MWC16: IoT Battle Takes Shape as Middleware Vendors Prepare to Take on Telcos, SIs

Charlotte Dunlap – Senior Analyst, Application Platforms

Summary Bullets:

• Application platform vendors are working to build IoT initiatives based on integration infrastructure, app development tools, and business intelligence.

• UX has become mobile app development’s critical component for ensuring success around B2E and B2C apps.

Keenly aware that Mobile World Congress (MWC) is heavy with telco vendors, application platforms providers at last week’s event aggressively marketed their IoT and mobile initiatives to try to convince customers that their core integration technology provides the best foundational platform for expanding app development to connect to IoT devices. They are pressed to provide clarity around their IoT strategy, however, as the industry struggles to differentiate between various solution provider and service provider platforms.

The Carrier Consortium, Reloaded

B. Washburn

Summary Bullets:

• The ngena alliance promises to unite 20-30 network providers worldwide, to begin offering a single source for global/local services empowered with SDN, virtualization and orchestration in 2017.
• Just like Airbnb isn’t Marriott and Uber isn’t a taxi fleet, enterprises using ngena may see a tradeoff between local variety vs. global operators’ unified customer experience.

One of the big news items to hit from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week didn’t have anything to do with mobility. U.S.-based service provider CenturyLink, Europe-based Deutsche Telekom, Korea’s SK Telecom and India-based Reliance Jio have teamed to become wholesale suppliers to a startup company called ‘ngena,’ short for ‘Next Generation Enterprise Network Alliance.’ The startup is based in Germany and intends to sign 20-30 providers to the alliance. Presumably, the members will be companies with a strong national or regional presence, but which lack the reach and clout to match the largest global network operators.