Last week, my colleagues and I attended the AT&T Analyst conference in Bedminster New Jersey. We were honored to get to not only get a panaramic view of their NOC or Network Operations Center on the first night from a meeting room, but we also got to actually step onto the NOC floor and witness the staff in action along with the numerous monster screens showing global network statuses from around the world. From analyzing AT&T twitter feeds to viewing voice and data traffic history for the last week, and viewing network congestion in South America, AT&T's NOC is an amazing sight to see and witness live and in action. Within the AT&T NOC is the AT&T SOC (Security Operations Center) with is an area closed off by glass walls and where we were not allowed into for obvious reasons. AT&T states...
"The AT&T Security Operations Center supports the detection and mitigation of security events across multiple devices and device types, through advanced capabilities such as correlation and alerting, situational awareness, proactive threat vulnerability analysis, incident response and more."
We had some great discussions around traffic congestion and issues around some high profile events like the final night of American Idol to the earthquake last week in the Northeast. Some events can be predicted and prepared for while others pop up and changes need to be made across the NOC and even communicated to the customer service representatives to better customer care and response.
In addition to visiting the NOC, we were also given some great updates around the AT&T Foundry (3 locations in Palo Alto, Plano, and Tel Aviv), AT&T Labs, AT&T's The Innovation Pipeline (TIP or a crowdsourcing collaboration platform launched in 2010), AT&T Research, and other innovation programs. I actually was at the opening of the AT&T Foundry in Plano and am amazed at the fast-paced innovation projects that are making its way through the foundries (AT&T Toggle being one such idea that is now being made available on Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows Phone). My colleagues and I will be visiting the Plano AT&T Foundry in July, and plan to get an up close review of some of the more recent projects making their way through the foundry process.
We were also very thankful for getting a free Galaxy Note device. James, Kneko, and I have all starting using the device and am very impressed with it so far...it is a little awkward using it as a phone as it feels like you are putting a brick next to your ear to make a call because of its size, but the device has some very interesting tools and applications for the business minded professional. Stay tuned, as I may give an overview of the devices after using it for a little longer...
As a quick summary, some of the more common themes among the executives presenting to the analyst community include the following:
- Further push into the Cloud market across industry, applications, and in the mobile market
- Strong committment and further innovation into the AT&T ForHealth product portfolio (i.e. MiiM, AT&T Healthcare Community Online, Medical Imaging)
- Innovation push utilizing AT&T Foundries, Labs, TIP, and other programs
- Viceo Calling, Video Collaboration, use of Video in the Enterprise (AT&T Federated Collaboration Service)
- Three primary solution areas of focus include Advanced Mobile Solutions, As a Service, and Network Sourcing
- Using Collaboration, Business Process, Managed Infrastructure, and Developer solutions, services, and tools
- Mobile and Cloud Security
- Data Analytics and Managing Large Data
- And more...
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Stephanie Atkinson - Managing Partner at Compass Intelligence, High-Tech Consultant/Analyst, Mother, TX Aggie, Dallas native, TX hillcountry resident, Interests: Tech, Telecom, Mobility, M2M,and the use of Tech in business. You can reach her at satkinson@compassintelligence.com or follow her on twitter (@stephatkins).
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