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Lecture saracco
- 1. Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore Roadshow – July 2008 Telecommunications Ecosystems A peek into the future of - Technology - Market - Business roberto.saracco@telecomitalia.it
- 2. From Value Chains to Ecosystems …2000 EFFICIENCY Internal Innovation Strong Control of Depl. Innovation Efficiency to compete Competition pushes value at the end client VALUE
- 3. From Value Chains to Ecosystems 2000 … NOW VALUE Strong Control of Depl. Shared Control on Root Scale advantage Innovation Concurrent Innovation Competition is on price PERCEIVED VALUE
- 4. From Value Chains to Ecosystems NOW … Next Decade Out of field Innovation VALUE Marginal-No Control of Depl. Mashed Value Creation Innovation Intermediation Advantage Competition is on biz Models PERCEIVED VALUE
- 5. Evolution: bio vs Tech& Mkt Ecosystem Tech Ambient Market n(k) Distribution of the degree of aggregation by 2010 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1 3 5 7 9 11 k 13 15 17 19 21
- 6. Evolution: bio vs Tech& Mkt Ecosystem Evolution Random + Selection Env.Share + variations Success Creativity + Market Market share + release Dynamic Equilibrium Internal Competition Dynamic Equilibrium New Configurations External Competition New Value Chains
- 7. Evolution: bio vs Tech& Mkt Ecosystem Speciation Food Chains Discontinuity Displacement Cross Feedback Value Chains Local Optimum No Return thresholds Production Process Advantage of the small Energy Consumption Economic Efficiency
- 8. From Convergence to Variety 2020 2010 1 TB SSD 200 TB Burst vs Streaming Bit/Vid Torrent Down vs Up 50 ns Sticker Energy Control 10s TB Distribution Chain
- 9. From Convergence to Variety 2010 Gbps Interc. F. 0.2% 2020 100s’Gbps Interc. F. Wper Processing Gflop anywhere 0.001% Low power cons/diss 1c GFlop Ultra capacity “fibred appliances” 100 TFlop 100s PFlop 28 Qbit 100 Qbit Commodity 2Tbps Interc. fabric Real time rendering Ambient awareness
- 10. New Networks BSS – OSS PLATFORM CRM BILLING ERP SERVICE DELIVERY SERVICE ASSURANCE TRAFFIC & USAGE NETWORK MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER DATA BASE Broadband Area DATA WAREHOUSE WORK FORCE MANAGEMENT NETWORK NEUTRAL EM NETWORK DATA BASE PERSONAL COMMUNICATION PLATFORM P2P VIDEO OVER IP VOIP IMS HSS IP-DSLAM (4.000) ADSL2+ ( ˜10Mbit/s) // // // DIRECTORY C2P WEB FTTB RAN - CN GPON OPTICAL PACKET BACKBONE IPTV FTTC VDSL2 ( 50Mbit/s ) FTTH / B ( 100Mbit/s ) Ultra Broadband Area DVB-H CONTENT ENGINE/DRM MUSIC VIDEO GAMES ICT SERVICES PLATFORM STORAGE OPTICAL PACKET METRO IP- MSAN (ONU) MSG MULTIMEDIA PLATFORM // BBAN - CN // MSG B2B+C MULTISERVICE EDGE NODE (POP) MANAGED MESSAGING SERVICES COLLABORATION APPLICATIONS SOA UTILITY COMPUTING STORAGE ON DEMAND MESSAGE STORE DISASTER RECOVERY Service Centers
- 11. New Networks: the Energy Challenge E TOT: total energy consumption from mains (TLC equipment, cooling, ausiliary systems) E TLC: energy consumption of TLC equipment GWh Wireline network domain Energy consumption became a Key Issue End of network digitalization Act io and ns on ene c rgy oolin g sys tem s Start of network digitalization Start ADSL deployment New challenge on energy saving Need of further actions on TLC equipments Appliances Power Consumpt. E TOT Start NGN2 deployment E TLC ‘84 ‘88 ‘92 ‘96 ‘98 ‘06 ‘08 Years
- 12. New Networks WHN
- 13. New Services Giga… 32 Mpx 240 Mbps me per ho idth Bandw Av. Mega… 16 Mpx 120 Mbps Digital Camera 8 Mpx 60 Mbps Display 2 Mpx 15 Mbps Home Bandwidth TV –HDTV - TrueLifeTV NED Immersive video WQXGA SED 2010 2015 VDSL-3 HD channel 2020
- 14. My view of Communications in 2015 COMMUNICATIONS will BE: Visual Personalised Contextualised No distinction between People, Information, Services Seamless fabric joining reality and Web Fading away of the Telephone Number Involving a variety of loosely coupled Actors
- 15. My view of Communications in 2015
- 16. My view of Communications in 2015
- 17. My view of Communications in 2015
- 18. My view of Communications in 2015
- 19. My view of Communications in 2015 The vineyard Wine tasting Buy! Your diet Wine History
- 20. From Atoms to Bits PERCEPTION Technologies Sensors/Awar Optical Tags Bar Codes/Sem DNA Markers Image Localiz RFID Print Elect OBJECTS Detection Systems Network Mirror Cars Hand readers Cell Phones/Ca Cell Phones NFC
- 21. From Atoms to Bits OBJECTS PERCEPTION Detection Systems Technologies Municipal. Tourist Ag. A Product Pr. M B Content Pr. I E Individ.WK N T Comm.WK Regulations
- 22. From Atoms to Bits OBJECTS Detection Systems Municipal. Tourist Ag. CONNECTIV. Technologies Aggregators Ntw Pl/Host Google Snapfish PERCEPTION A Product Pr. Srv.Aggr. M B Content Pr. Track/V.A I E Individ.WK N Comm.WK T Regulations
- 23. From Atoms to Bits Technologies Aggregators Platforms Tourist Ag. Srv.Aggr. CONNECTIV. Municipal. OBJECTS PERCEPTION Detection Systems A Product Pr. Track/V.A M B Content Pr. I E Individ.WK N Comm.WK T Regulations
- 24. From Atoms to Bits Aggregators Platforms Tourist Ag. Srv.Aggr. Serv.Prov. CONNECTIV. Municipal. OBJECTS A Product Pr. Track/V.A M B Content Pr. I E Individ.WK N Comm.WK T META Data C. Stat.MeaningE. Pers.Aggreg. Ambient Creat. CONTEXT-MEANING Technologies PERCEPTION Detection Systems Regulations
- 25. From Atoms to Bits Platforms Tourist Ag. Srv.Aggr. Serv.Prov. A Product Pr. Track/V.A M B Content Pr. I E Individ.WK N Comm.WK T META Data C. Stat.MeaningE. Pers.Aggreg. Ambient Creat. Industry Regulations Devices Logistics CRM PHARMA News/Mg COORDINATION Aggregators CONNECTIV. Municipal. OBJECTS CONTEXT-MEANING Technologies PERCEPTION Detection Systems
- 26. From Atoms to Bits Platforms Tourist Ag. Srv.Aggr. Serv.Prov. A Product Pr. Track/V.A M B Content Pr. I E Individ.WK N Comm.WK T META Data C. Stat.MeaningE. Pers.Aggreg. Ambient Creat. Industry Devices Logistics CRM PHARMA News/Mg Regulations SOCIETY – ETICS - CULTURE COORDINATION Aggregators CONNECTIV. Municpal. OBJECTS CONTEXT-MEANING Technologies PERCEPTION Detection Systems
- 27. Future Center: Ecosystems evolution
- 28. Future Center: Ecosystems evolution Disruptive Assumptions: Connectivity grows in pervasiveness and bandwidth At lower and lower price to end user Provided by many players some not in telecommunications Bandwidth is not a revenue generator, just an enabler Content grows in quantity and diversity value tends to decrease on content instance value tends to shift to content interpretation content exploiter are not the content owners Value chains embedded in Ecosystems Decreasing control on innovation Exploitation of the ecosystem fabric
- 29. Future Center: Ecosystems evolution Themes: - Ecosystems modeling, technology and market roadmaps - Atoms and bits: connecting the physical and virtual world - MicroMachinery and distributed production - From massive distributed data to information Mash Ups - Digital (video) photography as social fabric - Life and lives in bits
- 30. Working at the Future Centre 5 of 1 leading 3 engaging 10 networking with 100 Weekly • brainstorming new ecosystem • ecosystem presentation on site Monthly TILab • ecosystem report • engaging the players – open event Core FC HY-Milestone • Report: new biz models for new ecosystems • Event: Partnering for competition YE-Milestone • Report: Opportunities, Challenges to get there • Event: The fabric for the future
- 31. You at the Future Centre • Open to other Companies participation • One year committment • Company pays for his researcher • Telecom Italia provides office and infrastructure • Open to post-Doc enrolled in the Gold Program • One year committment • Telecom Italia provide a bourse • Telecom Italia provides office and infrastructure • Fluency in English required
- 32. Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore Roadshow – July 2008 Thanks! Get the full multimedia presentation from COMSOC at www.comsoc.org -> education > DLT roberto.saracco@telecomitalia.it
Editor's Notes
- That’s what I am proposing to do today, look at the big picture, the biz change where value chains are overshadowed by ecosystems. And once we focus on ecosystems we have handy a lot of studies on how ecosystems evolve in the bio environment. Using that as a blueprint may help in understanding the factors driving evolution in the tech and marketing area and taking a look of evolution of networks and services under this ecosystem paradigm. This is the first time that I am presenting officially these ideas, although they have been discussed with many people in the last two years. There is a lot of math to support some of the claims I am making but I feel it wiser to leave the formulas on the side and focus on concepts. The arriving point is to highlight a new way to look at Network ns Service Operation and Management.
