Computerworld had this interesting article this morning.
There are two players; Gen-i, Telecom’s IT services business unit and Axon, Gen-i’s direct competitor. It seems that Axon is still concerned about the practicalities of the recently announced operational separation of Telecom. Axon CEO Scott Green is concerned that the separated units of Telecom will have common ownership and therefore will be able to remain anti-competitive.
From where I sit, it seems that Telecom will purchase services of Gen-i in a similar way that Axon will. That is on a regulated, level playing field. Sure in an ideal world the separation would be instantaneous but surely Telecom is owed some kind of degree of slack in order to manage the separation process and not harm the business units in the process.
From all points of view it’s a difficult and sub-optimal situation – however the decisions have been made and all the players should simply let the changes occur and learn to operate in the new environment
Don’t you think?
When you say “From where I sit, it seems that Telecom will purchase services of Gen-i” do you mean as in, Telecom using Gen-i for its internal ICT operations? Because that likely won’t happen: Telecom has shunted its internal ICT operations to EDS (*rolls eyes*) and that contract is projected to last till early 2012 if my memory serves right.
And Mr Green is kicking up quite the noise considering he has taken on a few lucrative (now ex-)gen-i clients. I dislike Telecom as much as the next bandwagon jumper, hell I worked for gen-i for a few years, but his whinging and moaning just comes across like a sulky kid in a sandpit because the big boys wont share the tonka truck. Somebody get him an icecream!
As for Telecom selling gen-i: Probably won’t happen. Telecom has gone to a lot of trouble to buy gen-i and computerland and merge them with Telecom Business Solutions (TBS) and Telecom Advanced Solutions (TAS). it’s jumping onto the SaaS bandwagon and I believe gen-i is considered a vital part of their long term strategy. Namely: they realise that plain old voice, their historical bread and butter, is in a state of flux and uncertainty especially with VoIP etc and they either invest and keep up, or they get left in the dust.
Thanks for the good points Rawiri – as you say it’s hard to take Telecom competitors seriously when the whinge and whine – always seems like sour grapes.
Neutral bodies however are a different matter…..
“From where I sit, it seems that Telecom will purchase services of Gen-i” ..
I think Its actually the other-way around. Gen-i will buy network stuff just like any other wholesale customer. At the same rates…
The whinging point is real, Axon is having a go because they think the process is too long, that information sharing will continue etc etc…. The ironic thing is that i think you will find that it was Telecom Alone who proposed the structural separation that Green is bleating about