We now live in a time where most of us have heard of smart speakers and quite a few of us have one (or two or more). According to our friends at Gartner, Ovum, and Voicebot.ai who specialize in smart speaker research, the world has adopted these tiny devices into their homes at an incredible rate. Living rooms and kitchens are the most popular locations to place them, and Amazon has over 70% of the market. Looking at recent reports, 1 in 5 U.S. adults have a smart speaker, for a total of over 48M in the U.S. alone.

Surviving in a forever evolving digital revolution can be challenging in any industry, from healthcare to banking, retail to insurance, e-commerce to even telecommunications, and the message is clear – if you’re not transforming, innovating, optimizing, and evolving then you’re dissolving.

There is currently a lot of momentum behind IoT (Internet of Things) and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things).  We’ve looked at the consumer IoT situation in a previous installment of this blog series, now let’s have a peak at the non-consumer side of the fence – the IIoT acronym adopted by the industry.

Access to the internet has never been easier. Your phone has wifi data while at home and wireless data while on the go. Your favorite café and store offer wifi to guests. Your work files can be accessed remotely from across the world. While we can access whatever we want from wherever we want, there needs to be restrictions set in place to regulate who and what is being accessed. Controls, whether it be parental, employer, or business, are becoming increasingly important.

One of the latest technologies we’ve seen making its way to the market is the connected car. This technology provides consumers with increased comfort, vehicle analytics, and most importantly, enhanced safety features. While these features in and of themselves are impressive, the potential to do more is huge. By connecting solutions like the connected car with consumers’ smart phones and smart homes, for example, we can add tremendous value and improve overall user experience. This is where DialogicONE steps in.

The challenge from our communication service provider customers is very clear – we need new applications and services to protect and grow ARPU.  We need differentiated new offerings that go beyond connectivity and security of our networks.  We need to launch new solutions much faster than before.  We need to compete on more than just price.  And my favorite ask – we need access to the latest digital technologies, so that our solutions include an exceptional user experience.

Enterprise communications are on the cusp of a revolutionary transformation as advanced technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, including AI-assisted search, and virtual and augmented reality arrive to solve real-world collaboration challenges while enabling new services and capabilities.

To close out 2017, I want to recap and share with you the top 10 blogs published this last year in case you missed them. It's no suprise that WebRTC, AI and IoT dominate the headlines. Enjoy!

Last year, I refrained from making any telecom predictions.   And no one complained.  And this year I was content to continue down that path.  However, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse regarding making 2018 predictions for the Fast Mode 2018 Trends and Outlook, so I did. The full article is linked below.

A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to speak at TechXLR8 Asia in Singapore.  It was a dynamic conference covering topics such as 5G and IoT.  I spoke about the convergence of IoT and Real Time Communications, which we’re already starting to see.

Many of us are familiar with the concept of value-added services in communications.  That is, what can enhance a basic voice or video call enough that a subscriber would be willing to spend more on it?  For example, call recording or conferencing or prepaid charging or even getting a daily joke are examples of that.   Or a service provider for example will to spend for ad insertion or codec transcoding.

The same concept of value added services goes for IoT.