Ep. 156 - Connecting with Customers

The annual gathering of the business side of the cybersecurity industry, the RSA Conference, will kick off in early May. Scott Crawford and Dan Kennedy return to preview what they’ll be expecting with host Eric Hanselman. The upheaval in the security markets is being mirrored at the conference, with one major vendor deciding not to exhibit and consolidation taking place. All of this takes place as security teams struggle with operational scale. AI to the rescue? We’ll have to see.

Semiconductors are back in the spotlight with the shortage of GPU’s in the generative AI explosion. But the supply chain that produces them is complex and is not a simple thing to accelerate or scale up. This episode brings Next in Tech together with the Economics and Country Risk podcast, hosted by Kristen Hallam. Chris Rogers and John Abbott join us to dig into the dynamics and geopolitical pressures that make the supply chain so difficult to fix.

Effectively managing information security for any enterprise can be a challenge, but airlines have to deal with the compounding effects of regulations in multiple domains, life safety issues and much more. Air New Zealand CISO, Phil Ross, joins host Eric Hanselman to discuss prioritizing cybersecurity efforts, the practical aspects of zero trust and the potential of new security architectures. Tackling technical debt can be struggle, particularly in risk averse areas, like aviation.

While getting to a cloud native development pattern is a goal for most organizations, it can be a significant journey to transform both infrastructure and processes. Analyst Carl Lehmann joins host Eric Hanselman to explore the paths that can move enterprises forward. DevOps approaches can speed development, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) can change ways of managing risk and platform engineering can simplify tool sets, but adoption does not always follow a straight line.

The integration of payment technologies in the automotive realm offers interesting potential, but it has to be done with care to ensure customer experience meets expectations. FinTech’s move into the EV software ecosystem is a first step and analysts Beatriz Minamy and Sophia Furber join host Eric Hanselman to explore automotive as the latest software platform to embed payments, what’s needed, concerns about fraud and how the market is evolving. It can be more than charging, if it’s done well.

While there is no end of generative AI discussion, it’s not often clear how it’s being used. Nick Patience and Alex Johnston return to explore the results of a recent study that digs into AI use cases with host Eric Hanselman. Projects are charging forward and concerns around data dominate. Getting access to data remains challenging, but, as use matures, data quality has become increasingly critical. Interestingly, trust in AI results is declining as understanding grows. Hallucination anyone?

The spring edition of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s KubeCon/CloudNativeCon is about to get underway and Jean Atelsek and William Fellows return to discuss what will be playing out in the sessions and on the exhibit floor with host Eric Hanselman. The next stage of licensing pull back from a number of open source providers is on display, as Open Core revenue models are realigned. FinOps efforts try to tame operational costs and evolution of platform engineering approaches continues.

The curtain has come down on Mobile World Congress for 2024, but the repercussions are just beginning to settle out. Brian Patridge and Rich Karpinski join host Eric Hanselman to look at what happened at the Congress and how the implications are panning out. 5G advanced and 6G were being soft pedaled as operators look to monetize the investments they’ve already made in 5G. The promise of AI loomed large and the promise of API delivered network services offered a new service opportunity.

The world of gen AI is complex, but the web of investments in both cash and infrastructure that are supporting the many AI companies is wildly intertwined. Analyst Melissa Incera returns to look at what these interrelationships mean with host Eric Hanselman. Typical investment priorities have been contorted with strategic investors, in many cases competitors, are vying for stakes in what has become the must-have technology. Funds keep pouring in, but returns are far from assured.

Digital customer interactions are critical to business success. The effect on customer satisfaction can be dramatic, but the technology behind those interactions is often hidden. Raul Castañon Martinez joins host Eric Hanselman to look at Communications Platform and Contact Center as a Service (CPaaS and CCaaS) technologies and how they’re evolving. Gen AI can improve interactions, but is also increasing fraud. Check out the research here.