Letter from the Editor - January 2015

By: Scott St. John - Pipeline

"You can't think and hit at the same time."
— Yogi Berra

2015 is here and I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy New Year!

What I found interesting about this New Year – unlike many of the years past – was that it was as much about celebrating the beginning of something new as it was about saying goodbye to the past year.  More specifically, as I watched the ball drop over Time Square, I was overcome with a feeling of relief as the trial and tribulations of the past years seems to evaporate almost instantly.

2014 was a rebuilding year.  Not a bad year per se, but a year taxed with overburden from a multitude of sources.  From an industry perspective, we saw regulatory and security concerns skyrocket to the top of everyone's mind; we saw new innovations – such as many included in this issue of Pipeline – including NFV and SDN; and we saw the landscape transform with a smattering of mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. The good news is, this year, we may be returning to a level of normalcy that we can all build upon.

Yogi Berra, quoted above, provides us with a seemingly endless cornucopia of quotes; each with its unique bit of wisdom. He is also attributed as saying, "I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early," which was a close runner-up. Both quotes seem to fit and definitely are worth mentioning here.  In 2014, it seemed there was a whole lot of thinking going on and far to little swinging; and hopefully all those who were worried about taking the wrong train, left early.

In this issue of Pipeline, we are focusing on specific areas of virtualization, including cloud computing.  This is a notable change from our regular cloud coverage in our annual January issue, as cloud is now becoming a vital part of a broader virtual offering - while still having its own legs to stand in regards to as-a-service models.  We touch on this in the IoT Cloud feature, look at cloud monetization strategies with Comverse, and hear from Ericsson regarding service provider NFV business cases and plans. We also take a dive into the two main topics of network virtualization: NFV and SDN.  We specifically look at the state of standards for both NFV and SDN, and look at how 2015 might be the Year of Software-defined Networking. We hope you find this issue, and all the issues of Pipeline, both useful and informative.

2015 is off to a roaring start and, at Pipeline, we are moving at full-steam ahead. The 2015 Innovation Awards Program is rapidly moving forward with competition from leading technology providers such as CSG International, Digital Route, Ericsson, Microsoft, Orga Systems; some of the world's top service providers like AT&T, Global Capacity, and Verizon; and many more entering the competition each day.  There is still time to enter the competition, so don't miss your chance to sign-up while the early bird pricing is still available.

This year, we also would like to thank all those who have supported Pipeline over the years. It's hard to believe 12 years have past since we first had the idea to build a platform to connect the service provider and technology provider communities, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of the companies who continue, to this day, to get value from our portfolio of services.  This year, we have begun to offer Membership Packages to enable those companies to better utilize our portfolio of services while spreading them – and their investment – over the course of the year. We have also begun to offer custom packages to allow companies to build specific service bundles to tailor them to their marketing plans and budgets. Just another way we hope to continue to better serve you in the years to come.

Wishing all of you a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Scott St. John
Executive Editor