- So let me start by the value chain model that has been used since the XVII Century. It worked very well and that is why it is still here today. The value is generated through a waterfall addition where each step remains in biz as long as it it able to add value. The fundamental trick to stay in biz is to be efficient. In our world that has meant using ever more sophisticated NM systems and SMS. Innovation may happen, and it happens, at every link in the chain. It may be innovation in the result of the link or innovation in the process used to deliver the result. In a competitive environment any value produced by innovation tends to move rapidly to the end of the value chain and the customer is that one to benefit. Enterprises in the value chain have to innovate, whenever possible, to increase their efficiency but they are well aware that the gains will remain in the enterprise only for a limited period of time. Value chains are characterised by internal innovation. It is no chance that the big Operators used to invest a lot in research and in the last decade more specifically on NM and SM. That is where innovation can increase efficiency and hence competitive edge (that is offer your product at a lower price withot slashing the margins). In a value chain all participating actors have a very strong control of the innovation deployment and they are all playing the game using the same rules, the ones of the value chain. The Network Management in this context reflects the strong control, the hierarchy, the interfaces among the various systems and actors. Mediation devices are possible because of the relatively stable environment.
- Clearly it is the whole biz scenario that is structured into value chains. What happened in this decade in some areas is that the so called convergence has lead to an overlapping of value chains from the point of view of the end user. Typical is the case of the IPTV where Operators, leveraging on technology capability, have started to offer television content through their networks. Thus the value chain of television content distribution has provided an alternative to the end user to the Satellite distribution, terrestiral analogue and digital broadcasting. As a matter of fact we should also consider the video distribution via DVD and cassette as an alternative, competing value chain. In this view, innovation happens on all value chains concurrently. It may be the same technology that is improving several value chain at a time or different ones may improve different value chains. However, innovation is stil within any given value chain, that is, its improvement depends on the effective absorption of the innovation in the value chain. Since innovation is within the value chain the actors have a strong control in its deployment even though this may be influenced by what happens in the competing value chains. The offering of HDTV by Satellite may accelerate the offering of HDTV by Operators through upgrading of the IPTV offer. We say that several value chains are competing when there is overlapping: this can happen both at the resource consumption level and/or at the offering level. In the case of television there is competition in the content and in the capturing of eye balls. The content competition is played in closed mahogany environment with the entertainment moguls. The one of the eye balls is played on the market and this one goes beyond the pure content offering: it may involve additional services that may increase content appeal, personalised EPGs and smart recommendations, a good mixture of paid and free content, of professional and amateur produced content. Volume is very important to generate ads revenue. In some value chain, like IPTV, volume is also important to split infrastrucutre cost (depending on how well the resources needed to deliver scale). By far, however, competition at the end point remains on price. Everywhere the mantra is: get it from me and you pay less. Plus, you get these extra features. Unfortunately it is never: get it from me because of these extra features and becuase of that you have to pay a bit more. Efficiency remains a most important factor but to it NM and SM have to add flexibility, particulalry in a forward view where additional services can be layered on content in a mash ups structure, as we will see in a moment. Delivery of “foreign services”, like you might call IPTV, has brought to the fore the importance of a much stronger integration between NM and SM. People experience Service and they complain about it. Customer care is trying to bridge this complain to the various factors, systems and resources that can be involved and this requires an integration of N&S management. In Italy when you are experiencing a problem with IPTV the person at the Customer Care help desk can check the continuity of the line to your home from his point of operation but that usually result in her telling you: “yes, I see that you have a problem”. That sentence has cost a lot of money in terms of having interfaces set up to let the Operator talk to the NM centers but it adds very little value to the end customer. Actually, he might even be upset noticing that his complain need first to be certified… Most customers react to that answer by: “I just told you so! Why would I waste my time calling you if there weren’t a problem?”
- If we look more generally to the overall entertainment environment we see that there is even more value chain competition in terms of eye balls. People only have 24h a day and that time cannot be extended. If they are spending time on the Internet they are not watching the television in the living room nor reading a “paper” newspaper. This time is precious for advertisers who need to capture the eye balls. Hence, from a biz point of view we should consider these other value chains. Welcome to the ecosystems. In ecosystems innovation appears everywhere and you cannot control what appears beyond your company boundary. Same goes for the control of deployment. A big company may place hurdles to hamper other actors’ innovation to spread on its turf but the success is to say the least limited in time. Other companies prefer to embrace a different approach: if you can’t beat them, join them. That means leverage on the value created in the environment by all players to reinforce your asset and revenue. This is completely different from competition: you are not competing with the other players, actually your interest is to make their effort successful and then reap rewards from it. The competition shifts from products and services to biz model. What is the biz model better suited to harvest the overall value of the environment? This brings a completely new dimension to Network and Service Management. Making the network more usable and efficient for all players increase their probability of success. Services are no longer the guarded ownership of an enterprise but something that belongs to all players in the environment. Hence SM should make easy to mash up services increasing their perceived value. Actually the main issue is how to ensure a fair redistribution of revenue, not to compete to divert the revenues to my company. Openess, along with trackability, becomes the way to go.
