Futurum Tech Webcast

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, Futurum lead analyst Shelly Kramer is joined by Sodales' Kirsty Thompson for a conversation about enterprise health, safety, and environment management software. With workplace-related injuries costing businesses upwards of $1 billion per week, not counting the very real hits to productivity and morale for employees for whom well-being is a key concern, there's no time like the present for business leaders to transition business operations from relying on poorly managed, siloed employee health and safety programs to best-in-class solutions.

In this episode of The 5G Factor, part of the Futurum Tech Webcast family of content, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Ron Westfall for our weekly look at what's happening the world of 5G. Our conversation today explored the following:

• The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is good news for efforts to bridge the digital divide. Passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the good news that brings for expanding broadband and 5G connectivity across the nation, closing the digital divide and allocating millions to a variety of different initiatives, as well as $100 million to each of the states.
• Data from the GSMA report: 2021 The Mobile Economy North America including the fact that in North America, $1 trillion of mobile technologies and services generated 4.4% of GDP in North America in 2020, which is a contribution equivalent to $1 trillion of economic value added. Wonder why we focus so much on 5G — these numbers are only going up! Ron broke down growth we can expect ahead, content strategies for CSPs and partnerships we're seeing, along with some info on private networks, which we've covered here frequently
• Qualcomm had an impressive Investor Day 2021 event this last week and we wrapped the show talking about some of Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon's vision, the diversification strategies the company has and is embracing, and how that's paying off and will continue to do so for the technology giant now and in the future.

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series, I had the pleasure of being joined by PROS Ulrich von Beck. Ulrich is the VP of pre-sales/strategic consulting for PROS, and our conversation explored where digital transformation is headed, and the role future proofing will play in organizations in our post-pandemic world.

PROS provides artificial intelligence-based software as a service offerings that help organizations optimize every shopping and selling interaction, enabling companies to deliver personalizes offers to buyers, at scale, with speed, precision, and consistency.

In the last 18 months we've seen digital transformation happen on steroids. Organizations have completely rethought business models, technology investment priorities have shifted, and the way we work has changed. So, what do businesses need to do to keep moving forward? Will certain technologies play a bigger role in operational models? That's exactly what Ulrich and I will be exploring in today's conversation.

The highlights of our conversation centered around the following:

• What does future proofing an organization mean, and what does it look like, specifically, in an enterprise organization?
• The role of AI in futureproofing, and how AI can help organizations move from digital transformation to operating a digital business?
• While it's important, future proofing doesn't happen overnight. We explored challenges customers will have to deal with and thoughts around surmounting those challenges.
• Organizations are infusing AI into business operations, we explored some use cases and discussed what's ahead with AI-powered offerings.

We wrapped the show with a conversation about what excites us most about the future of business and what we're seeing today.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series, sponsored by Intel, I am joined by Patty Kummrow, Vice President Network and Edge Group, General Manager Ethernet Products Group at Intel Corporation for a conversation around Intel's Infrastructure Processing Units development.

Exploring Intel's IPU Development

In our conversation we discussed the following:

• Highlights from Intel InnovatiON
• An exploration into IPU and why Intel is excited for this new adventure
• The drivers of IPU development and the role it plays in end-to-end network
• Why storage innovation is so critical for our current ecosystem
• A look into the future of IPU development and what listeners should expect next

As always it was a great conversation and one you don't want to miss. If you want to learn more about Intel's IPU development you can visit their website. Want to watch the video that DAniel and Patty referenced? Click here. Be sure to check out the complete episode below.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series, I am joined by Christian Block, SVP & GM, RFFE, QUALCOMM Germany RFFE GmbH, for conversation around the latest happenings with Qualcomm's RFFE portfolio.

Digging into Qualcomm's RFFE Portfolio Expansions

In our conversation we discussed the following:

• Why the latest RFFE expansions are so important for continued growth
• An exploration of why Qualcomm's role in the RFFE space is critical for areas like IoT and automotive
• What is driving the RFFE growth
• What catalysts we can expect to see to continue to drive growth

It was an excellent conversation with several of insightful tidbits. If you are interested in learning more about Qualcomm's RFFE portfolio, be sure to check out their website.

A couple of weeks ago at the MWC LA 2021 event, IBM announced that it would be partnering with both Cisco and Palo Alto Networks. My colleague and fellow analyst Ron Westfall and I covered this partnership in a recent episode of our webcast The 5G Factor and, yet again, these are examples of strategic partnerships being the way forward, especially as it relates to the 5G ecosystem.

These partnership deals between IBM and Cisco and IBM and Palo Alto Networks is all about slice lifecycle management and mitigating security challenges, both of which will become increasingly more important as 5G becomes more prevalent, with more customers and more 5G related service offerings proliferate.

The IBM Cisco partnership is about the pairing of IBM's Cloud Pak platform with Cisco's Crosswork service, which is intended to facilitate the automation and abstraction of the complexity of managing the virtualization of radio and network core.

Much like with the Samsung Ciena partnership we discussed earlier in our webcast, companies are focused on slice lifecycle management, slice assurance, and slice troubleshooting, which are critical to maintaining service level agreements, so they're laying the foundation for that here.

IBM and Palo Alto Networks' partnership is about security and helping to mitigate the security challenges that telco operators have as they deploy 5G services and edge services.

