Category Archives: BOSS

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 […]

Shooting from the Hip

I thought I’d keep this article punchy as I’m full of a cold, so would rather just shoot from the hip than think too much on some of the topics I’ve discussed on my calls this week 🙂 There are some numbers in here, so its not just rambling opinion. Cisco bought market share, all the […]

Summer Madness. Beware those heralding digital transformation and API business models

It must be the additional heat from global warming bringing the summer madness out early. This is just a selection of the silliness I see pass through my inbox today on the way to the deleted folder. Digital Transformation still keeps being used as if it means something. Digital was cool in the ’70s, just […]

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 […]

SDP Global Summit Summary: A Significant Change in the Industry. Rays of Light Emerge from a Once Cloudy Sky.

Overall Summary The fog of ‘hype / BS’ and ‘strategic consulting organization misdirection’ lifts, revealing a focus on real business coupled with an eye to long term survival.  The conference was packed with quantified API case study successes.  The end of this weblog has some slides with a few highlights from the conference. The biggest […]

Running to Stand Still. The Negative Cycle of Spending Virtually all the IT Budget to Keep the Lights On. Why we need a BOSS reset!

I apologize that this is a high level article, but I’m seeing the term Customer Experience Management being misused and promising things it will not deliver without a complete reset of the BOSS (Business and Operational Support System).  A problem faced by many telecom network operators (telcos) is they are caught in an endless cycle […]

IMS World Forum and Policy Control and Real-Time Charging Conferences

The week of the 23-26 April is going to be busy for anyone involved with IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) or policy control and real-time charging. From the 23rd-26th April 2012 at the NH Eurobuilding, Madrid, Spain the IMS World Forum will be running.  In reviewing the status of IMS: Verizon continues its aggressive roll-out of […]

Summary of SDP Asia, Mobile VAS, Smartphone Apps & OS, and Convergent Billing Conference

The 6th SDP Asia Summit was held in conjunction with 3 other conferences: Smartphone Applications & Operating Systems (OS) Asia 3rd Mobile Value Added Services Asia OSS/BSS & Convergent Billing Asia The SDP Asia Summit and Convergent Billing Asia were run as a single stream which made sense as they are both platforms necessary to […]

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 […]