- Yes, we can at least if we are not pretending that it is like pressing a button and get the answer. The comparison is a help to reason and understand market ecosystem where technology evolution plays a significant role. The reason we can do this is because it turns out that both species evolution (which is a powerful driver of bio ecosystems) and technology evolution (that in some market ecosystems is a powerful driver) can be both modeled with the Small World theory. By the way, the Small World theory is also used to model financial markets, the behavior of a school of fish or a flock of birds. We do not have the time to go into details of this theory nor in the demostration that statistically technology evolution can be modelled in a usefull way using this theory. Just trust me and then refer to the reference I have included at the end of the paper.
- Evolution for species depends on random changes in the DNA of an individual that is transmitted to its offsprings and on the selection process in the ecosystem of that species. In tech ecosystem the evolution depends on creativity (to generate something new) and on the pressure of the market that may condemn an innovation to disappear in a little while or may decree its success for a time that is sufficiently long to generate further innovation based on it. The success of a species in an environment can be measured in terms of occupation of that environment (share) and of the number of variations that it produces over time. In a tech ecosystem we can measure innovation success in terms of maret share and of the variety of subsequent releases. In a bio ecosystem all species are in a dynamic equilibrium and there is internal competition (within the ecosystem) to common resources. Similarly, market places are in a dynamic equilibrium with an internal competition for common resources (money, raw materials, eyballs). External competition may lead to new configuration in a bio ecosystem, such as the one that happen when rabbits were imported in Australia. That creates a completely new “ecosystem” characterised by new interactions among species, new rules of the game. Similarly, in tech ecosystems the appearance of a new biz model changes the rules of the game, like the advent of “free” in communications shifting the attention from direct to indirect biz models.
- Discontinuity happens in a species when the variations produced are no longer able to cross breed with previous ones. This normally happens after a forced separation of varieties that stops breeding for a while letting them to drift apart. Discontinuity in tech ecosystem happens because of displacement of markets, such as the shift from CRT to LCD and Plasma. Food chains establish themselves in an ecosystem as result of complex interplay among species over very long period of time. Variations lead to many species that occupy all available resource space and in doing so they also become resources for other species (pollination is an example, symbiosis another, feeding of a carnivorous over an herd is another yet). As mentioned the ecosystem is in a dynamic equilibrium and cross feedback maintain food chains stable. In a tech ecosystems we have similar interplay among value chains. Whilst clear, contractual relationships exist within a value chain, the interplay among value chain is much more complex. The production of Mp3 players requires storage capacity. This is ensured internally through contracts between the manufacturer of an Mp3 player and the manufacturer of the micro hard disk. Once a new technology becomes economically viable, e.g. flash memory, the value chain of Mp3 tries to acquire this technology but at the same time this is also sough by the digital camera value chain. There is no interaction among these two value chain but the contention for flash memory creates a cross feedback in terms of price oscillation of flash memory. Evolution of a species is always in one direction, i.e. it cannot be reversed. Insects will not be able to evolve in new variety with less legs because that would lead to a phase of disadvantage with respect to the other species in the ecosystem. The same goes for the way the eye of an insect is structured. Similarly the human species is not going to grow a further limb. These variations, that indeed occur, tend to fade away rapidly. We say that any species in its evolution reaches a point of no-return when any change would require a backtracking in the line of evolution. The same no-return thresholds are visible in the tech ecosystems and markets. In tech the production process is ever more tuned to improve its yield and any change that would imply a loss of efficiency is promptly stopped. The implication is very significant: a successful company is very unlikely to change its biz model because in that process it would have to lower its efficiency and this is not allowed by the market rules. We have seen over and over that radical innovation have occurred outside of big companies and when a big company decided to go for a radical innovation that was accomplished by creating a subsidiary charged for that new biz. Energy consumption is the leading beacon in all ecosystems evolution. Main econsystem collapse have been caused by changes in energy availability. When this happens the species that can survive at a lower level of energy prosper (the low energy affect the high consumer and their disappearance leave the space open to low energy consumer, hence their increase). Similarly, in tech ecosystem the energy consumption is the absolute thresholds fot its development. Those companies, products and services, that have the lower level of energy consumption are the ones that will prevail.
- Examples of variety can be found everywhere in technology. We are seeing more technology variety and new technology coming in today than a few years ago and everithing points to an increased pace in the future. Evolution progresses in two directions: more performance and difrerent ways of getting that performance. In several areas we have reached performance/cost ratio that enables new biz models. Amazon and Google offer of free storage are consequence of marginal cost of storage, we are at 0.1$ a GB, and marginal cost of data transfer. And these levels are going to be further lowered in the future years as printed electronics becomes viable. Availability of storage at a low cost results in terminals, handset, cameras…being equipped with huge amount of storage. The 1 TB cell phone is just round “the decade”. Once we have all this storage at the edge of the network we see some profound changes occurring. Data transmission by far can be done in a burst mode, infinitely cheaper than streaming. Probably only voice has to remain tied to streaming and even that, as bandwidth increases one can start to micro burst what used to be called streaming. 2. Content starts to be located anywhere, the concept of head-end is fading away. When you look for a movie, there can be thousands copies of the movies all around you since it has already been downloaded by other people. Bit Torrent and Vid Torrent can provide an alternative strategy to get that movie, to your and to the netwrok advantage since the download can be a local affair consuming very little resources. Clearly the control that was possible when the content is streamed from the head-end shall be re-enhacted when the content is pulled up from the network edges. But there is more. Those having the content may be graciously offering their line and processing time to upload what you are looking for but it is clear that some sort of compensation scheme may generate much more enthusiasm and many more volunteers. This is something for the N and S management systems and they have to intermediate with SM systems of the owner of that content and with those controlling that part od uploading customers that are clients of a different operator. Here we see a first example of the ecosystem coming into play. Storage can become a distribution chain, alternative to telecommunications. This can be seen as a bad omen if we are making money out of bit transportation. However, if transporting more bits does not bring in more money, as it is the case with flat rate subscriptions, then losing bits is not affecting the bottom line. At the same time we have the opportunity of setting up services such that once those bits are in the home of a client they can be traced to deliver new services, such us updatings, information related to that content and so on. This is not just a biz opportunity, it is a necessity if we want to keep having a as complete as possible understanding of our clients interests. Content can be sticked to a client terminal, and has she moves around and change terminal so does the content. Again this is a service that is becoming possible and of interest because of the huge storage capacity on the network edges and in the customers handset. Most of the revenue generating data traffic will be that using transactions, not the big bulk data trasnfer. And, clearly, tracking and managing billions of transactions is more challenging than pricing bandwidth. Besides, transactions are not charged by number, but in terms of what they represent. Each transaction can and should be handled in a very specific way and the revenues associated may come from different players, sometimes not even involved in that particular transaction. Billing systems have always been complex and 2expensive” draining up to 20% of an Operator expense. That complexity will skyrocket in the coming years but their cost shall go down dramatically. Cost in the order of a thousandth of a dollar can open new markets and become real income generators.
