DTWS: Open Digital Architecture pulls in more big vendors

With Ericsson, Huawei and Salesforce now on board as committed builders, the TM Forum Open Digital Architecture is playing with a full deck of vendor support. The three giants joined Amdocs, Nokia and Oracle Communications in committing to collaboratively develop a market for standardized and interoperable software components to run communications service providers’ (CSPs’) businesses. As TM Forum opened its flagship Digital Transformation World Series on October 7, support for the Open Digital Architecture (ODA) continued to gather steam thanks to the support of 12 new companies that have signed the Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto.

In addition to the three mentioned above, other new signatories include Beesion, Cognity, Incognito, Neustar, Nexign, NTT Group, ServiceNow, Global Wavenet and Whale Cloud.

ODA’s sun is rising

The ODA’s sun is rising at just the right time, according to Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of Orange, whose Digital Transformation World keynote made a few heads turn when he called out telcos for their lackluster IT operation strategies and increasing technical debt.

“The way we operate IT today as telcos is too complex and cost extensive – the billing systems, the provisioning systems, the systems we built 30 years ago are often made of monoliths and part of the problem,” he said, adding, “Progress in addressing these challenges is so slow that some studies predict that by 2025 technical debts will consume more than 40% of operators’ IT budgets.”

The solution to this debt is embracing a natively digital approach that enables IT systems to deliver fast results and increased efficiency, said Richard. “ODA will mark a significant change for the industry, simplifying the solutions and removing the need for large-scale customization and integration. By being plug and play, ODA reduces the burden, time and cost of integration.”

Open APIs’ stars align

A key part of the ODA is the Forum’s suite of 50+ REST-based Open APIs which can be used in a range of business scenarios. CSPs are increasingly requiring that their suppliers support these Open APIs. New stats show that each month 1,800 unique users from 350 different companies are downloading over 10,000 API assets from TM Forum, totaling 300,000+ downloads. In addition, the Forum has been conducting regular Open API Adoption Assessment surveys for CSPs and vendors to help them understand their progress in implementing Open APIs relative to their peers, and help the industry measure the overall adoption of Open APIs. To date, 35 vendors and 14 CSPs have participated in the surveys. The industry’s overall maturity score (now standing at 45%) has been increasing on average by one percentage point per month, demonstrating significant momentum in Open API adoption. The Forum will publish updated survey results at the end of Digital Transformation World Series on November 12. In line with CSP requirements for Open APIs, vendor demand for the Forum’s Open API Conformance Certification has more than doubled during 2020. Open API Conformance Certification helps build an open and dynamic market, enabling vendors to differentiate their products and solutions and become more agile while proving alignment with industry best practices and standards.

Still a way to go

Despite the Forum’s progress, Richard said the industry overall still has a way to go and little time to get there.

“Operators need to change their culture and finding new ways of working. We will not be able to achieve any significant transformation without this cultural shift,” he said. “Apart from a few pioneers, I am not sure we have reached the flexibility and modularity we are aiming for. The marketplace today is not the marketplace we expect. IT transformation projects remain too long and risky. We don’t have a lot of time. It’s about concrete code and real tests and common platforms like TM Forum.”

You can watch the full Day 1 Headliner session, including Richard's speech, on-demand now. Watch the rest of Digital Transformation World Series content live and on-demand now too! Not registered for DTWS yet? There’s still time. Join 12,000 of your peers online through November 12. CSPs receive complimentary passes. Sign up here.