On Rad's Radar Archives - Page 15 of 376

Stats on Mobile as It Eats the World

Yesterday I put up some stats in emerging tech. Today I have a bunch more.

There are 2.5 billion smartphones on the planet now, according to Ben Evans.

“China now has 656 million internet users. Brazil trails only the US in total Facebook, Twitter and YouTube users, and the country has more mobile devices than human inhabitants.” [TCrunch]

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are 3x the scale of WinTel. Not just giants in tech, but giants in the economy as well. More so than IBM or WinTel. [mobile is eating the world]

Machine learning and AI are getting exponentially better each year.

Facebook has between 15-20% of mobile time. And smartphone apps are 60% of all time spent online in USA.

With Amazon Alexa and Google Home (and other voice activated search), what does that do to your SEO or PPC campaigns?! POOF!

There are “nearly 3.8 billion internet users worldwide, almost 2.8 billion are active on social media.” The most popular social networks “as of January 2017, based on global traffic figures for unique monthly visitors, shows: Facebook (with 1.1 billion), YouTube (with 1 billion), Twitter (with 310 million), LinkedIn (with 255 million), Pinterest (with 250 million) and Google+ (with 120 million).” [channel partners]

“Cisco and DHL, the world’s largest logistics provider, estimated last year that $1.9 trillion dollars of economic value could be created by the use of IoT devices and asset tracking solutions in the global supply chain and logistics sector.” [business insider]

NOAA has a new satellite “GOES-16 has four times the image resolution of the existing Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) fleet.” See images here.

SIDE NOTE:

That said, people who blame increased connectivity for widening ideological divides misunderstand what’s going on. The world is not getting worse, nor are our divisions deepening. We’ve always had these problems – it’s just that connectivity is bringing them to light. Racism, xenophobia, bigotry and sexism have always been there, it’s just that we can see them more clearly now. This unprecedented, radical form of transparency feels scary and dark, because it forces us to look long and hard into the corners. But that’s also why connectivity is so important. Billions of people are starting to speak out, and that means we are no longer able to claim ignorance, and filter out the terrible things that have happened on the watch of good people in the past. Welcome to the world as it really is, and not the way the gatekeepers used to tell us it was. It’s about time. [Future Crunch 30]

Tags: amazon, apple, cisco, google, internet, IOT, smartphones, social networks
Related tags: internet users, million, world, billion, facebook, mobile

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February 1, 2017 , On Rad's Radar

How Do You Enable Partners?

RingCentral VP of Channel, Zane Long, did an interview with Channel Vision. He states, “Partners need the right sales support and enablement in order to be successful. It isn’t enough to have just an amazing product or the richest commissions, because if partners are not fully enabled to really market it, they will not position your product first. The cloud communications marketplace is crowded and the demand for these competing solutions is evident (as noted in my earlier predictions). Vendors need to “think partner enablement first,” making it easy to transact to keep their partners transacting and gaining market share for their solutions.”

How do you enable Partners? A bunch of ways.

Clear messaging with a positioning statement. Who benefits from your service, why and how. Who being the exact target.

Take friction out of the process whenever and wherever possible. It is crazy to me that in 2017 more providers aren’t using e-signature and transitioning paperwork to online forms.

Sales tools like case studies, deployment manuals, tech specs and more.

User training to make adoption easier and deeper.

When Zane says, “It isn’t enough to have just an amazing product or the richest commissions, because if partners are not fully enabled to really market it, they will not position your product first.” What amazing product? There isn’t a clear winner in UCaaS at any level. While Broadsoft has the majority share, it is divided up among 400+ providers. So what amazing product?

The richest commissions change weekly. Providers are willing to pay almost anything to put any revenue they can get on the books – good, bad, under water or even horrible fit. And this leads to a host of problems on the deployment side, on the customer satisfaction side and later on the commission side (when the provider realizes it is under-water and wants to change compensation or when customer quits early and provider nets the commission out.) I wish I was making this stuff up, but it happens every week at most organizations.

