Difference between Commercial Open Source and Proprietary - Part 1

In the traditional telecom world we are used to Proprietary software, with a big percentage of this software develop to cater and support a wide spectrum of features and functionalities to please each and every possible user. One issue with such approach is that most users do not actually use a big percentage of the software since they do not need the extra features and functionalities, however they already have paid for it and continue to pay for it. In my own little world this is called a waste of money, why pay for something you don’t use or will never use. Alright most vendors would say they offer integration services on top of the software, but is this not simply charging the customer twice? Just imagine you as a customer you pay for a piece of software and use 10% of its capabilities and to maximize that 10% you will need to buy integration or consulting services which might even be more expensive than the software itself. Should this proprietary software vendors simply develop a piece of software that is actually useful without having to squeeze the customer with high prices? Further to that every user has to pay a license fee, making large scale us of such software in a company very very expensive…

With open source software like Google’s Android, Linux, amanziTel’s Wireless Explorer the core platform is open source and free. This means that users do not have to pay for the core software, and being open source customers can develop their own applications or buy it somewhere else. With such flexibility and freedom is it not better for every customer? The answer of course lies within the customer’s strategies, principles and way of working. If they aim to minimize the cost spent in software then they should look for a solution where the total cost of ownership is lowest. The question is how do you as a user or customer calculate the total cost of ownership?

In pursuit of the future in network operations

Two years ago when we launched AmanziTel we wrote a simple website that communicates the vision of our products, solutions and services. After a year we found that bigger players in the market started to copy the concept and market it. Does that mean that we have accurately predicted the type of solutions required by network operators today or are we simply listening to the customers? Do we truly believe that our ideas were ground breaking and worth copying by others? The truth is we simply listened to our customers and added bits and pieces of our own innovations. And we misled the competition....

Two years on we are about to launch a new website that will communicate our current solutions, products and services. It will show our ideas and what we have achieved… This in itself what it is today and not the future. The future solutions are currently being developed and we will not make the description of the solution publicly marketed until we actually have another hundreds of networks using it. If you are part of the 140 networks using or trying our current solution, everything in the new website is old since we most likely have presented it to you already or you are already using it.

So today we can correlate multiple data sources from the network on a multi-vendor and multi-technology environment and not only that we can correlate business intelligence with actual network operations giving an end-to-end view of the business lifecycle. We can also locate all mobiles in the network to an accuracy of 3 meters, further to that we can enable operators to use all mobiles in the network report their individual performance measurement and subscriber preferences much like any business analytics do today. We also automate the process of optimizing the network and protecting the network from any threats or vulnerabilities.

Having said that what are we going to release in the future? Well like we did in the past 2 years it is something we communicate directly to customers on our presentations and meetings and not something you will be able to read on our website… Is this strategy future proof? Only time will tell……

Inventing the Future...

With so much time spent flying between Europe and Asia and being having to accept bad airline service since I didn’t have a choice, I somehow manage to thinker and contemplate on how can we as individuals or organizations predict future technologies. Of course it is fair to say that predicting the correct technology in the future for a particular application or service is very very hard… and in this case only a few manage and become very very rich… Now I know of a man called James Martin, considered by many as the father of modern IT having been responsible for the “outbreak” of information engineering and have accurately picked technologies in his future. If we can only do that we can perhaps anticipate the next big thing… The question is how? Is there a method to the madness? Is it an art? Or is it pure luck?

We have seen a handful few in our lifetime achieve such a feat, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are shining examples so as a few others. How do we emulate them? It is a gift? A skill that we learn or a knowledge that we adopt? Or is it a product of our own creativity and in some cases a moment of insanity?

Is there anyone out there who can give a single clue on how to invent the future, without having to charge a huge amount of money for doing so? There are a few people that lays claim to such talent but then again they want you to pay for their insight whether it is buying a book or paying huge consulting fees, which by the most large companies do.

Defining Customer Service

I am currently flying over Asia at around 10000 meters as I write this entry. It’s been a while since my last entry due to a very busy schedule of getting the Wireless Explorer released to very important customers, on-going trials of several clever applications and development of new and exciting technologies… and of course running the business in its entirety. The Amanzi Wireless Explorer now have more than 140 networks using it, trying it or have tried it, which is phenomenal considering the first customer release was just a bit more than 6 months ago. With all this advancements in the company one thing we shall and will never forget or get tired of is delivering excellent customer services that exceeds our customer’s exectations.

Talking about customer service, I was asked by an airline attendant why would I travel to Jakarta for a few hours of meetings. The attendant reasoned that my travel time (more than 50 hours in total) is longer than my stay in Jakarta (less than 24 hours). My answer was simple… Customer Service, that’s how we provide customer service. The attendant mentioned that the airline I am flying with provides a similar level of customer service, although my expectations were not high since I have taken the same airline before over long flights and the service they provide is not even close to an acceptable customer service based on the AmanziTel standard.

Anyway after waiting a few minutes to board the plane I was greeted by a smiling and friendly flight stewardess…. The first time for this particular airline.. so there is hope that I will enjoy and relax on the flight. Well what I wanted to do on the first leg of the flight is sleep to synchronize myself to the time zone I am going to… After about 30 minutes in the flight I was woken up by a stewardess asking chicken or beef and without any trace of smile on her face. To my astonishment and bewilderment I was given beef before I can answer. Being polite I gladly accepted, after downing what constitute to be my dinner I went on the business of sleeping. Arriving at the first stop of a 2 stop flight the gangway is broken so we have to take a bus to the terminal with no guidance or explanation from the crew. Again the same observation I had, none of the ground crew or air crew produce a genuine smile. They all seem to pout while assisting every passenger… Now I wonder where the customer service went... Same story on the flight, all meal services was provided with no smile, no courtesy and stewards that seem discontent with their work and who feel like they are far superior than the passengers they are serving. Now in AmanziTel this is not tolerated, we extend our services by going the extra mile to ensure our customers are truly satisfied with our deliveries.

Why am I on the way to Indonesia, it is because we value our customers and we would like them to feel the find of service they will be getting from us, it could be that a high level executive address their requirements or it could be one of our developers… the service will always be the same, that is best-in-class, the diamond standard…