June Redux – Perspectives From 4 EventsJune Redux – Perspectives From 4 Events

Most of my writing has a singular focus, but sometimes you need to step back to see the forest for the trees. That’s what June was like, and after attending four very different industry events, I came away with some broad perspectives gained over a short period of time. That alignment of the stars doesn’t happen often, and I’ve distilled things down in this post.

Canadian Telecom Summit -- Privacy, Security, and the Surveillance State

The long-running CTS conference, in Toronto, is really the only major industry event in Canada for telecom. While the telecom focus is too narrow for the No Jitter audience -- and rather anachronistic for the times -- it’s the closest thing you’ll find in Canada for the overall state of communications technologies.

The best takeaway for me came during the cybersecurity panel, featuring Ann Cavoukian, who is best known for developing the Privacy by Design framework. We tend to look at cybersecurity through a technology lens, but the implications go much further, and panels this like help keep that bigger picture in perspective.

Like anything else, we must understand the problem set around cybersecurity before we can address it. In this context, the panel did a good job clarifying the distinction between privacy and security. When IT decision-makers listen to pitches from collaboration players about their cybersecurity capabilities, they shouldn’t overlook these nuances. Privacy is about personal control -- it’s very much about the individual, Cavoukian noted. Security , on the other hand, is really of greater concern to IT, where the need is to protect the network infrastructure and all the organization’s data flowing through it.

There’s a lot more to consider here, but the main idea is that security doesn’t ensure privacy. While the panel framed this in the realm of public policy and smart cities (Toronto is struggling to balance all this with its Sidewalk Labs initiative) -- the issues are equally relevant for enterprises. We’re getting into the “unchallenged, unregulated and unknown” as technology reshapes modern concepts of privacy, Cavoukian cautioned.

More pointedly, tech giants -- whose agendas may not align all that well with the public good -- are doing this reshaping. If we go too far down this path, we’ll be forced to make trade-offs between privacy and security. Conversely, if guided by principled forms of public policy, we can have both -- personal control over our privacy and a secure environment for all the data to slosh around in. This is an existential challenge for smart cities, and if there’s too much compromise, the surveillance state won’t be far behind. Again, the scenario will be no different in the enterprise, where technologies such as facial recognition and sentiment analysis are already being used to monitor almost every activity in the workplace.

As a sidebar and a perhaps uncomfortable segue, this panel included Huawei Canada’s chief security officer, who tactfully took the high road on this touchy topic. Earlier in the event, Huawei’s SVP of Wireless Research made it clear in her presentation that the company aspires to be a 5G leader. I wanted to mention this because most No Jitter readers in the U.S. will never get this kind of exposure to Huawei, but it’s certainly carved out a beachhead in Canada. Yes, we live in interesting times.

MISA 2019 -- Telephony Still Rules but Smart Cities Beckon

A day after CTS, I drove down the road apiece to Niagara Falls, Ontario, for the annual Municipal Information Systems Association conference, which provides a way for Ontario municipalities to get up to date with new technologies. I’ve done some work recently in this space, and the challenges are akin to what my BCStrategies colleague Marty Parker has written about when focusing on various verticals, such as this No Jitter post on state and municipal government operations.

Every vertical is at a distinct point along the legacy-to-IP spectrum, and when it comes to communications, the MISA world is still telephony-centric. Not only is that evident when talking with various municipalities, but it’s also reflected on the show floor where there was no shortage of telephony vendors. Municipalities may have a will to progress to UC, but finding the way is going to be a long journey. I see this as a stark reminder that some verticals are -- and will likely remain -- technology laggards and late adopters.

On another note -- and building on my CTS narrative -- I attended some interesting and forward-thinking sessions on smart cities. The vision for what’s possible is exciting, and some municipal attendees I spoke with are trying hard to follow this path. We all know about how cool the new technologies are, but presenters rightly noted how this is part of the bigger digital transformation wave, and success will be based much more on culture change and vision than what AI, 5G, IoT, etc. can deliver.

