re: combined software and hardware to be competitive
George, absolutely. The shift is to software, undeniably. Your question calls to mind Jay Lowe's excellent (although subtly diatribed) treatment of this matter, upstream.
One area that some of these companies is not focusing on enough, in fact, is giving the end user more control of their own destiny. You will note that Redback, Shasta, etc. have given the service provider the software tools to allow them to dole out services and control their revenue streams, accordingly.
But they (the service providers who use these tools) don't hand over control to the user where service creation capabilities are concerned. This is an area where some great inroads will be made by someone, and the software company (with the complicity of the service provider bold enough to engage in this) that permits this sort of user independence will be big, once they find a large enough provider to step up to the plate.
The hooks currently exist to allow this in the wares we've discussed here, but many service providers still remain somewhat anal to this kind of prospect. It only takes one, though, and then the others will follow.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
