Futurum Tech Webcast

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 partnership between Vodafone and Ericsson in the deployment of new energy-efficient 5G radios across the London, UK vicinity.

Their conversation covered:

• Vodadone is using Ericsson's antenna-integrated radio solution (AIR 3227) that have produced a daily network energy consumption decrease by an average of 43% daily in relation to previous generations of radio solutions.
• Vodafone's plan to deploy 1500 of the Ericsson AIR 3227 units in Q2 2022 as integral to achieving organization-wide energy and sustainability objectives.
• How competition among the major RAN suppliers is yielding ever lighter compact radio products.
• The society-wide sustainability implications of Vodafone's 5G network energy efficiency breakthroughs.

Ron and Shelly view the Vodafone and Ericsson collaboration as key in advancing energy efficiency metrics in better understanding the success of 5G network deployments and how 5G technology can play a pivotal role in meeting society-wide sustainability goals.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer share their perspective on the Nokia's decision to pause its work in the O-RAN Alliance due to concerns related to working with China-based companies that are on the U.S. Department's restrictive Entity list.

Their conversation addressed:

• Why the O-RAN Alliance is influential across the entire 5G mobile ecosystem and Nokia's decision is important.
• The factors behind Nokia's decision including the shutdown of ZTE in Q2 2018 for running afoul of U.S. trade and economic policies.
• How Nokia's decision amounts to what qualifies only as a kerfuffle since the O-RAN Alliance is one of many major organizations supporting standard-based Open RAN development and that resolving Nokia's concerns are at hand.

Ron and Shelly see Nokia's decision to pause its contributions in the O-RAN Alliance as sound and that the prospect or idea of massive fallout in advancing the cause of Open RAN and Open 5G are over hyped and misplaced.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Shelly Kramer and Ron Westfall provide their perspectives on Ericsson's decision to divest its product research and development activities in Nanjing, China by November 2021.

Their conversation covered:

• Ericsson now has four R&D centers after the Nanjing R&D center divestment resulting in the apparent transfer of over 600 employees to TietoEVRY, a Finnish software provider with offices in China.
• How the move coincides with Ericsson's market share loss to China-based rivals like Huawei and ZTE in China's domestic 5G market.
• Why the decision of Ericsson's leadership to remain committed to the China mobile market is a strategically sound one as China is the global leader in 5G deployments today and is a key testbed for emerging 5G applications and capabilities.
• Why geopolitical tensions and China's recent economic and trade decisions may diminish China's own mobile ecosystem and standing over the long term.

Shelly and Ron agree that doing business in China is becoming increasingly tricky today as developments such as new Edtech market regulations and Jack Ma's reduced presence are indicators that deal-making across the China tech market, including the 5G and mobile sections. will become more challenging.

In this episode of Futurum Tech Webcast series The 5G Factor, Futurum analysts Shelly Kramer and Ron Westfall cover interesting news in the 5G market. This week's conversation included discussions around:

• The announcement by Amdocs that it has been selected by Orange to provide business support systems for Europe's first 5G standalone experimental cloud network in France. This AI and data driven, software-enabled, cloud native network is a two year project and signs of exciting things ahead.
• Nokia's focus on making 5G networks more efficient, with an eye on 6G Nokia and digital twins, and Nokia's novel approach on that front.
• AT&T's partnership with the U.S. Military on 5G-focused R&D experiments with the Naval Postgraduate School, the Department of the Navy's applied research university.
• The National Science Foundation's establishment of SpectrumX, a center for wireless spectrum research in the U.S., focused on how to develop new ways of sharing and managing radio air waves to maximize this limited resource.
• Vodafone's sustainability report released this last week by Vodafone and WPI Economics, showing that 5G and I0T can help reduce C02 emissions in the UK, along with insights on the role digital technology could play in helping the government reach its sustainability goals of slashing emissions by 78% by 2035, and achieving net-zero by 2050.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series I am joined by Shane Orlick, Chief Revenue Officer for WalkMe, for an exciting conversation about the growth of the company over the last year and the expansion of the digital adoption platform in the workplace.

Managing App Sprawl in the Workplace

In our conversation we discussed the following:

• A quick overview of WalkMe and their recent IPO
• An exploration of the massive tech sprawl in the workplace
• The complexity of the sales tech stack
• How data can be leveraged to help organizations mitigate app sprawl
• Real-world customer success stories that solidify WalkMe's position in the market

If you'd like to learn more about WalkMe and their offerings be sure to download our recent research report, Enterprise Guide to Digital Adoption. You can also check out their website or watch the full episode below. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series I am joined by Renen Hallak, Founder and CEO of VAST Data for an exciting conversation about the future of IT and data, and how it is impacting the way we work, live and communicate. It was a fascinating conversation from the leader of this great up-and-coming company.

The Future of IT and Data

In our conversation we discussed the following:

• A quick overview of VAST Data
• An exploration in the high-level shifts we are seeing in enterprise tech
• The opportunities in the data and storage landscape
• How VAST Data works to help organizations overcome the way they typically view storage resources
• Real-world customer success stories that solidify VAST's position in the market

VAST Data is making a name for itself and it will be interesting to continue to follow their journey over the next few months. I expect we will continue to hear great things from the company. If you'd like to learn more about VAST and what they do, check out their website or watch the full episode below. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

In today's episode of The 5G Factor, our newest webcast focused on all things 5G, host Shelly Kramer and fellow analyst Ron Westfall examine the key trends in the 5G market along with 5G-related news of interest.

