In this series of weblogs, A Slice of TADSummit, we review a few of the themes from TADSummit Asia. This slice focuses on Industry Status.

Thank you to our sponsors for making TADSummit Asia 2020 possible:  Sangoma, Asterisk, VoIP Innovations (Apidaze), and TeleSign.  As well and the many presenters contributing their experiences, insights, and support.

TADSummit is unique because we explicitly have a no BS policy. The telecoms / enterprise communications industry is filled with nonsense, and we try to cut through that for the benefit of everyone involved.

The Welcome to TADSummit Asia 2020 presentation quantifies the impact TADSummit and TADHack have around the world. The no BS policy enables us to “keep it real”, helping people make better decisions based on facts not hype.

Welcome to TADSummit Asia 2020 (link to weblog with discussion, video, and slides)

Without Sangoma’s support TADSummit would not happen. Here is a great weblog from Sangoma on why they support TADS. Jim from Sangoma provides a great presentation that captures the breadth and status of the enterprise communication market; and equally the breadth of the Sangoma product stack, the broadest in the industry.

Sangoma Keynote: Welcome from Jim Machi and the Sangoma Product Stack (link to weblog with discussion, video, and slides)

The aim of this session is to provide an open, independent, and industry-wide review of the impact of programmable telecoms on business. We cover CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service), UCaaS (Unified Communications Platform as a Service, AKA virtual or cloud PBX), CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service), open source telecom software, authentication and customer experience, omni-channel customer communications, WebRTC (Web Real Time Communications) and much more reviewing the landscape and market sizes.

CXTech Landscape Across Asia by Alan Quayle (link to weblog with discussion, video, and slides)

Paul McGuiness from Megaport shares their vision on Multicloud environments. We have a fantastic opportunity to connect different cloud environments together and go above and beyond the boundaries of a single cloud provider.

A Brief Introduction to Network as a Service and Megaport (link to weblog with discussion, video, and slides)

Sebastian’s presentation does a great job of bridging the thinking across the traditional telco world, and the CPaaS world (or CXTech world). For any telco, this presentation is well-worth your time.

Programmable Telecoms – What is in IT for Telcos? By Sebastian Schumann (link to weblog with discussion, video, and slides)

Marten works with many providers across the CPaaS landscape. From communication service providers, through CPaaS challengers and the CPaaS Leaders.

He has a nice model for describing the spectrum of providers, from the CSPs providing the raw materials, through the challenger CPaaS gold-plating the raw materials, through to the leaders adding the fairy dust. This presentation closely follows the discussion of Sebastian Schumann’s presentation. And  Marten’s presentation forms the core of the panel discussion at the end of TADSummit Asia.

Improving the Experience of Realizing CXTech Use Cases by Marten Schoenherr

Asia is unique in programmable telecoms (CXTech). We’ve not yet seen dominant region-wide CPaaS providers (like Twilio in North America) nor dominant telcos (like Vodafone in Europe) nor broad adoption of UCaaS/CCaaS by enterprises.

We wrapped up TADSummit Asia with a deep dive panel discussion with the mind-trust of programmable communications in Asia:

• Sebastian Schumann, Technology & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom
• Marten Schoenherr, CEO/Founder at Automat Berlin GmbH
• Mark White, Tech M&A, Investor, Founder, Board Member, Startup.
• Craig Richards, Vice President, Products and Engineering at Apigate (or we could use the title TADHack KL to avoid any issues)
• Dinesh Saparamadu, Founder of Applova Inc., hSenid Group of Companies & PeoplesHR | Entrepreneur | HR & Mobile Industry Thought Leader

In the diverse markets of Asia, some have dominant non-telco communication platforms like LINE in Japan and WeChat in China. They are influencing customers’ expectations. Coming out of the COVID-19 crisis we could see a revolution in CPaaS that disrupts telcos, aggregators, and the current leading CPaaS providers. We’re not clear on who will lead this revolution, but we’re seeing the conditions emerge, particularly in Asia. The first battle of CPaaS is coming to a close, with VC funded winners and telcos relatively unaffected. The second battle will be far more disruptive!

Panel Discussion: Why Asia could be the best region for a Universal Telecom API