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By Alana Grelyak and Tim Young
Coming up in March, Service Providers and vendors alike will have something to look forward to with the 2007 Next Gen OSS Integration Summit, to be held in Boston from March 5-7. The brochure promises case-studies, speakers, and engaging conversation. Pipeline wanted to know something more in-depth about the summit, so we spoke with Naomi Secor, conference manager for IQPC (International Quality & Productivity Center), an international organization that provides conferences for many types of disciplines. Additionally, we took some time with Norman Rice, III and Venu Venugopal from CA, the Chair Sponsor for the event. Rice is the chairperson of the show, and Venugopal is also heavily involved in CAs presence at the forum. In an attempt to get the story straight from the ones making it happen, we give you a conversation between Pipeline and the people behind the 2007 Next Gen OSS Integration Summit.
First of all, we wanted to know how this event compares with other shows. “These events are a little bit more focused,” Secor said. “We provide the attendees with case studies and presentations from our end users. We focus on the end users. And this attracts a really good audience… People really want to know who’s at the forefront and they want to hear case studies.” Secor estimated that the summit would attract approximately 250 attendees. When asked what the value of this show is to the industry, Secor replied, “the value is basically networking. Networking is very important to them. What they really want is a mix, a forum where everybody can come together from both the service provider side and the vendor provider side to learn about the new technologies that are at the forefront, and to hear about the people that have successfully done it…[the summit] offers both a networking mix, a vendor showcasing, a solution to any problems that they are having, and the most up to date information of topics of OSS, SOA, and implementation standards. It provides people with tons of information about current situations.”
The summit’s schedule is full, with plenty of speakers, networking lunches, and showcases. Secor said, “The speakers are the biggest highlight. Our supporters, meaning our vendors, are the second biggest. And I think the fact that we’re working with TeleManagement Forum, and then just the topic and content. Overall, the topic itself is very hot.” Confirmed speakers at this year’s event will include Dan Druta, Sr. OSS Integration Architect, Cingular Wireless; Grant
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“The speakers are the biggest highlight. Our supporters, meaning our vendors, are the second biggest. And I think the fact that we’re working with TeleManagement Forum, and then just the topic and content. Overall, the topic itself is very hot.”" |
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Schofield, Head of (Integration and Automation) Business Management, BT; Karl-Wilhelm Siebert, Director Quality Assurance Management, Vodafone D2; Massimo Albani, Vice President, Telecom Italia; Libbey Scheible, Senior Program Manager, TeleManagement Forum; Ziaur Rahman, Senior Manager of Network Management Systems, T-Mobile, USA; Harry Moen, Head Interconnect Billing, Telenor; and Clint Heckel, Enterprise Architect, Verizon Business IT.
According to Rice, it's just this sort of speaker lineup that makes the event special. “One of the most attractive things is the level of thought leader speakers at the event. It's great, and it's building, because of the panels. A lot of people are more comfortable speaking as a part of a panel than as a standalone speaker, so it's a great environment for drawing out raw thought. Sometimes their comments are more indicative of what's happening, because the speakers are going back to what they know best, rather than repeating sanitized, prepackaged, legal-and-financial-filtered document that goes out in a sanitized presentation. I think, altogether, it's going to be an interesting forum.”
What is the focus of the topic at this summit? Secor said, “We’re really focusing on business transformation and the need for telecom providers. We realize the competition is there, so we’re focusing a lot of our sessions on the fact that competition is driving the need for the services. We focus a lot on implementing SOA tools in the OSS space. We’re still focused on that because it’s still a hot topic.”
According to Rice, the theme of the show has a lot to do with convergence. CAs predisposition toward that as a central focus is an outgrowth of some of the company's recent meetings at other trade shows. “It's interesting,: says Rice. “At TMW-Dallas, there was an informal poll taken where they were asking how many folks were involved in BSS vs OSS, were involved in internal IT vs. operations. The polling showed that just
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