- Processing capacity has kept growing at the pace predicted by Moore, changing its basic technology, its production processes, its architectures and its packaging. If you think about it, the Moore’s law hold throughout all these years because it has been applied to circuitry that no longer resemble the ones upon which it was casted. The increase of capacity on the one hand and the decrease of cost on the other have dissemintate processing power in most unlikely objects, like watches, digital cameras, car ignition systems, locks and so on. Nothing of these could have been imagined 50 years ago. As capacity grows so does the inner complexity of opearations that can be done, and the dissemination of processing powers multiply the objects that can “behave” and need to be supervised, configured, accounted, customised..in other words …managed. NM and SM have been instrumental in controlling the growing comlexity and in exploiting the increased performances. But as numbers exceed a certain thresholds and behaviour a certain complexity new challenges come to the fore. Before going into that discussion let’s pause for a moment to consider a new production technology that will make all what we have seen in these last 50 years as children toys. The printing of electronics. Printed electronics is likely to have the same disrupting effect that Gutenbergh printer brought to the world. And in both cases it is about the slashing of cost and mutliplication of “pieces”. Printed Electronics is going to be the next baseline technology, following the transistors contained in mainframes and in rotary dial telecommunications in its first acquaintances with electronics, the SSI/MSI populating the newer generation of mainframes, minicomputers and electronic telephone switches and CMOS powering microprocessors, fiberoptic communications and the Internet. Note however that this does not mean that printed electronics will substitute CMOS anytime soon. They are likely to live side by side for the next 20 years and 20 years is beyond the foreseable horizon for any prediction. Printed Electronics makes possible wireless hive networks and intelligent objects at pennies per device. The cost for a square millimiter of processed silicon is in the range of 0.5-2 $ whilst the target cost for 100 square millimiters of printed electronics is in the range of 0.1 to 0.01$, that is cheaper by a factor of 1.000/1 to 10.000/1. More than that. The cost for prototyaping a silicon is in the order of 250,000$ whilst the cost of prototyping with printed electronics goes down to 100 – 10,000$. In addition, printed electronics allow full integration of parts as diverse as antenna, display, solar collector, battery and human tactile interface. This really brings any clump of atoms to the internet world, since any object, no matter how small and how cheap, can be overlaid by printed electronics to make it aware and reactive, and make it become part of the network. RFID will be embedded in any objects and will no longer need to be passive to keep cost and power consumption down. They will cost close to nothing, like the cost of varnishing a few square centimeters of a chair, and the power will be low because of the hive structure of the network. Communications will take place in hops of few centimeters thus involving pico-watts of power. Appliances will be fibred, that is connected to a fiber wherever convenient, or via radio. Overall we are talking of a world that in addition to 10 billion phones will have a thousand billion objects communicating. We are no longer in the need of managing humans but ants, flies, bees and all the insect kingdom. Now, think about it. Managing humans is difficult, but you can educate them, ask them to respect rules and just monitor the ones that are straying away. What hope can you have of managing ants and bees? Welcome to the science of small worlds, of statistical predictive behavior, of fully autonomous systems. Ecosystems studies is no more an intellectual exercise is the foundation for the new world of managing unmanageable objects. Standards cannot be imposed on single objects but only on general architectures and frameworks. The behavior of a single entity has no meaning, whilst the global behavior of millions of entities is in part predictable and in part can teach what is going on and therefore what actions shall be taken. Complexity is moving from Petabyte of information to Exabyte now and to Zettabyte by 2010. In the next decade we can easily foresee at least a two order of magnitude increase and this is more challenging that it may look. In order to make sense and to make money, we will need to control at microlevel even though the meaning will be derived from a macrolevel understanding of what’s on. I will come back with some examples later on. For the time being let me just note that this scaling involves a lot of energy and IP is not the best solution. HIVE networks are likely to need something very different, and they are already using in labs quite different protocols. All our work on managing IP will need to be complemented by fresh ideas on how to manage HIVEs. And let’s also appreciate the strange coincidence of having adopted hives and bees (ZigBee) in our technical lingo.
- Although the market expects a decrease in price and an increase in size these two factors are not going to create significant change in use. (decrease in price, expected to continue at a 20-30% a year for the coming 10 years, are clearly going to drive widespread adoption up to the 57” size). What will make a difference will be the increase in resolution that can be expected in the next decade. Increase of resolution will put a strain and heat competition on the availability of information. Is it going to be downloaded from the network (what network/network architecture providing 500 Mbps at the distribution network is economically sustainable?), is it going to be available locally (holographic memory with increased access rate?), is it going to be a mixture of local processing and network transmission? Notice that resolution higher than 8 Mpixel “consumed” at a normal distance enable new services since they appear to the naked eye as windows, not screens. 3D displays, although based on different (and several) technologies may be considered in the same class of usual 2D display. They will become widespread (not as much as the 2D ones) in the next decade starting with adoption from the entertainment (mostly games) and education/training environment. Small display deviced to be embedded in many objects will become available. They are likely to be seen as functionality of that specific object, not as independent devices. That is why no adoption line is being shown. Paper like display, suitable for viewing images in the open, under the sun, will become more and more common flanking paper. A real change in adoption and shift in use from paper to electronic paper is likely to happen once this technology will embed radio thus supporting interactivity. That may occur by the middle of the next decade (although first devices, like ebook, might well appear by the end of this decade). Notice that this evolution will significantly reshape the printer market since it is going to change the way we look at information on paper? More interesting for its far reaching consequences on biz and market is the area of mixed reality. There we are going to see, significant progress (and significant research is required in very many fields, most of which software related) in the next decade. The image manipulation will progress through the adoption of semantics matrics (being boosted by research in security) and later on by contextual framework, dynamically defined. This latter is unlikely to be completed before the second part of the next decade but some niches will start adopting partial results earlier with significant impact on business. Profiling related technologies are at the forefront. Further down the way are target like the one pursued by the Japanese to provide a 32 Mpixel resolution, which, as noted, carried with it the need for a complete rethinking of the displays, the detection systems and the overall environment. The Far East is investing huge amount of money in research and so far is exporting high quality devices at a premium price. Within the next decade the Far East will become the biggest market for visualization devices and prices will come down faster. Europe and USA should exploit the availability of these devices to offer new services. At the same time the technology in this area is still wide open. Nanotech is just starting to prove its viability for high resolution display and the game is still open. It is unlikely, however, that a single European company may find resources to effectively become a major player and this is an area where there is very little market for low tier competition. Device – Software for Image Processing – Context (includes reconstruction of meaningful images)
- Tagging technology is surely going to progress but that is not going to be the selling point. The adoption rate and the decrease in cost (they are obviously related) will be the real selling point and it is very likely that beyond a certain thresholds (different from one application field to another) there will be an avalanche effect. In turns, the adoption in a field will push the technology to higher plateau, thus exceeding other thresholds and percolating in other fields in a virtual circle. One first milestone to start e-tagging in the mass market might come in 2008 once the price of RFID tags compares with the bar code. Localization technologies will continue to progress but again the main selling point will be their adoption since it stimulates more services providing value out of it. An important milestone may be reached in the next decade once localization and identification will merge into a single information base. Personal identification and localization can be achieved through a number of technologies. Eventually one might assume that in a certain period of time there will be a “dominant one” but it is safe to assume that several will be present and used. Adoption, cultural and social issues, pressure from the environment, will be the leading factors for the adoption and dissemination. Technologies like software agents will progress over the next 10 years and will start to become commonly used probably in the next decade. They will surely be instrumental in the creation and delivery of services in this area. USA is likely to remain very strong in software, however a focused action by Europe both in research and standards may pave the way to the creation of a library of agents, regulation creating trust and market exploiting the possibility offered by the technology. It would be a real pity to end up with a Galileo being used just as an alternative coordinate system. The Far East will try to exploit their leadership in low cost manufacturing, a key asset in this area. That should be seen as an enabler for the creation of services. Platforms – Ownership and Processes
- Data collection technology will continue to increase their performances, from sensor for digital cameras (on the market in 2005 we have 22 Mpixel sensors and there are already some trial for novel technology reaching 1Gpixel) and along with that there will be a growing adoption. Smart materials will evolve to embed sensors’ capability and will be applied in everyday objects, like dresses, increasing the detection capabilities and lowering cost. At the same time low cost and low energy sensors will progressively percolate in the environment giving it more responsiveness. Early in the next decade smart materials may see a significant explosion in performances that should lead in the following years to a much more widespread adoption. Sensors will increase the quality and variety of sensing capabilities integrating with bio substances thus leading to several breakthrough in medicine. USA and the Far East are big players but in certain crucial areas, like medicine, Europe is very well positioned in terms of know-how and industry. There is a need to strengthen this position through cooperative research particularly driving towards a merge of telecommunications and health care devices. They have to be designed together not as an ex-post solution by attaching a telecom interface to them. Mining f data – Integration (metadata) - Neutralization
- The talk of the town, of course, is the transition from copper to fiber and the growth of wireless. Here we have a blueprint for the NGN2 being deployed with an investment in the order of 10 billion $ by Telecom Italia over the next few years. There are a number of very interesting points in this blueprint. Let me touch three of them. Obviously the first is the gradual replacement of copper with fiber that eventually will be terminated in the appliances and by Gbps radio links (in the home). The graduality will put a strain on NM and also on SM since we will have to manage a variety of different situations that in addition will evolve over time. The second one is the optical fiber connecting road distribution frames. In Italy this means 140,000 cabinets. Two fiber are reserved, for each cabinet, to serve as feeder to an antenna with ROF (Radio On Fiber) communications between the antenna and the base station. Third the creation of a number of platforms to allow third party management of network resources, creation of services through reuse of service components created and operated by others and their overall management. This third part is, at least conceptually, the most significant innovation in the NGN2 initiative. It goes in the direction fo transforming the network into a “softnet”, the same direction taken by BT. It is also in the direction of transforming the network from being a connectivity layer to becoming the attractor for one or more ecosystems.
