7 Dec 2007
Welcome to the new On-Communications Web Site from CEO Ian Roberts.
I would like to welcome all visitors to our new web site.
Now the new web site is up and running, as always, feedback is welcome. So if something moves you sufficiently, please do post your comments on the contact us page. Whilst I can’t guarantee a personal reply to everyone or indeed that we will implement every idea received, I can assure you that all your comments will be read and carefully considered.
It is our intention to use the News section to post all public information about developments, services and announcements about the company.
We have not posted any news for some time but we have not been idle; quite the reverse. So I would like to bring people up to speed on some exciting developments and our latest thinking.
We are building the first UK high-speed wireless broadband Metro Network for business, and to do that requires a top tier team of individuals.
Firstly therefore, I am pleased to report that my senior management team is almost complete. You can read more about my colleagues by visiting the Management team page. I am genuinely delighted to have such an experienced and successful team to support the delivery of our goals.
Looking around the Wireless Business Internet industry, the strength of our team matches the best in the industry.. We are poised and ready to exploit new market developments, some of which are unique to us, some not.
Secondly, at the risk of being hoist by my own petard at some later date, I would like to share my thoughts on the future of Broadband, specifically in the U.K.
One of the questions I get asked a lot, is ‘well everyone has broadband now, doesn’t that mean the market is saturated?’ If we are going to be intellectually rigorous, then the answer has to be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, if by definition we mean the numbers of people with some kind of Broadband, but categorically ‘no’ if the definition is the type of Broadband that (in our case) businesses want and will increasingly demand.
For me, the current near ubiquity of First Generation Broadband provides the launch pad for the next technological step change, in both business and consumer habits. It is my belief that the Internet revolution is only now just beginning.
Our Chief Technical Advisor, Ian Vance MBE is working on a long term government sponsored project with several leading universities looking at Internet usage trends and triggers. Without yielding any information that is not yet in the public domain, early analysis supports my long held belief that when everyone had access to do ‘something’ on the Internet, people would soon strive to be able to do ‘everything’, and in real time. We are some way from that happening, but evidence of the shift is all around and I wonder how vast the shake-out is actually going to be.
One small, but for us prime example of ‘shift’, is that as a business we don’t have our own IT servers, but critically, neither do we have our own servers operated by a traditional IT outsourcer.
Everyone has a lap top, our office is wireless and we use mobiles and Centrex over the Internet for our office telephony.
We work entirely from web-based applications and other than client software (on laptops), we buy all our software as a service, or not at all – really, not at all. That has not been possible before, even just [6 months] ago we could not have managed our IT in this way.
So, who wins and who loses in this brave new world?
Google (clearly) is a winner, but also businesses likeSalesforce.com and the new upstart company Live Documents (set up by the founder of hotmail) indicate the direction we think the world is heading.
As for the losers, by way of our own anecdotal evidence, Microsoft may experience the biggest shift, either in business model or relevance. Their presence, (or hold) over our business is already minimal. If, for example, Live Documents delivers on its promise to deliver a flash-based MS office client replacement, we would just about eliminate Microsoft from our business model going forward. Ten years ago they would have dominated our entire IT thinking and infrastructure, and at much greater cost!
Ah yes, the other prerequisite is more Broadband, and not just more of it, but intelligent circuits with high speed connectivity in both directions (not just down). That is our space, and that is why we are here.
So, exciting times are upon us, the space is hot and with new WiMAX technology nearly ready for prime time, so are we.
I look forward to sharing our progress with you in due course, and thank you for your interest in On-Communications.
Yours sincerely
Ian Roberts
Chief Executive Officer
