Two major announcements by dutch telco incumbent KPN underline the need for strategic change in telco land, as margins on traditional services are eroded.
In a deal with its supplier ATOS Origin, KPN takes over three data centers, and expands its workplace services to small and medium enterprises. In a more significant announcement, KPN states its intention to take over IT supplier Getronics. Getronics has a large presence in maintenance and similar commodity services.
It all reminds me of the time, years ago, when I worked at a big ISP and the strategic drive was to “move up the value chain”. Our questions then were (and still should be): “which value chain?” and “which way is up?”.