’s hard (expensive) not to use them for some regions / number ranges.

Expect to see solid growth given their semi-monopolies in DIDs and through the rise of programmable communications (CXTech), and cultural alignment making integration easier than usual.

WOW! Another surprising deal with some big numbers, Twilio buys Segment for $3B

What is it that hedge funds suddenly see in telcos?

Simply, monthly recurring revenue from a nation, with massive potential to cut costs. AKA license to print money.

That’s a Wrap for TADHack Global 2020

Even though this was the toughest year ever to put TADHack Global together. All the hardcore hackers, those that hack through a pandemic, achieved impressive TADHack Global 2020 results.

A big thank you to our global sponsors Simwood, Sangoma and Avaya; North American location sponsors Intelepeer and Symbl.ai, and the many local sponsors and partners making TADHack Global possible.

We passed 700 registrations over the weekend, with half of them coming from South Africa. Several locations had additional lockdown measures being imposed over the TADHack weekend, making things even more complicated for the teams. Yet, despite the pandemic, the quality of pitches, innovation demonstrated, and use of sponsors’ resources was better than ever. Well done to everyone involved, you are exceptional!

This weblog summarizes the winners from the global sponsors, local sponsors and all the locations. You can see all the hacks at the TADHack YouTube channel. If you took part, please provide feedback to the sponsors on their APIs. And please blog about your experiences, we’ll happily publish them on the TADHack blog.

TADSummit EMEA Americas, through November

Thank you GoContact, Automat Berlin, Sangoma, and Radisys for sponsoring and making TADSummit EMEA Americas possible. Leaders in programmable communications come together to share their insights with no BS.

Every weekday through November we release new content, and promote on social media (Twitter and Linkedin, never FB).

People dip in / out through the month when they have time and see something of interest. Through Dec we revisit themes, with a slice of TADSummit, where a number of the presentations are packaged together.

WFH is not new, we’ve been doing it for decades, all that’s changed is more people are doing it. Virtual conferences are not new, over 20 years ago there were trialed and never took off.

Instead of trying to make an in-person format virtual. We offer a completely virtual format, fresh original content in programmable communications with a no BS policy, in a format convenient to you.

People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff

Well done to Leon Ho for starting a new position as Chief Executive Officer at Incite Consulting and North Shore Education Hong Kong. I’ve known Leon for over a decade while he was at Optus in Australia.

Anthony Presley is now Managing Partner at Orcus Technologies. Anthony was the founder / CEO of an early programmable communications company, TimeForge. I wrote about TimeForge in 2013. Timeforge was bought by one of its channels in 2016.

Yang Cao is now co-founder & COO at Camvi Technologies. Previously he was with Parallel Wireless, and before that Sycamore.

Whole Foods and Amazon, something’s not working

An elderly relative sent to me a birthday gift ordered through Amazon of Whole Foods gift vouchers. They must have thought because Amazon owns Whole Foods, I would be interested.

The only thing I like in the Whole Foods’ offer is the quality of the beef at their butchers. Everything else is either expensive or style over content.

I went to Amazon.com and made an order for Whole Foods, only to discover the gift cards do not work online, only in-person at the store (during a pandemic, doh!). Needless to say, after crap experiences getting in contact with Whole Foods directly, I moved from passive to a detractor.

Amazon needs to sort out Whole Foods, it’s not customer focused, and its offer is increasingly niche given Trader Joe’s, Wegmans, and Shoprite.

I received a birthday gift today, ordered from @amazon, of @WholeFoods gift cards. They can only be used physically in the store, not online.

3 years after the @Amazon deal closed and @WholeFoods limits its gifts cards to in-store only during a pandemic.#CognitiveDissonance pic.twitter.com/QIr4HfH6Sb

— Alan Quayle (@Alan_Quayle) October 13, 2020

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