Slack Has Blossomed Rapidly, but is Threatened by a Major Obstacle

G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Slack has been quite busy lately enhancing its platform, forging alliances and strengthening internal operations. However, a major obstacle threatens to derail those efforts.

• Slack must determine a way to convert the vast majority of its customers from free plans to paid plans.

Slack comes from humble beginnings as an internal communication tool at a small company. Since then, the platform has evolved into one of the most prominent in the market. A flurry of recent activity including feature rollouts, deal making, management changes, and judicial action has propelled Slack by great lengths in a brief period of time. However, the company is challenged by a scarcity of customers on paid plans.

So We Thought the CBRS Auction Was Big; Here Comes C-Band

K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• The C-band consists of 500 megahertz of mid-band spectrum between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz. The FCC will be auctioning off this spectrum beginning in December 2020.
• This auction is especially important as mobile operators in the U.S. need mid-band spectrum to flesh out their 5G networks and consolidate their positioning to both consumers and enterprises.

The C-band consists of 500 megahertz of mid-band spectrum between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz. The FCC will be auctioning off this spectrum beginning in December 2020. Investment firms are betting that this auction will generate $25 to $35 billion, a significantly larger amount than the $4.6 billion that the CBRS auction brought in this past August.

Why Is This Important?

Mobile operators in the U.S. need mid-band spectrum to flesh out their 5G networks. The 5G networks of AT&T and Verizon are dominated by two spectrum types: millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, which has been rolled out in dense urban locations but does not propagate cost-effectively to rural areas; and low-band spectrum, which has been rolled out much more broadly throughout the country but has not achieved the kinds of speed and latency enhancements required to excite enterprises and developers looking to power new innovative use cases. T-Mobile inherited 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum holdings from Sprint as part of the merger and has been using it to offer what the operator calls its ‘layer cake’ approach of low-, mid-, and high-band spectrum, designed to meet the needs of different target segments and use cases.

Capgemini’s New Suite of Services Helps Customers Leverage Edge and 5G Technologies

R. Bhattacharyya

Summary Bullets:

• Capgemini rolled out a suite of six services to help companies leverage the benefits of edge computing and 5G.

• Success will depend on Capgemini’s ability to demonstrate its industry expertise and experience in managing complex ecosystems, and customers’ appetite for new digital transformation projects during the pandemic.

Edge computing and 5G networking are hot technologies that claim to propel businesses into the future by supporting intelligent industry and digital transformation. There is no doubt that the proliferation of connected devices holds the potential to transform how businesses operate, leading to greater efficiency, increased automation, and more insightful and timely data-driven decision-making. Edge computing provides processing power closer to the source of data collection, improving latency and addressing privacy-related concerns. 5G networking enables businesses to transmit large volumes of data to an edge device quickly, reducing latency and costs associated with sending data to the cloud, and facilitating a more near real-time experience. Despite the benefits these technologies promise to deliver, identifying appropriate use cases and deploying the solutions can be a challenge for many organizations.

One Chapter Ends in the Tableau-Salesforce Epic

Ted Cuzzillo,
Principal Analyst – Data Analytics

Summary Bullets:

• The Tableau brand will survive longer than some feared even a month ago, as Einstein Analytics moves over to be renamed ‘Tableau CRM.’
• This announcement, made in early October at the annual Tableau Conference, is the end of just one chapter in the Tableau epic.

The Tableau brand will survive longer than feared only a month ago. The recent Tableau Conference brought welcome news from Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky: Einstein Analytics will become part of Tableau and become known as Tableau CRM, making the Tableau brand a principal part of Salesforce.

So begins a new chapter in the Salesforce-Tableau epic. Tableau, the once mighty asteroid, the analytics universe’s dinosaur annihilator, has been tamed.

The Cybersecurity Industry Continues to Struggle with Skill Shortages

R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• Industry estimates indicate there are around 3 million cybersecurity professionals worldwide and over 60% more are required to address the global needs of businesses and governments.
• There are no easy short-term fixes in solving the recruitment problem in the cybersecurity sector. A concentrated effort across a number of entities, including government, industry, and education, will be required.

Exponential Rise in Cyber-Attacks as the Globe Reaches 2020 Year-End

Exponential increases in cybersecurity attacks are nothing new. In fact, if you cast your eyes back to 2017-2019, attacks like malware in mobile increased by over 50%, over 40% of commercially available IoT devices had some form of security breach, and applications like cryptocurrency coin mining quadrupled in cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity spending in countries like the U.S. also increased over $14 billion in 2019. With this in mind, as we approach 2020 year-end, the worry of going into some form of lockdown as a result of increased spikes in COVID-19 puts further fuel on increased cyber-attacks. Just in the past two months, we have seen attacks on organizations like NATO (i.e., phishing) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the U.N.’s shipping agency (i.e., a sophisticated cyber-attack that disabled its website and intranet).

