Futurum Tech Webcast

In this episode of Enterprising Insights, host Keith Kirkpatrick discusses his predictions about enterprise SaaS applications and the market that he made back in late 2023, including generative AI, personalization, tech stack consolidation, market consolidation, industry-specific software, and consumption pricing. He will also address the underlying elements driving each trend and discuss which companies in the market are being impacted.

Finally, he will close out the show with the "Rant or Rave" segment, where Kirkpatrick picks one item in the market, and he will either champion or criticize it.

On this episode of DevOps Dialogues: Insights & Innovations, I am joined by Catchpoint's Mehdi Daoudi, CEO and Brandon DeLap, Senior Solutions Engineer for a discussion on Catchpoint IPM, Internet traffic and application availability.

Our conversation covers:

• What is Catchpoint and the impacts to Internet performance monitoring

• What is resilience and the ability to know that you're going to have a problem and that you can recover from that problem

• Modernization of applications. Moving away from control the server, to control the code

In this episode of Enterprising Insights, host Keith Kirkpatrick covers industry news from the past week, including a briefing with Cloud Eagle, a new product announcement from NetSuite, and Adobe's terms and conditions updated. He closes out the show with a Rant focused on the declining customer experience among American consumers, as tracked by Forrester Research.

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things across the 5G ecosystem, we review key 5G ecosystem developments including recent deft moves by top-tier communications service providers (CSPs) such as BT Group and ServiceNow expanding their relation to vastly improve the CX and workforce experience, Vodafone Germany and FlyNex taking to the drone skies, and Altice using the Google Cloud Application Integration architecture to surmount legacy-borne complexity.

Our analytical review drilled down on:

BT Group ServiceNow Strengthen Relationship to Elevate CX. BT Group and ServiceNow expand their strategic relationship to improve customer and workforce experiences. The multi-year agreement will extend ServiceNow service management capabilities to all BT Group units to drive savings, efficiency, and improved customer experience. BT Group will also use ServiceNow Service Bridge for an automated connection between BT and its customers and plans to pilot ServiceNow's Now Assist for Telecom Service Management (TSM) to power GenAI capabilities for internal and customer-facing teams. We delve into why this deal uplifts BT's AI credentials and validates ServiceNow's market momentum in the CSP space, executing on ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott's vision of embedding intelligence across every workflow to accelerate the digital transformation of key customers such as BT.

Vodafone Germany and FlyNex Take to the Drone Skies. Vodafone Germany and data collection company FlyNex have launched DroNet Hub, a comprehensive online platform to help businesses plan and manage commercial drone flights. The new 'DroNet Connect Stream' tariff comes with a high-speed data volume of 500GB (gigabytes), optionally expandable to 1 TB (terabytes), ensures a consistent transmission of live data from the drone directly to the Hub. Data from the mobile network is also integrated, to help understand the connectivity and population density that lies ahead on a flight path. We examine why the DroNet Hub all-in-one platform, that includes planning, organizing the flight, and automated data collection and reporting, represents an innovative breakthrough in CSP support and delivery of drone services.

Altice Enlists Google Clouds Application Integration to Tame Complexity. Altice Group, through the validation process of Altice Labs, is spotlighting that the introduction of Application Integration has proven especially effective in managing the complexity of its business processes and operations consisting of a growing number of legacy components and intricate workflows overseen by an enterprise service bus. Application Integration is Google Cloud's Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) that automates business processes by connecting any application, including home-grown and third-party SaaS, with an intuitive interface that enables the building of intricate flows, data mapping, and the streamlining of operations with pre-built tasks and triggers. We assess how the new architecture manages APIs for Altice systems including CRM, identity management, shopping carts, plus modules supporting the customer journey, billing, and usage charging as well as efficiently interworking with components for operations, OSS/BSS platforms, service quality, and call centers.

In this episode of Infrastructure Matters, hosts Krista Macomber, Steven Dickens, and Camberley Bates discuss their busy week attending various tech conferences. We hear highlights from HPE Discover, emphasizing HPE's advancements in AI and their collaboration with Nvidia. An inside look at Pure Accelerate 2024, focusing on AI, cybersecurity, and application modernization. The episode concludes with reflections on the FinOps X conference and the growing importance of financial operations in the tech industry.

Key topics include:

• HPE Discover showcased HPE's private cloud AI solutions and partnership with Nvidia.

• Pure Accelerate highlighted AI, cybersecurity, and storage optimization efforts.

• Pure Storage's new hardware developments include customized flash drives.

• FinOps X emphasized standardizing financial operations data collection.

• Google integrates AI into its FinOps tools, leveraging its Gemini technology.

