ADTRAN Connect - First Take
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Am back from ADTRAN's 2015 Connect event in Huntsville, Alabama. This was their first press/analyst event since late 2011, so a lot has happened. The company continues to do well, and their big focus now is enabling broadband connectivity. One way is through their Enabling Communities, Connected Lives program to advocate Gigabit broadband buildouts. They're having good success, and this week announced a new milestone, where ADTRAN has now enabled 200 communities with Gigabit connectivity.
Another broadband focus is ProCloud, which is also seeing a lot of momentum. This is their managed WiFi offering, built on their Bluesocket acquisition, and they brought in some customers to talk about how it's being deployed. You'd be surprised at the wide variety of use cases, and this is definitely a case where if you give businesses these capabilities, the applications will quickly materialize.
Closer to my everyday focus, though, ADTRAN has moved away from the UC market, and while they continue to serve the telephony space with their NetVanta product family,it's not a core focus at present.
That said, I think their focus on Gigabit broadband is sound, especially for how it helps make their customers - service providers - more competitive for today's always-on end users. Related to this, we heard a lot about another strong focus - NFV/SDN. Again, they're on the right track, but pretty much all the carrier-centric vendors are doing this, so it's hard to say if this will truly differentiate them.
For now, I just have time for these short comments and a few photos from the event. Gotta get back to everything else, but I'll have more to say soon.
Another broadband focus is ProCloud, which is also seeing a lot of momentum. This is their managed WiFi offering, built on their Bluesocket acquisition, and they brought in some customers to talk about how it's being deployed. You'd be surprised at the wide variety of use cases, and this is definitely a case where if you give businesses these capabilities, the applications will quickly materialize.
Closer to my everyday focus, though, ADTRAN has moved away from the UC market, and while they continue to serve the telephony space with their NetVanta product family,it's not a core focus at present.
That said, I think their focus on Gigabit broadband is sound, especially for how it helps make their customers - service providers - more competitive for today's always-on end users. Related to this, we heard a lot about another strong focus - NFV/SDN. Again, they're on the right track, but pretty much all the carrier-centric vendors are doing this, so it's hard to say if this will truly differentiate them.
For now, I just have time for these short comments and a few photos from the event. Gotta get back to everything else, but I'll have more to say soon.
Chris Thompson
Jay Wilson
CEO Tom Stanton during the press/analyst roundtable
Dinner at The Ledges - with just a tiny bit of prodding, I got Kevin Morgan up to sing, and he pretty much stayed there all night!
A few shots from the plant tour - something you don't get to see much of these days unless you go overseas
This is their wall of patents, showcasing all the innovation coming from ADTRAN
Space Museum - this place never gets old - highly recommended. Didn't catch the name of the band performing underneath this gigantic Saturn V rocket, but very impressive.
