SUPERCOMM — Five leaders in the telecom industry were asked on the SUPERCOMM stage what technology they would invest in today if money and budget were not an issue. Two out of five made their wish for the back office.
Because of his geography, Qwest CTO Pieter Poll opted for fiber to the home everywhere. Understandable. But John Donovan, CTO at AT&T, was first to wish for software. ”If I had unlimited money and budget, I would wish we could be farther along as a company and an industry in getting flexible software to run our hardware. The complexity in dealing with the embedded base we sit on is a big challenge. It may not be glamorous, but I think the speed at which we could do that would lift the entire industry.”
And Mark Wegleitner, senior vice president of technology at Verizon, agreed. “I agree with John and would maybe amplify it a little. It is only going to get more complex. Software has the ability to [deliver the service we need.] If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to bring simplicity and flexibility into the industry.”
While Matthew Oommen, vice president of device and technology development at Sprint, opted for clean energy, George Nazi, president 21CN of global networks and computing infrastructure at BT, said the energy and simplicity issues could be solved by a secure and scalable cloud.
Perhaps BSS and OSS suppliers should look to make their wish come true.