On this episode of DevOps Dialogues: Insights & Innovations, host Paul Nashawaty is joined by Jack Poller of Paradigm Technica and Mitch Ashley, analyst and founder of Techstrong Research and Chief Technology Advisor at The Futurum Group, for a discussion on the SDLC and the impacts of security as it is integrated into the pipeline.

Their discussion covers:

• How security is not just security

• Security as a bolt-on afterthought

• Impacts to DevSecOps as it relates to the software release cycles

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things across the 5G ecosystem, we review key 5G ecosystem developments including Microsoft's dramatic scale back of Azure for Operators (AfO) unit, Nokia and Dell strengthening their alliance to help accelerate Cloud RAN deployments, and Ericsson spotlight on how private 5G (P5G) can play integral role in streamlining airport operations.

Our analytical review drilled down on:

Microsoft Conducts Azure for Operators Purge. Microsoft reportedly cut as many as 1,500 jobs at its Azure for Operators and Mission Engineering units, as the move appears to have hit hard the teams responsible for developing network functions, moving on from its 2020 acquisitions of Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks. The move indicates that Microsoft will ultimately look to sell or phase out its Metaswitch and Affirmed-originated application portfolio assets. We explore the ramifications for Microsoft's key telecom rivals such as AWS and Alianza as well as how moving Microsoft's focus on the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) side of the business boosts the likelihood that future engagements will look to combine applications from telco specialists such as Ericsson and Nokia with the Microsoft cloud.

Nokia Dell Show AnyRAN Alliance Progress. Nokia's AnyRAN partnership with Dell is now over a year in the making. Nokia's anyRAN proposition is built to allow operators to flexibly deploy RAN functions using cloud-native containerized software on any cloud infrastructure including public, private or hybrid clouds. Nokia's software-centric approach aligns with Dell's strengths in cloud data center solutions. Nokia and Dell have successfully completed an Open RAN trial with Vodafone Italy, alongside testing of the Cloud RAN management system. We assess why we see the alliance is ready to make tangible breakthroughs as the Nokia Cloud RAN solution is now ready for commercial deployments in H2 2024.

Ericsson Views P5G as Antidote to Legacy Airline Ops. For many years now, airport communications have relied heavily on legacy systems, such as Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA), Project 25 (P25), and Digital Mobile Radio (DMR). While these systems provide basic voice communication, their limited bandwidth renders them unsatisfactory for meeting the burgeoning demand for data and video communications across airport environments – not good. Deploying and maintaining multiple parallel networks, including Wi-Fi networks, is a costly affair. Workers carrying multiple devices for various purposes face cumbersome workflows, and siloed systems and applications lead to operational inefficiencies. We review how firms like Streamwide and Airbus are providing solutions that support the co-existence of TETRA and cellular networks in airport settings, aiding the transition to modernized communication systems. This includes private 5G networks (P5G) that can provide a unified connectivity that works across applications and with existing connectivity like Wi-Fi, promising a future where airports can operate with enhanced efficiency and flexible connectivity for a streamlined travel experience.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, host David Nicholson welcomes Steen Graham, Founder at Scalers AI and Jeremy Johnson, Technical Marketing Engineer at Dell Technologies for a conversation on the democratization of AI through an industrial AI Metaverse solution.

Their discussion covers:

• Insights into the creation and deployment of industrial AI Metaverse solutions.

• The collaborative efforts between Scalers AI and Dell Technologies in advancing AI technologies.

• The impact of AI Metaverse solutions on industry and society.

• Future trends and developments in AI democratization.

On this episode of Marketing Art and Science, Host and CMO Advisor Lisa Martin is joined by SingleStore CMO Madhukar Kumar. Tune into this 30 min discussion, as they explore the symbiotic value of a product-led growth (PLG) strategy on sales and marketing, the dynamic blend of creativity and analytics in marketing at SingleStore, and the influence of AI and emerging technologies on the customer experience.

Their discussion covers:

• Madhukar Kumar's career journey, transitioning from a journalist to a developer to a tech CMO.

• PLG strategies that tightly align sales and marketing and facilitate conversion of customers from freemium to enterprise models.

• The evolving landscape of MarTech and its impact on modern marketing strategies, including the integration of creativity and analytics.

• Insights into the use of AI, gen AI, and emerging technologies in marketing and their influence on the customer experience and key performance metrics.

In this episode of Enterprising Insights, host Keith Kirkpatrick is joined by Robert Kramer, VP and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, to discuss using data to enable ROI from AI deployments. The pair discuss this topic through the lens of several events they attended in recent weeks, including SAP Sapphire, Zoholics, PegaWorld iNspire, and Databricks Summit. The two conclude the show, each contributing a Rave to the Rant and Rave segment.