This analyst brief, authored by Acceleration Economy Analyst Leonard Lee, with contribution from analysts Kenny Mullican, and Ronak Mathur, offers insights into critical automation that is used at the network edge. And how those technologies are redefining workflows, changing value propositions, and creating autonomous environments that enable enhanced efficiencies, by removing manual processes from critical operational workflows.
Continue readingUnderstanding and Executing on the Autonomous Enterprise
In this installment of the Cutting Edge, I’m going to suggest a big picture hypothesis for why edge computing will matter for businesses in the future while attempting to avoid hyperbolizing the possibilities that often are the outcome of such exercises. Hopefully, I can get your creative juices flowing with some inspirational perspectives on edge computing and how it can help you rethink process automation and operations optimization.
Continue readingGetting Back to Business with Edge
Enterprises and government organizations are automating and transforming their businesses and a greater number of applications require low latency, real-time business and operational intelligence. This driving game changing trend will require edge computing….essentially moving data collection, storage, analysis, and intelligence to the data collection point or end-point device. This data collection point or end-point device may range from things such as a factory floor, a medical patient, an elevator, a store front, and even a college campus. The opportunities are endless and an estimated 3 in 4 businesses will be using edge computing solutions over the next 5 years.
Continue readingIndustry Insight: The State of Smart Transportation
Smart transportation is closely tied with smart city initiatives. What happens when vehicle travels from a smart city to one that might not be so smart? Will autonomous vehicles bridge the intelligent transportation divide, or will autonomous vehicles rely on a smart infrastructure to support functions critical to improving public safety, traffic efficiency, and sustainability?
neXt Curve is joined by Bill Pugh, co-founder and managing partner of Smart Connections Consulting LLC to explore the following topics:
- Why does transportation need to be smarter? – Bill and Leonard discuss the motivations and the objectives that the auto industries and municipalities have for smart transportation. What is the carrot that is getting parties excited, or is the carrot not big enough to bring about the digital transformation we have all been expecting in some form?
- What are the challenges facing smart transportation? – Smart transportation has taken a patently vehicle-centric focus as of late with excitement about self-driving cars that will function as robotaxi’s that will chauffeur us around. But progress for smart transportation solutions that could benefit the broader driving community have been nothing short of stagnant with only a few pilot project of any notice. What are the persistent challenges that get in the way of the smart future of transportation?
- What kind of mindset change is need to make progress? – Do we have the right attitude about smart transportation? Could it be that we don’t think broadly enough about the benefits of modernizing our transportation system and how we will make that modernization happen?
- What can the tech and “IoT” industry do to deliver the promise? – Bill and Leonard brainstorm what the tech community and industry can do to make IoT a thing for transportation. We discuss the approaches that can be considered to get investments and commitments to stick given short-term political and administrative agendas of our cities, counties, states, an dour nation.

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Telefonica Innovation Day 2021
served recently. Telefónica comes across as very grounded, pragmatic, and focused on its core competencies. In the event, it emphasized two primary territories for innovation.
Continue readingUnderstanding Software Business Models
Which one is the right one for you? Lately all of us have been trained to say that we have or will, if we are “traditional” software company, be a “Software as a Service” company with a “SaaS” business model. Sure, that has become the de facto and comfortable response. But what is a business model? Most of us assume that we know, but have you asked yourself that question lately if you are a software company or a software startup?
Continue readingRealizing IoT Project Success
SXSW 2021: 5G Opportunities to Reimagine Live Music
The Pandemic changed everything. Musicians, artists around the world, big and small, who largely depend on live performances for their livelihood saw their primary medium of expression and monetization shutdown almost completely for months going on more than a year. Necessity has forced the industry to pivot hard to online channels but artists and audiences alike miss the vibe of live music events. neXt Curve attended SXSW 2021 to gain insights into how music artists and producers are looking to recreate the vibe virtually and remotely on top of the 5G networks of today and tomorrow.
Continue readingTech Insight: Zero Trust in a Trust-challenged World
Today, you can’t talk about security without mentioning zero trust. What is it and why is it such a prevalent principle and practice that dominates cybersecurity speak whether you are talking about an enterprise network, the emerging edge cloud or the 5G network? John Kindervag, SVP of Cybersecurity Strategy at ON2IT and creator of Zero Trust, joins neXt Curve to recalibrate our understanding of his brainchild and to discuss why it has become an important part of our cybersecurity vernacular.
Continue readingTechnology Insight: NEOM
What if technology could not just make cities “smarter” but help us entirely reimagine the idea of a city of the future? NEOM is a visionary giga project that aspires to apply the most advanced in current and emerging technologies to realize a bold urban development concept called THE LINE, the revolutionary infrastructure concept that will bring about the world’s first “cognitive city”.
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