As we slide into 2016, the web is full of predictions. (Bill Miller's UC predictions are here.)
2015 consisted of M&A, musical chairs and hacks. Next year, more of the same.
We are ending 2015 with a revelation that Juniper's software has had malicious code in it for a couple of years
"At the Connected Health conference, [director of Verizon's RISK Team] revealed that it had investigated 1,931 incidents affecting 392 million records in 25 countries." [source]
TMC CEO Rich Tehrani has a report of cyber attacks in the Greater NYC area.
IoT will only make matters worse when it comes to hacks. Every drone is a possible hack. We still take security for granted - or worse as something to not worry about. (When was the last time you changed any passwords?)
Next year, we will have the Dell-EMC merger and most likely the Charter-TWC-BrightHouse merger. This will result in massive layoffs and worse customer servcie. For the Tampa Bay area, both ISPs will be changing in 2016 as Frontier takes over FL, CA and TX from Verizon in a $10B deal. Broadband is going to suck at home in 2017.
RLECs are consolidating almost as fast as the VoIP companies. Both for the same reason: survival!
RLECs have gone through a massive reform of USF, which has upended their business model. Telco TV, Hosted VoIP, fiber to the tower and rural cellular are the means to which RLECs are hoping to survive, but consolidation is always viewed as a way to scale and be profitable.
FCC Rural voice rules will also hamper them a little in 2016.
Data center is still hot. Private money is buying up data centers for their REITs. That won't change as cloud services are housed in data centers. And it looks like where the ROI is right now. Plus it looks a lot like real estate - and old money understands real estate!
Cablecos will be pushing hard for DOSCIS 3.x and to take even more market share from the ILECs in both the residential and the SMB markets. All about broadband now. It might also be about threatening to rollout MVNOs but we'll seeif they are serious. Quad plays haven't really burned up the market yet.
Internet Unicorns will still be the talk of the town - until they try to IPO!
Look for more strategic partnerships between CLECs and IT specialty shops, especially security, due to the increase in hacks and concerns (and liability).
Lastly, software companies, especially UC shops, will add more functionality to their software offerings in the way of integration, analytics and BPI (business process improvement). See more about this at ITEXPO.
BTW, the Merger Between Alteva, Inc. and MBS Holdings, Inc. (Momentum) has Completed according to an email this morning. I was told that shareholders at Alteva wouldn't vote Yes for this due to the share price offer. I guess that person was incorrect.
