Enterprise IoT Platforms Continue to Advance

K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• GlobalData completed its latest examination of the enterprise IoT platform market on August 26, which described, analyzed, and rated the top platforms in the market. This report focused on AWS, IBM, SAP, PTC, Microsoft, and Google.
• These vendors added functionality over the last six months that included enhanced security, more automated processes for data ingestion, new analytics capabilities, integration with the vendor’s own or third-party software, vertical solutions, scalability and availability, and improved edge enablement.

IoT is a key growth market for a wide swath of technology solution providers and their business customers. As a result, the market for platforms that make IoT projects easier to deploy and manage, and more impactful to the companies deploying them, has grown significantly in size and scope over the past five years. There are hundreds of purported platforms on the market, but only a dozen or so stand out in the enterprise segment. These IoT platforms leverage data collected from devices and transform the data into meaningful, actionable information through filtering, visualization, and analytics. They also aid customers in building applications which use the data to help them automate processes and make decisions that transform their products, services, and business models, therefore enhancing their position in the market.

KubeCon EU 2020: Importance of CNCF’s Blessing Highlighted Among Cloud Players

C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

• OSS wars are heating up between cloud providers vying for larger followings via service mesh solutions

• Hybrid and multi-cloud management solutions are vital for providing enterprises with a gradual move into the cloud

During last week’s mega Kubernetes conference, KubeCon EU, cloud leaders continued to vie for mind share of cloud management offerings in support of advanced Kubernetes deployment scenarios spanning hybrid/multiple clouds and in support of multiple containerized clusters. Heightened controversy between various service mesh technologies further illustrated the importance of having the backing of a standards body like CNCF, and its vast community membership.

Technological Debt Kills Flexibility

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• Systems that have incurred excessive technological debt are brittle, especially when confronted with change.

• Long delays in updates have down the road costs that should not be underplayed.

The concept of technological debt is one that was originally for software development. But the reality is that technological debt can be had across a functional system as a whole. Old servers, old storage, old networking, old security, all of it can incur technological debt. Technological debt is a hard subject, with some dismissing the idea out of hand or downplaying the difficulties caused by excessive amounts of technological debt.

There is a good example of recent real-world technological debt causing and continuing to cause significant problems. In the United States, Congress authorized additional money, $600, to be added to unemployment checks at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. States each run their own unemployment benefit systems, the U.S. federal government supplied the money to the states, and the states used their existing unemployment benefit systems to distribute it. Or at least that is what was supposed to happen.

Can Converge ICT Break PLDT and Globe’s Duopoly in the Philippines?

A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• Converge ICT is rapidly expanding its business and upgrading its infrastructure.

• While it is breaking PLDT and Globe’s dominance in the mass market, Converge ICT is still several steps behind in the enterprise segment.

The Philippines Managed Services Market
Like other emerging ASEAN countries, the Philippines managed ICT service market has been growing rapidly in the last few years driven by digital transformation initiatives by enterprises across different industries. The adoption of newer technologies such as cloud and SDN/NFV is increasing and has recently been accelerated by new demands such as remote working during the COVID-19 crisis. While the market is largely dominated by the two big carriers: PLDT and Globe; there are several other players such as Converge ICT, Radius Telecoms, Eastern Communications, and NOW Corporation with a small piece of the market share pie respectively.

T-Mobile Opens Up (a Bit) About Its B2B Plans

K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• T-Mobile held an analyst briefing on August 14 to discuss its plans for T-Mobile for Business, which included its aims to engage SMBs, the public sector, large enterprises, and MNCs with a newly merged T-Mobile-former Sprint organization and a newly minted set of wireline and wireless network assets.
• The meeting introduced the new B2B team, which draws from both companies, but the call focused more on the breadth and performance of the new T-Mobile’s 5G network and on ‘Un-carrier’’ benefits of transparency, lack of complexity, and cost avoidance than it did on actual enterprise offerings, leaving us hoping for more insights in the future.

It is understandable that T-Mobile is proud of its new network, which provides 14x more capacity than each operator had prior to the merger, as well as complementary network assets with which it is hoping to realize $43 billion in synergies. T-Mobile now has a 5G network that covers 250+ million people, and once its integration with Sprint’s 2.5GHz assets is complete, it can also compete well on other factors such as speed and latency. It also finally has a wireline network – to be run by former Sprint executive Mike Fitz – so, in theory, it will be able to offer more of a converged network portfolio to companies that want end-to-end network capabilities. T-Mobile loves to compare its new network to that of its rivals, noting that it has twice the spectrum of AT&T and three times the spectrum of Verizon. It points out that Verizon’s 5G footprint is still only in 35 cities, where it is using expensive mmWave spectrum, which does not provide expanded coverage benefits and which will require Verizon to use technologies such as DSS to enable it to share 4G and 5G spectrum to broaden its reach.

