Telcos More Open to 3rd Party Partners

One difference between 2006 and 2007 was that global telco executives began to shift attitudes about the importance of working with third party application and service providers. Where they might arguably have been more focused in 2006 on cost cutting and other internal measures, 2007 found executives more focused on how to position themselves for new services.

Though there arguably is more recognition that advertising operations will demand partners, there also seems to be more recognition that core communications capabilities can be leveraged as a revenue stream if those features are made available to other application and service providers.

This is a very big and quite important shift in thinking.