The big themes for MWC 2018 in Telco cloud management software were focused on automation, cloud native readiness, and machine learning. The Appledore Research analyst met with 55 companies during the 4 day event including CSPs, incumbent suppliers, and new entrants. Our roundup of the event will be published in four segments. CSPs are deploying NFV and SDN in small scale deployments. In fact, making the business case and trying to change the culture are the two biggest obstacles now – not the technology itself. Unlike the POC days of NFV, CSPs need to focus on ROI justifications for virtualization and the next wave of technology deployments. This can be summarized into three buckets New revenue justification which today is appearing to look more like revenue substitution. Consider the case for SD-WAN which is technology substitution. The reality is CSPs are not moving at the speed of OTT or web-scale cloud providers so generating new lines of business rarely occur. Improve profit margins focusing on reducing OPEX. VNF deployments moves CAPEX cost down marginally so unless automation is increased, and manual processes are eliminated OPEX does not go down leading to no change in profit margins. Differentiate from core competitors […]