- The talk of the town, of course, is the transition from copper to fiber and the growth of wireless. Here we have a blueprint for the NGN2 being deployed with an investment in the order of 10 billion $ by Telecom Italia over the next few years. There are a number of very interesting points in this blueprint. Let me touch three of them. Obviously the first is the gradual replacement of copper with fiber that eventually will be terminated in the appliances and by Gbps radio links (in the home). The graduality will put a strain on NM and also on SM since we will have to manage a variety of different situations that in addition will evolve over time. The second one is the optical fiber connecting road distribution frames. In Italy this means 140,000 cabinets. Two fiber are reserved, for each cabinet, to serve as feeder to an antenna with ROF (Radio On Fiber) communications between the antenna and the base station. Third the creation of a number of platforms to allow third party management of network resources, creation of services through reuse of service components created and operated by others and their overall management. This third part is, at least conceptually, the most significant innovation in the NGN2 initiative. It goes in the direction fo transforming the network into a “softnet”, the same direction taken by BT. It is also in the direction of transforming the network from being a connectivity layer to becoming the attractor for one or more ecosystems.
- Since the future will surely require wireless broadband, the only way to go is by deploying smaller cells. The dimension of a cell has an impact on the coding scheme and therefore we have some technology better fitting certain cell dimension. What we can expect is a multiplication of cells, with different sizes and using different radio technologies (although in the case of medium size cells like the evolution of 3G and Wimax the consensus is on the adoption of OFDMA). This means that in many places we will see a multiple coverage and it will be up to the terminal to select the most appropriate access depending on the service, on the speed and on the quality required. So far the problem was to ensure seamless handover within a certain layer (see figure), in the future it will be more and more to ensure the vertical handover between different layers. We have already had a taste of complexity in the handover between a GSM and a 3G cell. The situation is even more complex when the hand over takes place across vertical layers. There is all the issue of coordination among different technologies, plus coordination across different ownership domains plus, in many cases, the issue of authentication. This is part of the connection procedure for network grade radio system but it is often not so once we deal with WiFi areas or even smaller areas like PAN and BAN where authentication may be based on completely different mechanisms. Handover may also be required between fixed and mobile networks. As VDSL and fiber reach the home the fixed line phone is no longer powered from the exchange. Loss of power results in loss of connectivity. In this situation a fixed line Operator might want to smooth the situation by allowing its clients to use their cell phone once they are home charging them the same tariff they would be charged in using the fixed line.Again this involves a lot of communications among different NM and SM located in different management ownership areas. Besides that requires the Operator to know the overall profile of its customer even if that spans over different management domain. In the long term probably this will be taken for granted with the authentication residing in our body, we are the SIM, with whatever terminal we use at a particular time intercepting this unique code that’s ourselves and negotiate the authentication with the trusted partner who, in turn, will vouche for us on whatever network, access, information and service we might be interested in, in a seamless and transparent way. This poses novel challenges to NM and Sm systems and again bring them in the space of ecosystems out from the controlled, but closed, value chains of today.
- If we look at the evolution of resolution we see that in the near future content produced by the majors will be in the 1920x1080 resolution, that is 2 Mpixels. That will continue to remain like that for at least 10 years, since the evolution cycle of television is relatively slow.40 years before moving from black and white to colour, and 40 years to move from standard to HD television. The next wave, ultra HD television is not going to appear before 2020. However, Sharp in 2007 has announced its first 4k television, a resolution of 8 Mpixel. This screen can meet the demand of consumers who are already taking digital photos with that level of resolution. In the coming years we will see more and more ultra HD content being produced by the consumer market. Consumer electronics is providing the tools for that and ultra broadband connectivity enables its exchange. The rise of consumer content is a well known fact. There is a huge potential to tap into this area. Many actors are already chasing the consumer produced content, from the Flickers to YouTube, from Google to Storage services on the web. Telecom Operators have been shy, so far, in offering services to manage consumers content. They see liability, privacy, ownerships, biz models issues. They are right, of course, but as they are assessing reasons for not doing it others are doing it. This is a big threath, since consumers are losing sight of the networks, soon of the access but keep their sight on their content. Operators, by not entering into this area are risking a complete disintermediation.
- These platforms, as many others that some Operators have started developing, can support mashing of information, that is overlaying information from different sources and different owners. Clearly the important thing, if we look at mashing in terms of biz, is to take care of rights management and track usage so that legitimate owners can make revenues out of their value. Tracking value is one of the new challenges for SM systems and if done appropriately can turn upside down the whole idea of DRM. Whilst so far DRM is a technique to block illegit usage of content the tracking of value can actually stimulate the usage of content in as many as possibile instances and applications. As far as the usage is tracked and users are willing to remunerate the owners that has to be encouraged. Here the nice thing is that we can get pennies out of thousands of people that would consider that payment as a good way to get an easy way to use and integrate that content in their context. Several companies, included those that historically have considered their products as something untouchable by anyother, are starting to develop an open attitude. Look at Apple that is now providing SDK, Service Development Kit, to help creating software for its iTouch and iPhone. The distribuition of service creation will rise the threshold for SM systems. Another area, closely connected at least from the conceptual viewpoin of distribution, is cloud computing. For enterprises, cloud computing provides the benefits of a data center without the cost and hassle of maintaining one. For consumers, it offers the promise of cheaper, simpler devices that let them access their data and their applications from anywhere. In order to really deliver we need to have a new generation of SM systems.
- Complessivamente sono previsti 5 gruppi di lavoro, inizialmente sulle tematiche di: Atoms and bits: connecting the physical and virtual world From Massive distributed data to information Mash Ups Micro Machinery and distributed production Life and lives in bits Digital video photography as social fabric Inoltre è previsto un lavoro di tipo metodologico sugli ecosistemi e loro modellazione con collegamento alle roadmap tecnologiche e di mercato sviluppate in altri gruppi.
