Recently in Telecommunications Category

In the last 24 months, there has been a trend toward the acquisition of analytical databases to augment an established DBMS’ existing product line.  For example, the following mergers and acquisitions were compiled by Doug Henschen in April:

• EMC buys Greenplum July 2010
• IBM buys Netezza November 2010
• Hewlett-Packard buys Vertica March 2011
• Teradata buys Aster Data April 2011

Many of these acquisitions were driven by the reality that you really need to use the correct DBMS architecture for the right job rather than taking a one size fits all approach.  However the question then becomes how do you bring that data together once it resides on those separate platforms?  One solution is to use the concept of

This week Composite will release its next generation platform for data virtualization: Composite Information Server 6.0.  This platform allows organizations to make data decisions based on the best platform for the job rather than pushing all data to a particular platform.

Bring Big Data into the Fold

One of the best uses of the enhanced platform is the ability to virtualize big data sources like Hadoop, Netezza and SAP into a seamless environment.

Using the Composite “optimizer” functionality, organizations can take advantage of the relatively new big-data processing environments without delaying the “time to value” of those new data sources into existing implementations. This will be particularly important as organizations begin to ingest data sets like social media interactions; RFID sensor information; and other big-data sources that haven’t matured sufficiently to including in existing data environments, but still have excellent value to the organization.

Telecom Take: Use the Right Tool

As telecom organizations make moves to integrate multiple data sources to enable their “single view of the customer” associated with customer experience management as well as spreading customer support to centralized call centers; telecoms will need a much more robust ability to have consistent and timely data spread across those locations.

For customer experience management, telecoms will need to have proper data virtualization to avoid the age old question from calls to the call center:

“Shouldn’t you already know about my orders and account information?”

For call centers, to provide flexible access to similar data sets across operational (ie billing), analytical (ie fraud management) and external data sources (ie credit reports); a robust virtualization environment will allow for flexible scheduling of call center resources not only in one location but across many without customers having to hear:

“Sorry I don’t have that in my system…”

All in all, I believe that the continued advances in the Composite virtualization suite make it one of the better options for telecoms to overcome the legacy (network, billing) and ‘next generation’ (social, geo-spatial) data silos that seem to impact telecom organizations more than others.

US Mobile Penetration Rates:

As US wireless providers approach a mythical 100% penetration rate in 2011 (see above), wireless carriers are looking for new ways to extend their services within households via machine to machine (M2M) connectivity.

One of the ways to do this is by enabling automobiles with connectivity to report back on vehicle performance, ‘health’ and possibly crash information.  Recently, Vodafone and Hyundai agreed to a collaborative agreement.

These types of arrangements should help not only with building barriers to exist for customers by “locking” them into multiple agreements, but also build revenues as mobile data rates follow their landline and mobile voice cousins along the product maturity curve and the eventual price decline… Hopefully, many years from now.

Are you ready to get a wireless data plan for your car?

Post your comments below or email (John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com) / twitter (@BlueBuffaloGrp) me directly.

Infotainment… Infotainment… Personally, I thought that David Letterman made that word up… I guess I am late to the party…

But in all seriousness, an infotainment system is a fancy term for mobile video and the other informational aspects available on a smartphone.  Specifically IVI or “in-vehicle” infotainment systems are those that reside in cars. Instat estimates  that 35 million in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems are expected to ship in 2015.

This is the continuing push of content from the desktop to the mobile platform.  Wireless carriers will find this situation both an opportunity and a challenge.  There are dollar signs attached with the wonderful world of infotainment.  Just like IPTV and other content delivery avenues.

However, as mobile connectivity and general video quality issues associated with the infotainment concept, wireless carriers will be more and more responsible for the customer care aspects of that content delivery, but with less control.  Also, wireless providers will have cost issues with the delivered content.  As I have said before, Warner Brothers, Disney, etc will want their cut of the revenues to provide that premium content.

Are your telecom organization executives ready for marketing and customer care aspects of deploying in-vehicle infotainment systems?

Post your comments below or email (John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com) / twitter (@BlueBuffaloGrp) me directly.

A wise man once said:

Ain't no need to watch where I'm goin'; just need to know where I've been.

Unfortunately that was a tow truck from a Disney Pixar movie…. While he was driving backwards… Not necessarily the best way to analyze your business or drive a car….err…tow truck. 

But the concept is still valid.  If you have knowledge of where you have been, you can help to re-trace your steps either anecdotally or analytically.

In this the geospatial analysis market is heating up with ESRI making an announcement to be included within the DataMarket in Windows Azure Marketplace.  Making geospatial  analysis available via the cloud, you can encapsulate both the location services and the location of the analysis.

This can be important in the area of operational business intelligence for the telecom industry when you start to think about optimizing truck rolls and other in person customer facing (B2B or B2C) activities.  This analysis can help with both time and coverage associated with scheduling crew activities.

Does your organization have the ability to analyze ‘truck rolls’ for distance optimization? time optimization? both? neither?

Post your comments below or email (John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com) / twitter (@BlueBuffaloGrp) me directly.

As larger data sets start to take root across various industries, it is going to be important to put those “big-data” results into a more manageable picture for end users and analysts.  Many of the existing “big-data” end users are already familiar with the data sets and how they wish to look at those data sets.

However, the true value of “big-data” or analytics on “big-data” is going to be presenting the information to the end user who may still be thinking about analytics in “small-data” ( … or relatively small data… ) terms.

For example, new “big-data” analytics provides a “richness” of information and an increase of the dimensions that “small-data” systems cannot match.  Yet, many users in marketing or product management may not understand how to make the leap from “big-data” aggregates to “big-data” detail because they don’t have the context of the “big-data” detail(s) they are looking at.

Mixing and Match with Big-Data

The twin challenge associated with the ability to handle and analyze “big-data” is the ability to put that analysis into context.  “Big-data” often refers to senor, geographic or application data.  However, not many people in end user/analyst communities have the ability make the leap from those “big-data” details to an end “so what picture?”.

This week Tableau announced the next edition to their business intelligence / data visualization product line – Tableau 6 – which supports the ability to “blend” data sets for end user visualizations that will tell the story that marketing and product management will understand and have that “AHA!” moment.  While the data visualization is nothing “new”, the ability to perform with “big-data” data sets will be the key aspect.  If the visualization takes too long, the marketing analysts and product management teams will lose interest and use less detailed analysis tools. 

Telecom Take

As telecom data rockets further and further for social media, location based services and overall smartphone usage; “big-data” is going to hit head long into telecom BI/DW teams.  And while those teams are struggling with the ingestion of the data, end users are going to demand analytics and visualization tools that don’t hold back their “day jobs” from being completed…

Using data visualization tools, like Tableau’s new offering, will offer the ability to match the potential of the data with promise of the analysis. 

How is your telecom BI/DW team positioned to meet end user requirements for visualizing big-data? Strictly using aggregates? or big-data detail?

Post your comments below or email (John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com) / twitter (@BlueBuffaloGrp) me directly.