This show focused on some familiar players in the 5G space, including Ericsson, Vodafone, Qualcomm, Nokia, Verizon, as well as a look at what's happening in the China market as it relates to 5G technology and innovation.

Our discussion today addressed:

• How Ericsson and Vodafone are collaborating to improve 5G network energy consumption across Vodafone's network with London trial validating significant savings using Ericsson's antenna-integrated radio solution
• Ericsson's new radio, which is 51 percent lighter and more compact in design, and the role that will have in optimizing site footprints, making 5G rollout and 4G upgrades faster and easier.
• Why Qualcomm and Ericsson demonstrating first 5G NR (New Radio) call on CBRS spectrum can advance Industry 4.0 use cases including 5G private networks (and why private 5G networks are increasing in popularity)
• A discussion about Ericsson closing a major research center in Nanjing amid a shrinking 5G market in China. Ericsson as long been a major supplier of telecoms equipment in China, but geopolitical climate has had a significant impact on telecos hoping for business as usual in China. Ericsson reported in July that its second quarter revenue in the country dropped by 60% year over year.
• Speaking of Nokia and China, our conversation touched on the implications of Nokia pausing technical work with the O-RAN Alliance due to concerns related to working with China-based companies on the Commerce Department's Entity List and the kerfluffle (one of Ron's favorite words) that may, or may not, be.
• We would up the show talking about Verizon's just announced 10-year 5G partnership with the NFL, promising not only an enhanced fan experience at various stadiums across the U.S., but also affording other enhancements like more innovative ways of player training, team scouting, health guidelines and venue operations as whole. Want to know what stadiums you can experience Verizon's 5G Multi View capabilities in? Well, you'll have to watch or listen to the show.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series I am joined by Gerry Nolan, Worldwide Senior Director: HPE Pointnext Operational Services. Gerry is responsible for the team that enables customer support experience to drive digital transformation journeys. Our conversation covered some recent developments from HPE that are designed to meet the needs of customers that have emerged from the pandemic. It's one you don't want to miss.

Enabling Business Value Through the Five Pillars of Enterprise Care

In our conversation we discussed the following:

• How the pandemic has changed the way organizations invest in technology
• An overview of HPE's Tech Care offering
• A look at HPE's new offering Complete Care
• An exploration of the five pillars of enterprise care that will define next-gen IT services
• The enterprise challenges that are driving the need for Complete Care

HPE Pointnext Complete Care offering sets a new benchmark for enterprise-wide services and support with its global coverage, depth and breadth of technical abilities, simplified framework and deployment model, and streamlined procurement and consumption-based pricing. If you'd like to learn more about the new offering be sure to check out our latest white paper Enabling Business Value Through the Five Pillars of Enterprise Care on the topic.

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer discussed expansion of the Boingo Wireless AWS partnership with Boingo Wireless integrating AWS edge and cloud services with the company's own converged network offering and its impact on select industry verticals.

Their discussion covered:

• How the Boingo Wireless AWS partnership is using DAS (distributed antenna systems), WiFi, and private networks to improve the overall wireless experience.
• The partnership's focus on key verticals such as airports, stadiums, manufacturing, and healthcare/medical facilities as well as large enterprises with advanced wireless networking needs and how it can accelerate adoption of cloud-based wireless services.
• Why the expanded partnership can play a pivotal role in delivering the touchless experience to wireless network users.

Ron and Shelly find the expanded Boingo Wireless AWS alliance delivers the capabilities required to augment the overall wireless user experience, including touchless interactions, and demonstrates how ecosystem collaboration can bring out the improved outcomes through the interworking of 5G and WiFi technologies and that 5G and WiFi are not conflicting technologies in many key use case scenarios.

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 why the Mavenir acquisition of Telestax improves the Mavenir Engage proposition and alters the competitive dynamics of the Communications Platform as a service (CPaaS) market.

Their discussion covered:

• How Mavenir's 5G and mobile networking expertise can swiftly differentiate the CPaaS capabilities of the Mavenir Engage platform as many of the established CPaaS providers, such as Vonage and Twilio, as well as tech titan like Cisco, Microsoft, and AWS targeting the space, don't have such in-house capabilities today
• Why 5G and API enablement are instrumental to unlocking enterprise value across verticals such as IoT, smart cities, and connected car, as well as providing turnkey applications and boosting use case networking for logistics, fleet management, AI/ML chatbots, voice biometrics verification, immersive commerce/entertainment, and additional use cases.
• How the deal strengthens Mavenir's portfolio to address emerging WFH, BYOD, and CPaaS security requirements across enterprise and managed service environments.

Ron and Shelly see Mavenir making additional inroads in the CPaaS realm as operators increasingly prioritize 5G monetization and CPaaS technology evolves to assimilate a wider range of mobile/5G capabilities that fulfill digital workforce demands.