Don Tapscott Launches MEF World Tour in New York
The MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) launched their "Carrier Ethernet
for Business" world tour in New York today with a keynote presentation
by Don Tapscott, CEO the New Paradigms think tank, and co-author of
the international best seller "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration
Changes Everything". As well as spelling out the role of Carrier
Ethernet in enabling this new collaborative business paradigm, the
one-day event featured real-life case studies from enterprises already
reaping its benefits - with a strong focus on practical strategy and
implementation advice. This is the first of a series of events to be
continued in Los Angeles and Chicago in October before traveling to
Asia and Europe next year.
"Winning companies today have open, porous boundaries" explained
Don Tapscott. "They compete by reaching out to harness external
resources rather than do everything internally. They set a context for
innovation and then invite customers, partners, and others to
co-create their products and services. Even mature companies like
Boeing, BMW, IBM and Procter & Gamble are getting in on the action.
Their leaders have seized on collaboration and self-organization as
powerful new levers to cut costs, innovate faster, co-create with
customers and partners, and create a 21st century business
environment."
Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet inventor and advisor to the MEF, pointed
out how the spread of Carrier Ethernet helps create the business
communications environment described by Tapscott: "Ethernet is
standard, cheap, fast, flexible, and ubiquitous - a quarter billion
new Ethernet switch ports ship annually. And Ethernet is Internet
plumbing that enables decentralized communication, encouraging people
to escape hierarchies and form collaborative groups."
Following the keynote, those attending the New York event learnt
about the real business benefits from actual users, together with an
update on the new services being offered, with detail on SLAs,
compatibility between providers, where these services are now
available and soon coming online - together with the various access
options. Case study topics focused on the real-life experience of a
migration to Carrier Ethernet, the financial and business benefits
with particular emphasis on ROI. Migration strategy issues included:
when best to migrate in terms of a company's growth and the increasing
availability of services; how to ensure seamless migration; the best
location for a pilot project and incremental versus mass roll-out. A
final session addressed the challenge of highly mission critical
applications, how well they are served by complex heritage
technologies, and how the simple, cost-effective solution really can
match up to these demands.
Mike Tighe, MEF Chairman and Executive Director Strategy, Verizon
Corp summed up the success of the first day of the world tour by
saying "The MEF has done an amazing job promoting Carrier Ethernet to
service providers, resulting in an explosion in MEF members, with many
cable MSOs now joining the ranks. The result has been a new wave of
services targeting enterprise users, and it is now time to spread the
message to those users as this tour intends. It's only just the
beginning, for Don's presentation points the way to a hungry market
for new hosted collaboration services that could soon be offered by
providers."
The next tour dates are October 9th at Double Tree, Santa Ana, Los
Angeles, followed by October 11th at The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago.
For details and registration go to
http://www.networkworld.com/events/mef07/index.html. Early booking is
recommended.
View a recording of today's press briefing at:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=116
About The MEF:
The MEF is a global industry alliance comprising more than 130
organizations including telecommunications service providers, cable
MSOs, network equipment/software manufacturers, semiconductors vendors
and testing organizations. The MEF's mission is to accelerate the
worldwide adoption of Carrier-class Ethernet networks and services.
The MEF develops Carrier Ethernet technical specifications and
implementation agreements to promote interoperability and deployment
of Carrier Ethernet worldwide. For more information, including a
complete listing of all current MEF members, please visit
http://www.MetroEthernetForum.org/
For further viewing:
"The History of Ethernet" featuring Ethernet inventor Bob
Metcalfe:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=23
"The evolution of Ethernet to a carrier class technology":
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=1
Case study: Mass collaboration in Healthcare:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=20
OR register for the upcoming webcast on "Carrier Ethernet for
Business":
http://www.netevents.tv/register_wc.asp?wcid=6
(To be broadcast from 10am ET on Wednesday, September 19th)