LATAM Telecom

Had a busy week in the West Coast, first with BlackBerry for their annual Analyst Summit in San Ramon and then rushing over to San Francisco for Slack Frontiers. I was tweeting and blogging throughout the two days at Frontiers but decided to hold off on my comments from the BlackBerry event since I was not sure what was on NDA. I've reviewed my notes and here are my key takeaways. If you're curious about what other attendees were talking about check out Twitter with the hashtag #BlackBerryTrust. BlackBerry has undergone a significant transformation in the last five years. CEO John Chen opened the event and provided an update on the company's transition to software and services. The company has made several strategic acquisitions over the last five years that support its positioning in cyber security the Internet of Things for connected devices like cars. BlackBerry is targeting verticals with a solutions-based approach that brings together several products in it...

Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) just published an interview I did with them earlier this year at MWC in Barcelona. Below an excerpt from the interview, for the full text and video follow this link  or check out the interview below. In 2017, 451 Research launched a paper that revealed the extent to which consumer software and devices had infiltrated the workplace. It reported that nearly three in four employees were using consumer messaging apps for business purposes. That obviously presented a security risk for enterprises. Yet 451 Research found that 62 percent of companies had not made any BYOD policy changes in the previous six months. Two years on, the problem of uncontrolled BYOD policies still persists. However, according to Raul Castanon-Martinez, Senior Analyst – Workforce Collaboration, 451 Research, it’s now become a little more nuanced. In short, even when companies do mandate their own communications channel, they cannot be sure employees will use them.

I attended Enterprise Connect again this year; this was my fourth time attending and probably the busiest ever. I had the opportunity to meet with many vendors including Poly (formerly Polycom/Plantronics), Dolby Labs, PGi, LogMeIn, Voiceimplant, Ribbon Communications, Bandwidth, Twilio, Google Cloud, RingCentral, Cisco ... too many to list here. In the past I have been critical of the event which in many ways reflects its near 30-year legacy rather than looking at the future. However EC has experienced a major turnaround in the last 2-3 years; it also continues to be an important event for education and technical training. Check out the excerpt below from my EC '19 report. The full report was made publicly available by 451 Research at:  http://go.451research.com/mi-enterprise-connect-2019-aws-google-cisco.html Enterprise Connect is one of the largest events for business communications and enterprise networking, gathering 6,500 attendees and more than 200 exhibitors this yea...