- La percezione a livello di utilizzatore è realizzata in termini fisici attraverso un insieme di tecnologie che consentono a dei device di identificare l’oggetto, sia in termini di tipologia (è un pezzo di parmigiano) sia di istanza (è quel pezzo di parmigiano). Le tecnologie che permettono l’identificazione sono molteplici e l’affermazione di una sull’altra sarà funzione del campo di applicazione. Certamente i codici a barre di oggi saranno affiancati, e progressivamente sostituiti, da altre tecnologie, quali le tag ottiche bidimensionali (tio Semepedia) di bassissimo costo ma che richiedono un certo spazio e la possibilità di visione diretta per la lettura, o le tag ottiche olografiche ad altissime prestazioni in termini di identità multiple mutuamente esclusive (a seconda di chi richiede l’identità questa assume valori diversi permettendo una separazione fisica tra diversi contesti). Le tag RFID sono già molto diffuse ma il loro costo (qualche decina di centesimi di euro) rende difficile la loro applicazione al retail diffuso. Per contro le nuove tag basate su tecnologia print electronics con il loro costo sub-cent risultano molto interessanti in questo settore. Per alcune tipologie di prodotti tag basate su marker DNA possono essere di notevole interesse in quanto in grado di tracciare la derivazione di un prodotto organico ma certamente non sono pensate per il mass market. L’associazione di localizzazione e analisi del’immagine permette l’identificazione di una varietà di oggetti “grandi”, quali ad esempio monumenti ed edifici. La diffusione dei sensori e della capacità di comunicazione da parte degli oggetti apre inoltre la strada ad una autodichiarazione dell’oggetto stesso in un certo ambiente (ad esempio di un video registratore in un salotto). Gli ambienti saranno progressivamente sempre più coscienti della loro consistenza e quindi anche degli oggetti che li compongono. L’identità deve ovviamente essere acquisita e a questo scopo sono e saranno disponibili un insieme di strumenti che renderanno non solo semplice ma addirittura scontata la percezione dell’oggetto in termini complessivi, cioè come un tutt’uno legato a servizi e informazioni che a questo sono intimamente legati.
- A questo oggetto corrispondono un insieme di aziende, istituzioni, persone e comunità che complessivamente formano l’ambiente in cui quell’oggetto si colloca. Ciascuna di queste ha interessi diversi rispetto al’oggetto e rispetto a ciò che questo oggetto significa per chi quell’oggetto utilizza. In questo ambiente occorre anche collocare tutto l’insieme delle regole che devono e dovranno facilitare l’evoluzione di tutto il contesto sociale ed economico, una sfida che deve bilanciare una molteplicità di fattori e che ha un forte impatto sulla evoluzione e competitività dei sistemi economici.
- La connettività logica tra oggetti ed informazioni/servizi viene fornita da un insieme di attori, oggi in gran parte baricentrati sull’aspetto informazioni ma in espansione ad includere l’aspetto servizi. Esempio ovvio è Google che lo ha pure dichiarato esplicitamente come strategia, altri esempi sono gli aggregatori di fotografie digitali, da Snapfish a Flickr. Alcuni Network Operator, da BT a Telecom Italia, si stanno candidando per diventare aggregatori di servizi. Per arrivare a questo dovranno in qualche modo arrivare ad essere anche aggregatori di informazioni un passaggio culturale complesso e irto di difficoltà normative. Probabile anche l’emergere di un insieme di Service Aggregator in associazione con settori di mercato o istituzioni (ad esempio Service Aggregator per eGovernment). Questi sono la risposta ad uno spostamento dalla costruzione “in casa” dei servizi (che include dal punto di vista di modello di biz anche lo sviluppo commissionato all’esterno o la gestione della erogazione in outsourcing) al lasciare che siano altri che trovano una motivazioni di biz indipendente nell’offrire servizi in quell’area. Questo diventerà realtà in tempi diversi a seconda dei settori e sarà stimolato dalla progressiva disponibilità di piattaforme e apertura degli oggetti (SDK, Service Definition Kit) come sta avvenendo per i telefonini. Interessante la previsione di apertura anche dei prodotti Media, come ad esempio film, in cui la tecnologia è disponibile ma manca un contesto praticabile di gestione dei diritti d’autore. Ultimo elemento, fondamentale, in questa evoluzione in quanto abilità il ritorno economico, è un sistema condiviso di tracciamento dei flussi di informazioni e servizi che consenta la ripartizione del valore creato e scambiato. Le piattaforme potrebbero contenere questo sistema al loro interno fruibile da terze parti o potrebbero gestirne le azioni in termini di billing e revenue sharing.
- Le modalità di scambio di valore possono essere di tipo classico facendo leva sul diritto di autore piuttosto che seguendo l’approccio Creative Commons. E’ probabile una coesistenza dei due sistemi con una prevalenza del secondo per quanto riguarda valore prodotto da individui e comunità oltre che una parte dei content provider mentre i fornitori di prodotti e servizi è più probabile che facciano riferimento al modello classico, eventualmente appoggiandosi a modelli di biz con revenue indirette (tipo pubblicità).
- Una varietà di Service Provider utilizzerà gli oggetti e la connettività che li porta “in rete” per sviluppare servizi che aumentano il valore dell’oggetto per un certo fruitore, per una classe molto ampia di fruitori o che ne estrae alcune informazioni che diventano statisticamente rilevanti anche per chi non utilizza affatto quell’oggetto. Le tecnologie in gioco sono nel campo del software e delle banche dati. Si va da quelle di Personal Aggregator (queste tengono conto dello specifico utilizzatore e possono ad esempio fornire una interfaccia semplificata all’uso dell’oggetto, magari arricchita da spiegazioni fornite da terze parti; il mondo delle macchine fotografiche digital sta iniziando a muoversi in questa direzione), a quelle di Ambient Creation (in cui le informazioni dell’ambiente in cui trova utilizzo un oggetto sono rese armoniche; si pensi ai dati proiettati sul parabrezza che possono contenere informazioni sugli edifici visibili dal guidatore o dal passaggero in dipendenza dallo scopo del viaggio e fornendo un contesto coerente con l’interesse delle persone che può essere riutilizzato in un secondo momento ricreando magari in casa quanto si è visto durante il viaggio). L’estrazione di significati da una enorme e difforme quantità di dati viene realizzata con nuove tecnologie, quelle dell’estrazione statistica di significato, che in pratica consentono di sfrutttare dal punto di vista di valore economico l’abbondanza mentre nel passato il valore economico derivava dalla penuria. Una forma di creazione di valore è costituita dai metadati, informazioni create a partire da quelle disponibili utilizzando una varietà di sistemi di elaborazione. La vendita di “metadati” costituirà un biz significativo nella prossima decade ma devono essere risolti sia i problemi di proprietà e privacy sia quelli della ripartizione del valore creato. Complessivamente questi attori ricadono nella classificazione di quelli che creano un valore economico fornendo un significato agli oggetti e alle loro aggregazioni o presenze ni un dato contesto.