And then we wonder why the UCaaS space that was supposed to be so hot is not.

8×8’s numbers were kind of surprising because while numbers went up they posted a loss.

Service revenue from mid-market and enterprise customers grew 36% year-over-year and represents 55% of the Company’s total service revenue.
New monthly recurring revenue (MRR) sold to mid-market and enterprise customers and by channel sales teams accounted for 60% of total new MRR booked in the quarter.
Average monthly service revenue (ARPU) per business customer grew to $414, compared with $369 in the same year ago period;

This goes to show you that just one huge deal can change everything (if it doesn’t sink the company in the process of deployment!): “New enterprise Master Service Agreement signed with a Fortune 50 health care corporation to provide services to up to 10,000 users in 450 medical offices. [AND] New enterprise agreement signed with a national retail chain for over 10,000 seats across 3500 locations.”

Tags: 8×8, arpu, channel partners, commissions, enablement, financials, hosted pbx, marketing, UC
Related tags: amazing product, richest commissions, product richest, service revenue, partners fully, product

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Is UCaaS Growing? – Oct 31, 2016

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Is SD-WAN the new UC? – Dec 19, 2016

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Research Firms Missed Again on UC – Aug 24, 2016

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January 31, 2017 , On Rad's Radar

A Quick Look at Emerging Technologies for Next Week

Heading into ITEXPO next week, I am prepping for my session on Differentiation for SPs (Marketing) as well as my Women in Tech panel. The week after that I am in Nashville for FISPA speaking on SD-WAN, Marketing Fiber (FTTx) and a couple of other marketing topics. Then I am speaking at a sales kick-off on SD-WAN and more. That’s why I want to take a quick run down on emerging technology.

Google Fiber stopped over-building fiber to the home (FTTH) to give fixed gigabit wireless a chance. This isn’t even 5G. This is current non-millimeter tech.

AT&T is trying to get BPL (broadband over power lines) to work with Project AirGig. Will it work this time? The power infrastructure is still pretty old/antiquated, ut technology has gotten better.

API isn’t talked about like that. Integrations are. UCaaS as a stand-alone platform is not that impactful to the employee work day. Integrated with CRM, email and other work day applications is. [All About API is at ITEXPO.]

Intelepeer just announced a platform that integrates with Cisco Spark. Hope they demo that at ITEXPO.

The IDEA Showcase is Thursday evening. I always get amped at startup events because there is great energy (hope, promise, excitement) that we kind of lack in telecom.

If you like startup stuff, the week of Feb. 13 is Startup Week! Techstars runs that globally.

Channel Vision Expo is collocated with ITEXPO again. This is the first channel partners event of the year. And it is collocated with MSP Expo. Should be interesting because more and more referrals and indirect sales are making a difference for cloud providers. 8×8 notes, “New monthly recurring revenue (MRR) sold to mid-market and enterprise customers and by channel sales teams accounted for 60% of total new MRR booked in the quarter.”

I don’t understand Blockchain. (There I said it!) Maybe I will get a chance to see what that is about on the show floor next week as well at the Blockchain Event.

WebRTC is still a thing, according to Andy Abramson. We’ll see as Real Time Web Solutions has a section of the ITEXPO as well.

Most of the noise in my email is about HPBX/UCaaS, SD-WAN or IOT. The IOT Evolution is happening at the same time in Ft Lauderdale but it is a separate show. Verizon, Amazon, Gogo, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cisco (but no AT&T) are speaking and/or exhibiting.

That is a lot of tech to take in at one time, but it also in one place. Where can you get that much info/demo/prezo in one place?

Some interesting stats from 451 Research Group.

Overall IT Spending vs. Cloud Spending. Cloud spending remains strong, and the growth rate continues to outpace overall IT spending. A total of 44% of cloud users expect spending to increase over the next 90 days, while 4% expect a decrease. In comparison, 38% expect an increase in their overall IT spending vs. 11% expecting a decrease.

