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Peter
| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

May 2017

You are browsing the archive for May 2017.

IBM's Mandate to Employees

May 30, 2017

So IBM is taking a bunch of flack from pulling people back into the office. Some departments are not going to be virtual or remote any more -mostly marketing and design. There are debates across America about this. IBM was the pioneer of work from home with up to 40% of its employees working from home.

Culture Impacts Employees

May 30, 2017

A study out by Gallup shows that more than 50% of employees leave a job due to the Manager. Companies need to invest in training managers if they want to stop turnover.

Gallup also did a poll that showed that 32.9% of U.S. employees are "engaged" in the workplace in February.

How Much Do They Spend?

May 25, 2017

On a call today discussing marketing in our sector - and how there is very little of it. I had to take a look at what companies spend on marketing. Here is the list of the top 20 advertisers.

  • AT&T - $3.6bn
  • Samsung - $3.3bn
  • NIKE - $3.2bn
  • Google - $3.2bn
  • T-Mobile - $2.9bn
  • Verizon - $2.7bn
  • Chase - $2.7bn

Chase and Nike are to give you an idea what big brands spend.

3 Ways Cisco's Channel is Better than Yours

May 25, 2017

I often hear how channel heads want to model their channel after Cisco or Microsoft. Well, you forget 3 large factors that are missing from telecom.

Microsoft or Cisco products for their clients.

Merger Synergies and CX

May 24, 2017

Sonus is merging with GENBAND. Last year Sonus bought Taqua for $20M. The talk is all about synergies and higher EBITDA. Oh and Accretive. No talk about how they will better serve their customers.

Telecom Tidbits # 2457

May 23, 2017

Some help with Robocalls. Pass it along.

Private equity firm, TPG, last year acquired RCN and Grande. Now they are grabbing Wave Broadband in the Northwest for $2.36B. They will combine all 3 - Wave, Grande and RCN - to make a larger MSO.

How Will the Consolidation Affect Sales?

May 19, 2017

If everyone did integration in a similar fashion to the XO-Verizon deal, it would be great. Slow and steady. It isn't a sprint; it is a marathon. No confusion or chaos.

What Happened to LinkedIn?

May 18, 2017

This week there have been two posts on my feed about "We can connect but don't spam me!" The discussion was the same on booth threads: "that is cold calling / social selling". Well, no it isn't. If you did the exact same thing at a face to face event, no one would come near you.

Show some creativity AND Patience.

If Starting Today as an Agent

May 16, 2017

If I was starting my telecom agency today, what would I do?

When I started in 1999, I was selling basically one product (Wholesale DSL to ISPs). That was my entry drug of choice. It led to frame relay, ATM, IP Transit, DS1/DS3 and PRIs. But it was a single offering to a very targeted market.

A Look at the Future of Wireline

May 10, 2017

The news out of small ILECs like TDS and Cincinnati Bell is that fiber to the home is selling well but more importantly is increasing retention and lowering churn. (Customer acquisition costs are very high in flat product segments like consumer broadband, cellular service and TV.)

Even Fairport, acquired by RLEC Consolidated, is upgrading its network for higher speeds. Some of this is due to the fact that cable is winning the broadband war.

Tidbits (Part 2456)

May 9, 2017

BroadSoft Adds PaaS to Cloud Portfolio. Funny, I thought that BroadCloud was their version of PaaS. NoJitter blames this launch on the acquisition of VoIP Logic, a white-label customer that Broadsoft bought for $13M in 2016. As one BSFT client stated it, "BSFT will force every customer to be on their cloud platform at some point." Yeah, it wasn't what they signed up for but BSFT has to feed the Wall Street beast.

Are They Moving to Cloud?

May 9, 2017

From RC's Channel head, Zane Long, "As organizations continue to migrate their IT infrastructures and applications to the cloud, I've noticed something interesting happening. Initially, the migration was driven by sales and marketing. Yes, some insightful IT and business managers saw the value proposition of the cloud early on--lower costs, the off-loading of hardware ownership and maintenance of equipment, automated software upgrades, responsibility for security, business continuity and more. Until recently, though, education and persuasion were required to give other organizations the confidence to take the leap."

Like Cars in the 1950s

May 5, 2017

Did you know that from 1920-1960 there were hundreds of US auto manufacturers? Then it collapsed to just 5 - Ford, GM, Chrysler, AMC and Studebaker, according to Wikipedia.

Most of the collapse was due to the Big 3 claimed 94% of the market by 1955. So a hundred other companies were competing for 6% of the market.

Some Thoughts for the Day (Part 2455)

May 3, 2017

Despite growing 93 percent from a year ago, Microsoft's Azure hasn't made a dent in Amazon's share of the $10 billion cloud market, according to Synergy Research. Amazon's AWS held steady at 33 percent of the worldwide market share of cloud infrastructure service providers in the first quarter, according to Synergy. And though it grew just 43 percent in the first quarter, Amazon's cloud revenue is more than the next five providers combines, Synergy estimates.

It isn't a sprint.

The Red Velvet Rope

May 2, 2017

Popular nightclubs have a red velvet rope next to the line outside. Outback Steakhouse did better when there was a line outside. Everyone wants to go to the popular place, the in place. Today, the VIP Room or VIP Experience are hot luxury items.

Beating the SD-WAN Drum

May 2, 2017

I was shocked that Cisco bought Viptela for >$600M. I thought Cisco would buy Velocloud. (Someone will soon.) With Viptela, Cisco keeps Verizon as a customer. It also gets partnerships with CA, SingTel, Westcon, EMC and zScaler.

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