Oil and Gas Producers Discover Major New Reserves — In Data

Summary Bullets:

Ted Cuzzillo,
Principal Analyst – Data Analytics

• The bulk of the oil and gas industry came late to data analytics, which is so important now as the industry endures a long decline and competes with alternative energy

• Oil and gas companies should recruit for analytics skills and leadership, such as from alternative energy competitors

The oil and gas industry has been discovering a bounty of something perhaps more valuable than new reserves: new sources of data, much of it from new 5G and IoT installations. The big question is whether they can exploit data with the same level of skill they exploit new deposits.

Exploiting data has become especially important now as the energy industry begins to exploit solar, wind, and other types of renewable energy. This new energy could be a new game for them, and it likely entails new metrics. Traditional energy companies will be poring over those metrics hoping to find guidance.

Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts – An ASEAN Perspective, Part 2: What’s Next for Providers and Buyers

A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• Apart from providing technical certification and accreditation to partners, enhancing their consulting/advisory capability is also a crucial area for AWS to win in the region.
• Enterprises with strict data residency requirements should consider migrating their data from on-premises to Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts to access the wide range of features and development tools offered by the hyperscaler as well as seamless integration with workloads in AWS Regions.

The first part of this post, ”Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts – An ASEAN Perspective, Part 1: Addressing Enterprises’ Key Concern in Data Storage,” analyzes the solution and how it will address the ASEAN market.

Despite the promising demand, ASEAN is a highly competitive market and has attracted various other players including Alibaba and Google Cloud. Microsoft has a strong presence and has been strengthening its footprint in the region. There are several areas AWS could consider to drive greater market impact in the region with Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts.

Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts – An ASEAN Perspective, Part 1: Addressing Enterprises’ Key Concern in Data Storage

A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts will address the increasing need for data storage and drive edge computing requirements in the region.
• The traction for hosted storage is aligned with the growing cloud adoption in the region; enterprise spending on cloud is expected to increase by 6% in 2020.

Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts

AWS announced the availability of Amazon S3 on AWS Outposts across its global footprints to meet customers’ demands for low-latency applications, local data processing, and data residency. Based on the same APIs and tools used for the Amazon S3 on AWS Regions, the solution offers consistent experience and performance to enterprises for management and orchestration of workload across different locations.

SK Telecom’s 5G Smart Port Highlights Blueprint for How to Build Out Enterprise 5G

M. Rogers

Summary Bullets:

• SKT’s partnership to build out 5G-IoT test beds for Smart Ports in Busan will help the company develop repeatable vertical solutions in a critical industry.

• The move highlights SKT’s leadership in 5G and points to lessons learned around strong investment in network and an intensive focus on developing vertical specific use cases.

On October 14th, 2020, SK Telecom announced a partnership with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Busan Port Terminal Corporation that will see the partners develop a 5G test-bed in Busan for the development, testing, and eventual deployment of Smart Port services. The aim of the project is not only to develop services for the port in Busan, but to develop an industry solution set that can be readily applied to ports across South Korea. SK Telecom has already outlined IoT asset tracking and close circuit video analysis as initial use cases that will be deployed. This is another announcement for SKT around working with industry to develop novel 5G solutions. For example earlier this year SKT partnered with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power to create a “Smart Plant” solution.

5G Updates in ASEAN – Q3 2020: Mixed Developments, but Still a Solid Growth Forecast

A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• There have been mixed 5G developments in the region. While the 5G race is heating up in the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore, the launch is still unclear for Indonesia and Malaysia.
• 5G subscribers are expected to grow from 0.2 million in 2020 to 127 million and account for 17% of the total mobile subscribers in 2025.

Key Announcements

July 2020 – Philippine PLDT/Smart 5G Goes Live: The incumbent launched its 5G services in key business districts in Metro Manila about one year after its rival, Globe. While PLDT may have lost some very early opportunity, the launch is timely in the Philippines considering the ecosystem and market readiness. The launch will also increase the competition and hence drive the adoption of 5G in the country. PLDT is also leveraging its strength in the enterprise segment to stay ahead of competitors. It has integrated the technology in its enterprise portfolio and is collaborating with various industry players to co-develop 5G use cases, such as partnerships with TV5 to modernize news operations and with Ateneo de Manila University on 5G smart campus.