Next Generation Communications Blog

Cloud

How Service Providers Can Capitalize on the Enterprise Cloud Market

By Beecher Tuttle

With the demand for cloud services expanding rapidly, service providers are in a unique position to exploit new markets and generate new revenue, in addition to benefiting from the significant capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) savings associated with a cloud infrastructure.

However, to fully capitalize on this market opportunity, service providers need to develop an accurate sense of current and future market conditions as well as enterprise attitudes and perceptions of the cloud.

In an effort to provide a more granular look at these conditions and attitudes  Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) recently conducted a global study, “Soaring into the Cloud,” involving nearly 4,000 IT decision makers (ITDMs) from medium, large and multi-national companies.

ALU researchers found that 78 percent of companies are currently employing at least one cloud-based application, with organizations in tech, professional services and manufacturing/defense leading the way. Healthcare, government and education enterprises rely less on the cloud, but not by any significant margin.

A New Conversation Experience Demands New Go-To-Market Strategies


By Susan Campbell

The time is right for service providers to recognize new opportunities in converged services strategies as we consistently move toward an all-IP world. With convergence in place, the flexibility to deliver new services and business models is enabled. At the same time, a holistic, go-to-market strategy is essential to support new opportunities in this space.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article, Converged Services Go To Market stresses that service development is key to staying competitive in today’s market. With constantly changing dynamics, it’s critical that service providers participate the right way in the right markets. The traditional methods for doing business have to evolve to include multi-sided business models that support more sophisticated settlement models, partner ecosystems, new delivery channels and new ways to measure success.

The Monetization of Mobile Apps


By: Nora Maene, Digital Media Solutions Marketing Director, Alcatel-Lucent

Global mobile traffic has increased with a factor of 30 in 5 years time; 6 billion mobile apps have been downloaded in 2010. Besides being a challenge, this explosive growth also presents an opportunity for communication service providers (CSPs) to engage in new ecosystems and business models – embracing cloud services and working with over-the-top players to transform application and content value chains.

Today, a large portion of the return for mobile applications comes from the mobile data revenues that they drive (growing from $260 billion in 2010 to $500 billion in 2015). Given that mobile data revenue is more than a 100-fold the revenues from mobile apps purchases, it is clear that stimulating mobile data consumption is the primary monetization vehicle for service providers.

With a need to increase mobile data usage - and changing market dynamics – it is clear that CSPs have to launch new application services in their markets as soon as possible to monetize the mobile application opportunity.

Service Providers' Digital Media Opportunity: Retailing Applications, e-Books, Games, Music, etc. to Any Connected Device


By: Wim Van Daele, Director, Communications – Mobile Commerce, Video & Immersive Communications - Alcatel-Lucent

 

In 2010, almost 11 billion applications were downloaded through app stores worldwide; by 2013, this number is expected to mount to 60 billion downloads (a five-fold increase in three years)1. At a time when many operators are experiencing declining voice average revenue per user (ARPU) and subscriber growth rates, they are embracing the digital media opportunity to help drive additional data/media revenues and new device sales by leveraging evolving application and content value chains.

But very often, solutions addressing this opportunity are implemented in a way that has not been very well considered: they foresee “stovepipe” infrastructures for every content type and screen – resulting in increased complexity/cost, and a mediocre user experience with little room for cross-selling and bundled service offerings.

Transforming M2M Communications via the Cloud

By Erin Harrison

In a hyper-connected world and the growth of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, the opportunity for service providers is significant. By leveraging their network assets, service providers are in a position to transform M2M communications via the cloud into a value-added services business.

Why Cloud Services are in Most Enterprises' Future


By Beecher Tuttle

The cost-effective, scalable and flexible nature of cloud services have made them exceedingly popular with enterprises of all sizes. As such, the cloud – along with the parallel convergence of information technology, telecom and media – has given communication service providers (CSPs) substantial opportunities to increase revenues and profits.  These manifest themselves in a number of different market segments that leverage cloud computing capabilities and include Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

The benefits  cloud services provide enterprises – and the associated revenue generating opportunities for CSPs – were recently documented in an article entitled, “Enterprise Cloud Services Come of Age,”  which was authored by Alcatel-Lucent's Xavier Martin and Annie Ohayon-Dekel.  In it they explain how and why SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS market segments are expected to enjoy 15 percent, 61 percent and 27 percent CAGR growth over the next ten years.

The Challenges of Evaluating Services as Individual or Collective Customer Experiences

By Oliver Krahn, Guest Contributor, Customer Experience Transformation Lead, Alcatel-Lucent

Customer experience management (CEM) focuses on the relationship between service providers and their subscribers, and has become a critical priority in the industry.  However, the management solution chosen by service providers to meet the needs of their diverse customer bases can differ widely.

There are two ways of looking at the options:

  • Considering the subscribers as a collective group and evaluating a statistical average of experience.
  • Accepting and appreciating each individual as (s)he uses the services provided.

Network Operators Need to Prepare for Booming M2M Traffic

By Erin Harrison

The so-called “Internet of Things” is expected to connect 15 billion devices by 2015, demanding a new approach to communications business models, operations and technologies.  As a result, driven in no small measure by the dramatic projected increase in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, wireless network operators are in a position where they need to prepare for an explosion of signaling traffic, according to a recent Alcatel-Lucent TechZine item, "Getting Ready for M2M Traffic Growth."

A New Approach to Operational Excellence for MSPs

By Erin Harrison


In today’s ever-changing telecom market, operational excellence is more important than ever for managed service providers.

In a recent whitepaper, "On The Road To Operational Excellence, Alcatel-Lucent describes a model that managed service providers can use to improve operations in support of customers’ needs for enhancing quality of experience (QoE).

Leveraging the Network to Successfully Deliver Cloud Services


By Erin Harrison

Networks are crucial assets, which service providers can leverage to build data centers that deliver cloud services successfully.

According to a recent Alcatel-Lucent article, "The Network-Enabled Service Provider Cloud," services provided through the cloud are a natural extension of the virtual private network (VPN) and hosting capabilities offered by service providers today – they’re also a significant business opportunity.

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