The Rise of Platform Services: Application Vendors Need a New Strategy

"Telecoms applications vendors can play one of two roles (or both) as CSPs increase their use of data and AI platform services."

Communications service providers' (CSPs') use of platform services (that is, common middleware services including data management and AI/analytics tools, delivered from the cloud) means that telecoms application vendors' products may no longer align with CSPs' software architecture. These vendors should therefore quickly decide which role they want to play in the platform services era before platform service usage matures too much.

Key questions answered in this report:

• What are platform services and why they are important to CSPs?

• How can vendors benefit from platform services?

• What new roles can vendors adopt to address CSPs' demand for platform services?

• How can vendors best position themselves in these new roles?

Challenges that telecoms applications vendors must overcome in the platform services era, and the benefits of doing so