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Mavenir Analyst Event -- Mobile Native UCaaS

From the colonies to Mother England, London was the next stop. Mavenir isn’t a household name, but it competes squarely with Nokia, Ericsson, and -- there it is again -- Huawei. Wireless is a secondary focus for me, but when it comes to 5G, LTE, NFV, etc., Mavenir has a good story. As these technologies mature, wireless operators will have a stronger value proposition for enterprises, and I like how Mavenir talks about helping carriers not just with cost reduction, but also for revenue protection and revenue generation.

Mavenir talked a lot about these technologies, and how it helps carriers move on from legacy infrastructure to cloud. I’m not strong on the details of wireless network technologies, and what resonated more for me was its messaging around cloud economics. Mavenir presented several examples of how it helps carriers support new applications and find new ways to monetize voice and messaging services.

UCaaS, part of its Mobile Business portfolio, is one of its growth “vectors.” Mavenir has a clear focus on SMBs, for which the pain point is trying to manage a disjointed mix of fixed-line and mobile communications applications. The scenario is familiar, and building on its strong position for Rich Communications Services messaging, it can offer a complete UC&C white-label solution for mobile network operators. Its view is that cloud-based platforms like this give operators the fastest way to scale and not just keep their end customers, but offer a new set of mobile-centric services to drive growth.

2600Hz’s KAZOOcon -- Mobile Native Apps, American-Style

Final stop -- San Diego -- going east to west now, this was my first time attending 2600Hz’s event, which brings together thought leaders to explore the latest technologies and strategies in UC. Aside from attending sessions, along with my BCStrategies colleagues Blair Pleasant and Phil Edholm I participated in an analyst panel about the state of UC (for a longer look at KAZOOcon, read Blair’s review on BCStrategies.com).

As with Mavenir, 2600Hz offers turnkey cloud-based VoIP and UC services primarily to SMBs. Another similarity is mobility, where it partners with T-Mobile for wireless SMB offerings.

5G could turn out to be a boon for UCaaS, especially when considering how prevalent DSL still is in smaller markets. We heard this during a presentation from VoIP provider Ooma -- yes, even Ooma is selling UC now -- and it’s a good reality check for those who think that the U.S. is blanketed with blazing fast broadband.

To be fair, mobility has long been a weak link for UC, so there’s no guarantee that the apps will work just as well as on a PC, and the adoption rate of mobile UC features has been poor. Furthermore, many UC apps aren’t being held back because of wireless network constraints -- end users just don’t see the utility or aren’t even made aware of these capabilities. 5G should help fix some of these problems, and 2600Hz seems to be betting on exactly that. The point here being that in locations where fixed-line broadband isn’t great, 5G will open the UC market in these instances.

Getting channels to sell mobile UCaaS isn’t a sure thing either -- even with a major brand like T-Mobile -- but at least this gives 2600Hz something more compelling to sell than SIP trunking or phone systems. However, channels will have to go a bit out of their comfort zone to be successful with mobility, and based on the Q&A during our panel, I’d say i they have a fair way to go.

KAZOOcon is a developer-heavy event, and the cargo shorts, flip flops, and surfer vibe reflect a different audience than what we usually see at vendor events. I’ll be at Twilio Signal next month, where that vibe will be on steroids, and in my book, it remains to be seen how much revenue developers can really drive, especially when going upmarket from SMBs. That said, for 2600Hz, those developers are the innovation engine, and company co-founder Patrick Sullivan did a good job explaining how the company’s distributed architecture enables that.

2600Hz certainly seems to be on the right track to help SMBs get beyond the desk phone with cloud -- and make it easy for channels to sell it -- but end customers are still a step behind all this. In that regard, this sounds like MISA redux, and is a reminder that not all end markets are created equal, and that desk phones are going to be around for a while yet.

Jon is writing on behalf of BCStrategies, an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system integrators, and anyone interested in the growing business communications arena. A supplier of objective information on business communications, BCStrategies is supported by an alliance of leading communication industry advisors, analysts, and consultants who have worked in the various segments of the dynamic business communications market.