- La disponibilià diffusa di “oggetti” in rete cambia profondamente l’organizzazione e il posizionamento dell’industria, da quella dei device, telefonino in testa, che devono essere in grado di dialogare con questi oggetti e di arricchire il loro valore dalla presenza di questi oggetti, ai settori dela logistica che si trovano ad operare con pacchi “intelligenti” alterando quindi i principi di passività su cui oggi si basa tutto questo mondo. Il CRM viene ad essere profondamente mutato dal fatto che diventi possibile interagire con un oggetto, il “call centre” passa tramite l’oggetto stesso e può diventare il call center di qualcuno che non ha alcuna relazione con il proprietario e che vede questa come una opportunità per fare arrivare il proprio messaggio ad un potenziale cliente. Il mondo della pubblicità sarà profondamente cambiato dalla possibilità di usare ogni oggetto come canale pubblicitario. Industrie di vari settori potranno essere ripensate, come quella farmaceutica che potenzialmente può iniziare a sfruttare la messa in rete di alimenti, informazioni su allergeni, temperatura e umidità per personalizzare il servizio ai suoi clienti. Una assenza di riposizionamento apre lo spazio ad altre imprese per fornire cure personalizzate alla persona ed al suo contesto diminuendo fortemente il valore del singolo medicinale (la scadenza di vari brevetti entro il 2010 sui medicinali oggi maggiormente redditizi è elemento di preoccupazione per le Pharma). Anche il mondo dell’editoria si trova nell’esisgenza di riorganizzarsi per sfruttare le potenzialità aperte dagli oggetti in rete e quindi anche dalla possibilità di offrire informazioni contestualizzate agli oggetti sfruttando l’enorme patrimonio accumulato negli anni e la capacità di rendere l’informazione fruibile. Il portare “in rete” un articolo stampato su una rivista ne consente l’aggregazione con altre informazioni personalizzate allo specifico cliente aumentando il valore percepito e incrementando le revenue. L’industria deve quindi riposizionarsi coordinandosi con un contesto molto più ampio che non quello usuale di clienti e fornitori. Deve entrare nell’ecosistema complessivo.
- Le aree dei service provider, cioè quella in cui si crea nuova valore sfruttando elementi micro in generale posseduti da altri, e quella dell’industria e delle sue relazioni con il complesso dell’ecosistema sono complessivamente quelle a cui compete la responsabilità sociale, etica e culturale dell’ecosistema. Il generare valore dall’ecosistema, così come in tutti i settori economici, è un elemento di responsabilità complessivo che è intriso nell’etica e cultura del momento e del luogo.
- L’obiettivo del Future Center è quello di identificare nuove opportunità di biz per le telecomunicazioni a fronte di una loro pervasività in molti ambienti e della conseguente evoluzione di ecosistemi. Se da un lato si studiano come le telecomunicazioni possano portare ad un cambiamento degli ecosistemi, dalla sanità all’intrattenimento, dall’education alla correlazione bit-atomi…, in presenza di una struttura di comunicazione pervasiva con caratteristiche di offerta superiore alla domanda e quindi anche a prezzo diretto uguale a zero, dall’altro si studiano nuovi modelli di biz praticabili in questi ecosistemi in cui sia possibile far leva sugli assett specifici di un Operatore per generare revenues indirette. Il Future Center è situato come sede principale a Venezia e si pone come punto di aggregazione e think tank internazionale in una rete che comprende vari punti di eccellenza, a partire da TILab ma che coinvolge Istituzioni come la FUB, l’Authority, IPTS. Ha un nucleo di risorse dedicate in loco, di cui 4 di provenienza Operations, 4 di provenienza div. Biz. A queste si aggiungono 6-8 persone provenienti da Partner di estrazione manifattura sia rete sia CE, IT (Alcatel, Samsung, Philips, HP…), sia da consociate estere. Obiettivo di queste persone è al tempo stesso di portare un contributo al think tank e costituire un forte legame con analoghi gruppi operanti nelle loro aziende. Non è esclusa la partecipazione di persone di altri Operatori (Telefonica, BT). Le attività sono in generale di tipo precompetitivo e l’apertura con il coinvolgimento di più attori facilita la creazione di un mercato. Le informazioni e gli stimoli tecnologici sono anche forniti dall’area Long Term Research di Torino che viene coinvolta su richiesta Future Center in approfondimenti o esplorazioni specifiche. Aspetti scenaristici focalizzati su TLC sono anche commissionati all’area scenari di Torino. E’ prevista una presenza di una quindicina di stagisti provenienti da varie università e aziende estere. Gli obiettivi si possono sintetizzare nella ricerca di nuove opportunità di biz abilitate dalle telecomunicazioni e quindi di potenziale interesse sia per Operatori TLC sia per chi intende essere presente in quelle aree come fornitore di servizi, apparati sia per chi è attore diretto (ad esempio nella Sanità l’interesse è sia di Operatori di telecomunicazioni che possono fornire reti e servizi infrastrutturali, sia di chi fornisce telefonini, apparati medicali, sensoristica sia, ovviamente degli Operatori del comparto Sanità, medici, case farmaceutiche, ospedali, operatori sanitari, istituzioni, associazioni ….). evidenziazione del nuovo ecosistema che si viene a creare, in termini di prodotti, servizi, infrastrutture, modo di operare. Questo passa attraverso uno showcase aperto al pubblico a cui si aggiungono seminari, convegni, visite guidate e laboratori di simulazione e sperimentazione usati anche per dimostrazione a shareholders e stakeholders. L’approccio è di tipo olistico, si guarda cioè alla evoluzione dell’intero ecosistema nella convinzione che i benefici, e i problemi, dell’evoluzione sono valutabili e proponibili solo in un contesto allargato a tutti i player, diretti e indiretti. Questo permette anche di evidenziare necessità di ripensare agli aspetti regolatori e legislativi. Si opera quindi “out of the box” per fornire una visibilità completa e gli strumenti decisionali alla costruzione e indirizzamento reale dell’evoluzione.
- L’obiettivo del Future Center è quello di identificare nuove opportunità di biz per le telecomunicazioni a fronte di una loro pervasività in molti ambienti e della conseguente evoluzione di ecosistemi. Se da un lato si studiano come le telecomunicazioni possano portare ad un cambiamento degli ecosistemi, dalla sanità all’intrattenimento, dall’education alla correlazione bit-atomi…, in presenza di una struttura di comunicazione pervasiva con caratteristiche di offerta superiore alla domanda e quindi anche a prezzo diretto uguale a zero, dall’altro si studiano nuovi modelli di biz praticabili in questi ecosistemi in cui sia possibile far leva sugli assett specifici di un Operatore per generare revenues indirette. Il Future Center è situato come sede principale a Venezia e si pone come punto di aggregazione e think tank internazionale in una rete che comprende vari punti di eccellenza, a partire da TILab ma che coinvolge Istituzioni come la FUB, l’Authority, IPTS. Ha un nucleo di risorse dedicate in loco, di cui 4 di provenienza Operations, 4 di provenienza div. Biz. A queste si aggiungono 6-8 persone provenienti da Partner di estrazione manifattura sia rete sia CE, IT (Alcatel, Samsung, Philips, HP…), sia da consociate estere. Obiettivo di queste persone è al tempo stesso di portare un contributo al think tank e costituire un forte legame con analoghi gruppi operanti nelle loro aziende. Non è esclusa la partecipazione di persone di altri Operatori (Telefonica, BT). Le attività sono in generale di tipo precompetitivo e l’apertura con il coinvolgimento di più attori facilita la creazione di un mercato. Le informazioni e gli stimoli tecnologici sono anche forniti dall’area Long Term Research di Torino che viene coinvolta su richiesta Future Center in approfondimenti o esplorazioni specifiche. Aspetti scenaristici focalizzati su TLC sono anche commissionati all’area scenari di Torino. E’ prevista una presenza di una quindicina di stagisti provenienti da varie università e aziende estere. Gli obiettivi si possono sintetizzare nella ricerca di nuove opportunità di biz abilitate dalle telecomunicazioni e quindi di potenziale interesse sia per Operatori TLC sia per chi intende essere presente in quelle aree come fornitore di servizi, apparati sia per chi è attore diretto (ad esempio nella Sanità l’interesse è sia di Operatori di telecomunicazioni che possono fornire reti e servizi infrastrutturali, sia di chi fornisce telefonini, apparati medicali, sensoristica sia, ovviamente degli Operatori del comparto Sanità, medici, case farmaceutiche, ospedali, operatori sanitari, istituzioni, associazioni ….). evidenziazione del nuovo ecosistema che si viene a creare, in termini di prodotti, servizi, infrastrutture, modo di operare. Questo passa attraverso uno showcase aperto al pubblico a cui si aggiungono seminari, convegni, visite guidate e laboratori di simulazione e sperimentazione usati anche per dimostrazione a shareholders e stakeholders. L’approccio è di tipo olistico, si guarda cioè alla evoluzione dell’intero ecosistema nella convinzione che i benefici, e i problemi, dell’evoluzione sono valutabili e proponibili solo in un contesto allargato a tutti i player, diretti e indiretti. Questo permette anche di evidenziare necessità di ripensare agli aspetti regolatori e legislativi. Si opera quindi “out of the box” per fornire una visibilità completa e gli strumenti decisionali alla costruzione e indirizzamento reale dell’evoluzione.