Cloud Adoption. SaaS (64%, up 1-pt) remains the most popular type of cloud computing in use, followed by Infrastructure as a Service (43%, up 4-pts) and On-Premises Private Cloud (34%, down 2-pts).

On-Premises Private Cloud Vendors. The most popular vendor for on-premises private cloud is VMware vCloud (65%), with Cisco (33%) and Microsoft Cloud OS (30%) a more distant second and third.

Key Attributes. The most important attributes for on-premises private cloud vendors are Platform Reliability (66%), followed by Value for Money/Cost (47%) and Technical Expertise (36%).

If you are in Ft Lauderdale next week, let’s grab coffee! Or join us for dinner on 2/7 HERE.

Tags: channel partners, cloud computing, IOT, IT EXPO, itexpo, m2m, msp, SDN, WAN, webrtc, women
Related tags: premises private, private cloud, overall spending, cloud vendors, cloud spending, cloud

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Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

January 31, 2017 , On Rad's Radar

Telecom is a Good Industry For Women

On Wed., 2/8th at ITEXPO, there will be a panel discussion titled Women in Tech. One of the panelists is Karin Fields, CEO & COO of master agency, Microcorp. Here is a brief interview we did together.

ME: What is the significance of this panel for you?

KF: Being a woman in technology has afforded me the life I wanted. I have been able to have a great career but more importantly be the mom I wanted to be. It’s important for me to evangelize that this can be a good career for woman and to help encourage more woman to get into our industry.

ME: What one takeaway do you hope the audience will get?

KF: Diversity is essential for sustainable growth. For the men in the audience, it’s important they step up to ensure women get the support they need to grow within our industry. For the woman in the audience, this is a good industry to be in and have they life they want.

ME: Why is it important to have more women in STEM and/or Tech?

KF: Women bring a different perspective to the table. We often look more at the human element not just the facts. Woman tend to be better listeners and hear what is being said and what is not being said. All diversity is important especially in a global economy.

To her point, Harvard Business Review wrote about a study that has shown Firms with More Women in the C-Suite Are More Profitable. “When we examined the profitable firms in our sample (average net margin of 6.4%), we found that going from having no women in corporate leadership (the CEO, the board, and other C-suite positions) to a 30% female share is associated with a one-percentage-point increase in net margin — which translates to a 15% increase in profitability for a typical firm.”

Join us for the session.

Tags: itexpo, microcorp, women
Related tags: women, woman, important, industry, being, audience

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January 26, 2017 , On Rad's Radar

Verizon Now Courting Cable

Is it because the top 3 cable companies are launching an MVNO business? Or is it because AT&T bought DirecTV and now TimeWarner? Or is it because last year Verizon had a net loss of 282,000 Broadband Customers? Why is Verizon reportedly courting to buy a cable company?

Verizon over the last 7 years has sold off three chunks of its wireline business to Frontier, Fairpoint and Frontier. Did they need the money to buy all the spectrum that they have been hoarding?

They had Verizon Business (VZB) up for sale. That old MCI division. Then they bought XO, supposedly for the access to spectrum leases.

VZW was even the cheerleader for 5G, saying that it would replace wireline broadband. (Others ask that question HERE).

Maybe it is merger mania consuming Lowell (VZ CEO). Maybe he wants to invest in Liberty Media now that they own Live Nation, Formula 1, the Braves, SiriusXM, and more. “The Formula One Group consists of Liberty Media Corporation‘s subsidiary Formula 1, its interest in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., other minority investments, including Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc., and an inter-group interest in the Braves Group.” With $115 Billion in debt at approximately 5%, VZ is using up cash to pay $6B in interest payments per year. Maybe they want a good investment that will bring in more than 7% annually (and Yahoo! and AOL just won’t cut it).

We’ll see. Who knows anymore? The M&A is coming faster than anyone can keep track.

Tags: cable, mergers, rboc, vz, vzw
Related tags: liberty media, verizon, formula, business, cable, interest