Telecom liberalization: a long-awaited change (February 13, 2008)

When I was working in a software development company dealing with JEE and aiming for custom enterprise applications, there were always a tendency to a slight technological change from one project to another. Gurus were hanging out in the smoking corner with a magic words on their lips: “Spring! Generics! Tapestry! Ruby on Rails!” A current favorite technology of a decision-maker in a new project was lobbied at its beginning, added or removed during the project evolution or vetoed at any point. I can’t remember project failures influenced by magic word choice: after all, Spring was just a frameworks and every B.Sc. owner could use generics.

Telecom world is evolving much slower. Projects tend to be longer, key players in this market are rarely changing, as well as technologies around. However, there’s still a room for a slight change: if telco mashups like the award-winning After Hours Doctor’s Office would be as fast to implement as web ones, telco landscape might change for better. A software company could roll-out this solution in one bundle, including a contract with SIP provider (for VoIP termination of PSTN customer calls), and any SIP-based service delivery platform with the corresponding application installed. Applications like mentioned one could be productized, and the more lightweight the solution is, the more opportunities there are for the vendor because of the shorter time to market.

Me personally would be happy to see another bunch of telecom gurus in the smoking corner discussing the magic words offered by the new SDP technology. And you?