- Complessivamente sono previsti 5 gruppi di lavoro, inizialmente sulle tematiche di: Atoms and bits: connecting the physical and virtual world From Massive distributed data to information Mash Ups Micro Machinery and distributed production Life and lives in bits Digital video photography as social fabric Inoltre è previsto un lavoro di tipo metodologico sugli ecosistemi e loro modellazione con collegamento alle roadmap tecnologiche e di mercato sviluppate in altri gruppi.
- Il Future Centre è una comunità multiculturale e multicompetenza che opera con metodologie basate su interazione continua e delocalizzata, con una presenza virtuale su Second Life. Esiste un nucleo di persone (core) fisicamente presenti per la maggioranza del tempo nei locali del Future Center a cui si aggiungono una comunità crescente di persone che costituiscono il mondo del Future Center (community) e che si interfaccia al mondo (society). Il core ha degli obiettivi precisi e focalizzati che persegue tramite lavoro cooperativo nel core e interazioni con la community per poi presentarlo e affinarlo sulla base delle interazioni con la Society. Tutti gli obiettivi del core sono mirati a produrre una analisi di ecosistema di cui le telecomunicazioni sono una componente e di cui si studiano i possibili modelli di biz e le interazione tra attori, catene del valore, e impatti sociali a partire da ipotesi concrete di evoluzione tecnologica (alimentata dal gruppo scenari di TILab). Sono attivi 5 gruppi ciascuno con un responsabile a cui si affiancano 3 ricercatori che coinvolgono ciascuno altre 3-4 persone presenti in altri centri e che complessivamente costituiscono una rete (la community) di un centinaio di persone. I legami con la decine di persone presenti in altri centri e referenti per il progetto sono formalizzati, si condividono quindi con questi obiettivi e risultati facendoli partecipare ai brainstorming e agli eventi. I legami con il centinaio di persone sono invece più laschi ma devono comunque esistere a livello di mailing list e partecipazione alle discussioni. Ogni settimana un gruppo organizza un brainstorming (10 ogni anno per gruppo) che ha una partecipazione sia locale sia da remoto coinvolgendo la comunità e il core delgi altri gruppi. Sempre ogni settimana si ha la presentazione in un’ora di incontro con i veneziani o i turisti di un ecosistema (con relativo aperitivo) in cui la presentazione è seguita da un questionario in tempo reale sui temi presentati. Ogni mese viene presentato un report su di un ecosistema (ogni gruppo ne presenta due all’anno) e viene organizzato in quella occasione un dibattito con i player dell’ecosistema. Il dibattito è aperto, trasmesso su Second Life e consolidato in un documento che diventa parte integrante del report. A luglio viene consolidato un report su Nuovi Modelli di Biz per nuovi ecosistemi, utilizzabile come punto di partenza per la preparazione del Piano Tecnologico. Il documento è discusso nell’ambito di un evento cui partecipano i diversi partner del Future Center e serve anche per indirizzare i lavori di approfondimento. A Dicembre viene rilasciato il report Opportunità e sfide per la trasformazione del biz cui intervengono oltre ai partner la stampa e le istituzioni. Le varie presentazioni sono ripetute, con eventuali adattamenti, su richiesta delle divisioni di biz, dei partner, per incontri con i clienti.
- Il Future Centre è una comunità multiculturale e multicompetenza che opera con metodologie basate su interazione continua e delocalizzata, con una presenza virtuale su Second Life. Esiste un nucleo di persone (core) fisicamente presenti per la maggioranza del tempo nei locali del Future Center a cui si aggiungono una comunità crescente di persone che costituiscono il mondo del Future Center (community) e che si interfaccia al mondo (society). Il core ha degli obiettivi precisi e focalizzati che persegue tramite lavoro cooperativo nel core e interazioni con la community per poi presentarlo e affinarlo sulla base delle interazioni con la Society. Tutti gli obiettivi del core sono mirati a produrre una analisi di ecosistema di cui le telecomunicazioni sono una componente e di cui si studiano i possibili modelli di biz e le interazione tra attori, catene del valore, e impatti sociali a partire da ipotesi concrete di evoluzione tecnologica (alimentata dal gruppo scenari di TILab). Sono attivi 5 gruppi ciascuno con un responsabile a cui si affiancano 3 ricercatori che coinvolgono ciascuno altre 3-4 persone presenti in altri centri e che complessivamente costituiscono una rete (la community) di un centinaio di persone. I legami con la decine di persone presenti in altri centri e referenti per il progetto sono formalizzati, si condividono quindi con questi obiettivi e risultati facendoli partecipare ai brainstorming e agli eventi. I legami con il centinaio di persone sono invece più laschi ma devono comunque esistere a livello di mailing list e partecipazione alle discussioni. Ogni settimana un gruppo organizza un brainstorming (10 ogni anno per gruppo) che ha una partecipazione sia locale sia da remoto coinvolgendo la comunità e il core delgi altri gruppi. Sempre ogni settimana si ha la presentazione in un’ora di incontro con i veneziani o i turisti di un ecosistema (con relativo aperitivo) in cui la presentazione è seguita da un questionario in tempo reale sui temi presentati. Ogni mese viene presentato un report su di un ecosistema (ogni gruppo ne presenta due all’anno) e viene organizzato in quella occasione un dibattito con i player dell’ecosistema. Il dibattito è aperto, trasmesso su Second Life e consolidato in un documento che diventa parte integrante del report. A luglio viene consolidato un report su Nuovi Modelli di Biz per nuovi ecosistemi, utilizzabile come punto di partenza per la preparazione del Piano Tecnologico. Il documento è discusso nell’ambito di un evento cui partecipano i diversi partner del Future Center e serve anche per indirizzare i lavori di approfondimento. A Dicembre viene rilasciato il report Opportunità e sfide per la trasformazione del biz cui intervengono oltre ai partner la stampa e le istituzioni. Le varie presentazioni sono ripetute, con eventuali adattamenti, su richiesta delle divisioni di biz, dei partner, per incontri con i clienti.