Using Alt Data to Glimpse the Alt Future

Ted Cuzzillo, Principal Analyst – Data Analytics

Summary Bullets:

• Alternative data, or alt data, can indicate new trends much faster than conventional data

• Alt data is for domain experts only

The dawning of new trends might be described as being “like a string hanging down from the future.” That’s how the renowned forecaster Paul Saffo described it. The future first presents itself like the “odd event you can’t get out of your mind [that] could be a weak signal of a distant industry-disrupting S curve…”

Everyone’s looking for signs of the future. What’s going to happen to us? Who will suffer? When will the economy recover? Eyes are peeled for that weak but portentous S-curve.

The trouble, of course, is the abundance of those hanging strings. The great challenge is to distinguish strings that have real prescience. That’s true in ordinary times, but it’s far more important during upheavals like COVID and the shaken economy to follow. Alt-data customers say standard financial indicators and statistical releases are too slow.

SD-WAN Is Gaining Momentum in Australia, but Do Enterprises Have a Long-Term Network Strategy?

S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• SD-WAN is gaining traction in Australia with nearly 60% of enterprises already implementing the technology.
• Enterprise customers need to consider their long-term network strategy to cope with the changing IT workloads beyond a standalone SD-WAN solution.

The SD-WAN technology has gained attention among Australian IT buyers and it has changed the WAN market significantly. Based on GlobalData’s research, nearly 60% of enterprises (businesses with more than 200 employees) have already deployed SD-WAN, and nearly one in three of those businesses are considering implementing it in the next 12 months. SD-WAN has taken off quicker in Australia than some other markets partly due to the migration of last-mile access to the NBN, which has resulted in several service providers (e.g., Macquarie Telecom and Aussie Broadband) offering SD-WAN with NBN as an alternative to MPLS-based IP VPN. 5G will accelerate this trend.

Cloud-Network Convergence: Double-Edged Sword for Carriers, but an Opportunity Emerges in the Edge

M. Rogers

Summary Bullets:

• Hyperscale cloud providers continue to invest in expansion of networking solutions and network adjacent partnerships with SD-WAN vendors and data center providers.
• As hyperscale networking solutions become more advanced and the cloud edge moves closer to end users, some carriers may be crowded out of the cloud-network convergence market.

Hyperscale cloud providers and global network carriers have been building stronger relationships and deeper integrations around WAN and networking solutions. The partnerships are a natural fit as more enterprises move business-critical workloads to cloud platforms. These workloads require high-bandwidth, high-throughput, low-latency, secure, and reliable connections from virtually any location these days to connect to the major cloud platforms.

The Latest CBRS Auction Draws an Astoundingly Diverse Set of Applicants

Kathryn Weldon – Research Director, Business Network and IT Services – Americas

Summary Bullets:

• On July 23rd, the auction for Priority Access Licenses (PALs) for CBRS began; each PAL consists of a 10 megahertz channel in the highly coveted 3.55-3.65 GHz band. 22,631 licenses will be offered, with seven licenses available for each U.S. county (or census tract). So far the auction has resulted in 271 qualified bidders.

• The applicants are an astounding array of companies from mobile network operators and cable companies, to wireless Internet service providers, electric utilities, universities, and large enterprises. They are excited about using CBRS spectrum to supplement existing networks for public or private use, or to roll out their own networks without having to engage with a service provider. In either case, the auction may have a significant effect on public and private wireless networks and on the race to offer 5G.

CBRS spectrum has been talked about for years as an exciting opportunity for service providers that don’t own their own wireless spectrum to get some – and to get highly desirable spectrum in the mid-band where operators see faster speeds or better coverage than for low-band or high-band (mmWave) spectrum, respectively, for LTE or eventually 5G. In January 2020, licenses were granted to companies that want to be part of the CBRS ecosystem by becoming providers of Spectrum Access Systems (SAS) that are essentially frequency coordinators that allocate access to companies that want to be part of a complex spectrum sharing scheme. SAS licenses were granted to Amdocs, CommScope, Federated Wireless, Google, and Sony, companies that hope to gain revenues from CBRS for a variety of reasons in a variety of ways (including mobile device and CBRS equipment sales, professional services, and revenues from coordinating secondary market access from PAL licensees that want to resell their spectrum to other companies). GAA users are companies that use spectrum allocated by the SAS providers and are in the lowest tier of a set of three tiers (including GAA at the bottom, PAL in the middle, and, on top, the incumbent Department of Defense and Navy organizations that get highest priority use of the spectrum). GAA users can access any portion of the 3.5 GHz band not assigned to higher tier users.

IT’s Advisory Role is More Than Just About Technology

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• Public awareness of data privacy and data mining is increasing which will lead to greater regulation.

• IT needs to be the trusted advisor on these topics to help with business planning.

The recent hearing with four of the biggest tech companies (Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook) on Capitol Hill was regarding the power these four firms have across the spectrum and the possibility of anti-monopoly action against them. The undercurrent that runs through the public is the sheer amount of personal data these four companies have on their users and how they use that data. The average citizen isn’t worried about the possibility of Amazon co-opting their products and making their own, or Apple possibly squeezing them out of their app store.