MetaSwitch CTO Chris Mairs gave this presentation at eComm 2009. Content and visuals created by Andy Randall for Chris (who is himself blind).

2. Ingredients for a Successful
Service Innovation Ecosystem
Chris Mairs, CTO, MetaSwitch

3. Some Examples
17 million iPhones sold 175 million active users
15,000 applications 660,000 developers
500 million downloads 52,000 applications
5 million downloads / day 140 new apps / day

4. Ingredient #1

5. Opportunities for Innovation
Accelerometers
Massive pre-existing
network of friends
Multi-touch
GPS gestures

6. Ingredient #2

7. Low Barrier to Product Creation

8. Simple apps can be successful

9. Ingredient #3

10. Clear Route to Market

11. Key Ingredients
Opportunities for innovation
Low barrier to
product creation
Clear route to market

12. Where’s the Beef?

13. Few Good Telephony Apps

14. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
Opportunities
• The innovation opportunity is
for innovation
not obvious
• How many variants of Find-
me/Follow-me are there?
• Why are there more
Salesforce mashups than
Salesforce users?
• SDK restrictions

15. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
! Hide legacy/TDM grunge
! Provide familiar paradigms
(RESTful APIs, etc)
Low barrier to
product creation

16. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
! Hide legacy/TDM grunge
! Provide familiar paradigms
(RESTful APIs, etc)
The Simple Development ILLUSION
Regulatory issues
!
Billing and inter-carrier comp
!
Stateful error handling and corner conditions
!
Design and testing is difficult
!
Must interact with network infrastructure
!
Security policy
!

17. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
Clear route
to market
Mass-market approach is
not suitable for high-cost,
high-utility applications

18. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
Clear route
to market
Mass-market approach is
not suitable for high-cost,
high-utility applications

19. Why Are Telephony Apps Scarce?
One-off download fee is
Clear route
often not the best revenue
to market
model

20. How can a
service provider
make a
telephony ecosystem
work?

21. Embrace Innovative Devices
XML applications
on SIP business
phones

22. Embrace Innovative Devices
“If ever a home phone could be an
object of desire, this is it.”!

23. Enable Seamless Integration
Network services (e.g. network address
book, shared call list, message store)
Parallel APIs for different device types
(RESTful XML, JavaScript libraries,
EBIF, ...) - one size doesn’t fit all
One-touch distribution mechanisms for
users to acquire widgets for multiple
device types

24. Lower Barrier to Product Creation
• Reuse existing Web 2.0 paradigms
• Pre-canned widgets
• Lots of tutorials
• Sample “GA quality” code

25. Create a Clear Route to Market
Network
Platform

26. MetaSwitch Strategy
Third-party
developers
quot; leadership
quot; right APIs
quot; sand box
200+ Social
quot; tutorials
Community
partners
quot; source code
quot; blogs, forums
quot; engineering
resources
400+ carrier
customers

27. •.
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28. •.
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