Why is this important? IBM has reported that some 75% of operators have experienced incidents of fraud, with 61% reporting that network security threats have increased significantly in the last two years — threat actors haven't hesitated to take advantage of a global pandemic to wreak havoc where possible.

Security virtualization is all about shifting security functions from dedicated hardware appliances to software that can either be moved between commodity hardware or run in the cloud. With the increased virtualization of compute and network environments, there's a demand for the virtualization of security functions in a portable way, so they can move along with the apps and compute workloads wherever needed.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer assess the 5G ecosystem implications of the Rakuren Symphony, Intel, and Juniper Networks collaboration to develop Symware, a carrier-grade Open RAN solutions aimed at modernizing radio cell sites by using the latest cloud-native architecture and capabilities.

Their conversation emphasized:

• Why the Symware multipurpose edge alliance can provide communications service providers with the flexibility to densify their network, support new features while reducing the required hardware per site, and ultimately accelerate Open RAN deployments.
• How the Symware solution combines the containerized cell site routing functionality and a containerized DU (Distributed Unit) one a single general purpose server platform, which can ease adoption complexity and decrease mobile operator capital and operational expenditures.
• The use of Intel's Xeon D Processors and FlexRAN reference software showcasing Intel portfolio innovation by enabling the consolidation of RAN workloads into a single Symware server as well as fulfilling the performance, capacity, and cost requirements of 5G RAN environments.
• How the integration of Juniper's routing technology and ORAN into a single platform can leverage disaggregation techniques and routing stacks to advance 5G networking slicing capabilities key to CSP 5G monetization objectives.

Shelly and Ron concluded that the three-way collaboration gives mobile operators the streamlined Open RAN solution along with the smart security, automation capabilities, and supply chain confidence needed to ramp up their Open RAN plans especially as they are increasingly candid about making Open RAN integral to their overall 5G network build and business objectives.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer assess the partnership between Qualcomm and Nothing, a start-up founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei and dedicated to building a world without barriers between people and technology.

Their conversation focused on:

• The 5G ecosystem implications of Nothing's first device launch of a transparent earbud - ear (1) - in August 2021that comes with active noise cancellation and a retail price of $99, selling more than 100,000 units in the first two months.
• Why Qualcomm's alliance is much ado about Nothing, especially in how the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform can power innovation of Nothing 5G products down the line.
• Nothing raised in $50 million in a new Series A round extension backed by strategic and private investors setting the stage for speculation on Nothing portfolio development direction.

Ron and Shelly see Qualcomm's collaboration with Nothing as a solid bet that Nothing can beat something alternatives setting the stage for Snapdragon-fueled device innovations across the 5G mobile ecosystem.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer examine the cutting edge 5G capabilities that T-Mobile is showcasing at T-Mobile Park, home to Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners and why 5G-powered Augmented Reality (AR) experiences and 5G Mixed Reality (XR) application are ready to deliver immersive and interactive sports venue experiences.

Their conversation focused on:

• The use of Nreal smart glasses to view an enhanced AR scoreboard and attain real-time MLB stat cast updates.
• How partners, such as Omnivor provider of real-time face-to-face volumetric conversations for holographic applications and Iconic Engine, a supplier of XR streaming applications, are fueling T-Mobile 5G smart stadium innovations.
• The application of breakthrough 5G drone technology enabled first-person views of the Field of Dreams ballpark movie site as well as broadcast MLB at Field of Dreams over T-Mobile's 5G network.
• Why using 5G technology to capture key MLB data such as the speed of fielders running to catch a ball, the velocity of pitches thrown, and the launch angle for each batter augments that overall stadium experience for MLB aficionado

Shelly and Ron surmised that the 5G-powered T-Mobile Park XR/AR experiences advance the ability of T-Mobile to monetize 5G smart stadium services and that combining 5G smart stadium capabilities with 10-cent beer nights would make for an unparalleled experience.

In today's episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Cybersecurity Shorts Series, I'm joined by Dell Technologies' John Boyle and Rick Martinez. John is a cybersecurity and supply chain defense product manager and Rick is a senior distinguished engineer and a senior director at Dell. Our conversation today revolved around the current state of the cybersecurity industry, supply chain attacks, fed policy and orders, why zero trust is a thing these days, and more.

Some highlights of the discussion with Rick and John included:

• Recent breaches and trends. Discussion around the major cybersecurity breaches that have recently happened, including:
• Colonial pipeline
• JBS Foods
• New Cooperative hack

and response and trends around those attacks, as well as how/whether COVID and other things have contributed to the frequency of attacks.

• Speaking of supply chain. Supply chain attacks are expected to quadruple in 2021 – and why a posture of 'strong security protection' is no longer enough.
• President Biden's executive order. This order, signed at the end of July to protect America's critical infrastructure and what that involves.
• Zero Trust. We're hearing a lot about zero trust being the right security posture for the future. Rick elaborates a bit on that and provided some examples.
• What industries are most at risk? Our conversation moved to thoughts on what industries are most at risk and how organizations who don't have a security posture in place are struggling.
• What can businesses do to protect themselves and some key technologies that can be adopted that will make a difference.
• Overview of Dell security offerings both above and below the OS worth considering.