MWC Barcelona 2024 | Bob O'Donnell | TECHnalysis Research & Carolina Milanesi | Creative Strategies, Inc.

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Bob O'Donnell

Founder & Chief Analyst

TECHnalysis Research

Analysts discuss Open RAN: Challenges, promises and AI in telecom

Exploring the transformative impact of AI and Open RAN in telecom, analysts at this week’s Mobile World Congress event assessed the technology’s promises, challenges and ethical considerations.During coverage of the event, theCUBE Research analysts spoke with Bob O’Donnell (pictured, left), founder and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research LLC, and Carolina Milanesi (right), president and principal analyst at Creative Strategies Inc. about the innovation and roadblocks that come paired with AI.“It’s not something that’s going to disappear in six months; it is actually a tangible, useful thing, with a lot of complications,” Milanesi said

play_circle_outline The Cube at MWC 2024: A Comprehensive Introduction with Carolina Milanesi and Bob O'Donnell

play_circle_outline Exploring Qualcomm's New XR Hub and the Dominance of Chinese Brands: First Impressions and Market Insights

play_circle_outline Exploring the Challenges and Benefits of Open RAN: Implications for Telecom Industry Success

play_circle_outline Exploring the Integration of AI in Telco Applications and Networks: Driving Adoption and Ensuring Sustainability

play_circle_outline Unlocking the Potential: Debate on AI ROI, AIPCs, Nvidia’s Infrastructure, and Implications of Local AI Processing

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Bob O'Donnell | TECHnalysis Research & Carolina Milanesi | Creative Strategies, Inc.

Bob O'Donnell

Founder & Chief Analyst TECHnalysis Research

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(upbeat music)

>> Welcome back to beautiful Barcelona, everybody, this is The Cube and we're here at MWC 2024. I'm Dave Volante, with my co-host and lead analyst at the Cube Research, managing director Shelly Kramer. And we're really excited to have two cube alums, great guests, top analyst in the business. Carolina Milanesi is here, she's with Creative Strategies. Great to see you again, Carolina.

>> Thank you for having me. >> Thanks for coming back on. And Bob O'Donnell from TECHnalysis Research. Bob, how's it going?

>> Thanks, man. Good, good. Happy to be here, Dave.

>> Yes, good action. The show is growing.

>> Yeah, well, you know, for me it's the first time back in five years, because, you know, obviously there was COVID, and then ironically for me, the day before I was supposed to come last year, I tested positive for COVID.

>> And we were supposed to do this last year.

>> That's right, we were.

>> In 2023. >> That's funny.

>> Yeah, then I couldn't do it, but oh well. But it's fun to be back, it's such an amazingly beautiful city. and I immediately had to go to see how far they had gotten on "Sagrada Familia", which was impressive, in five years, like, they got a lot done. And obviously the show is, the buzz is amazing, it's incredibly crowded, just, you can feel it in the air.

>> Yeah, you can tell by the lack of taxis in the morning, how crowded it is, versus last year, so.

>> Right, it was bad last year, and now it's impossible. But a lot has transpired. You remember last year, Carolina, I mean, we were talking about chat GPT, but it wasn't as, you know, front and center, obviously, as it is today, and it just, boom, exploded.

>> Absolutely, yeah, generative AI is everywhere. You know, we saw this to some extent as CES, where you start to talk about AI washing a little bit, and there's certainly some fatigue in listening to people all the time talking about generative AI, and actually not necessarily always helping the market understand what generative AI can do for you, just because-

>> Everything, it can do everything

>> I know, I know. >> Come on.

>> It can wash your clothes.

>> Sadly, they can do coffee in the morning for me. (Bob chuckles) But, I think that the excitement is definitely here, and what I think is important is the fact that, first of all, it's not a fad, right, it's not something that's going to disappear in six months, it is actually a tangible, useful thing with a lot of complications, we can talk about bias and what comes with it, and how we really need to deploy, you know, ethically, but it is going to impact every aspect of our lives.

>> That's why it's so exciting to talk about it, right?

>> It is. >> It is.

>> Bob: Absolutely. So I want to step back a little bit and talk, we've got two device geeks here, right? So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the cool stuff that we've seen here in Barcelona. I think that you both have had a chance to see Qualcomm's new XR hub, tell me a little bit about your first insights here.

>> Ladies first.

>> Oh, wow. We're going to go there. (All chuckle)

>> Dave: Wrong person to say that to.

>> I've known her long enough I felt like I could do it, but oh well.

>> I think before I get to the XR hub, which is a very interesting product, and right at the right moment, right after Vision Pro, and what Apple is doing in VR, XR, AR, whatever it is that you want to call it, it's important that we take this momentum and continue to build the market, and this is exactly what Qualcomm has been doing. But this traditionally has been a smartphone show, and the weekend has been about smartphones. What is interesting always for me now that I'm based in the US versus Europe, is how much the Chinese brands own of the smartphone market, and the momentum that there is even around AI. We don't see this in the US right? The market is very much focused around three brands nowadays, iPhone and Apple, Samsung and Motorola, that's pretty much it.

>> Well, and sometimes the European market also, they're much less expensive, I mean, they have more affordable devices that we don't really see as much in the US. So I think that plays a big role too. Yeah, that's the benefit of being in Europe, where if you don't like the price in your country, you're going to go somewhere else.

(All chuckle) >> Right. Right, absolutely, absolutely. So the...

>> Yeah, so, I mean, this XR hub is basically the guts of a smartphone in a little cube that connects wirelessly to a headset. 'Cause one of the challenges with, you know, something like the Vision Pro and other headsets is, it's a face computer, like it's a lot of junk on your face.

>> Dave: And this isn't?

>> No, this is literally, so again, it's like the Ray Ban-style sunglasses, and then connecting to a device, you know, that's got the smarts. Now, the first one's, if you're going to put a screen on those Ray Bans, that's going to obviously make it more challenging. But the idea is, you put some of the intelligence, it takes the weight, the battery life, all those things. Well, not the battery life, obviously the battery,

but because it's- >> From a compute power.

>> From a compute power perspective, it's being powered in that cube, you don't have to compute, you know, have the battery power for the headset. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see how willing people are to have two different devices they need to bring with them, but-

>> Dave: That cube is a smartphone, or it's a?

>> It's the guts of a smartphone, it's just-

>> It's a separate device? >> A little box.

>> It's little box. >> It's like a hub, actually.

>> Are you guys going to bring that with you, are you going to have a separate charger for that, or?

>> Well, I mean...

>> I mean, traditionally, if you're looking at the smartphone market through the years, at the beginning of the camera phone market was actually Sony Erickson that had the first two piece, right? So the camera was actually an add-on that you would plug into the end of your phone. Most of the time you were forgetting that, you would pick out your phone and forget the accessory, right? It's always hard when you have more than one piece, for consumers to really, you know, kind of embrace that experience.

>> So do you feel like, like even with Vision Pro, it's more of a developmental platform for programmers?

>> I wouldn't call Vision Pro a developer platform in terms of the reach. (Bob chuckles) I know, Bob and I disagree. Obviously-

>> Okay, so I thought that was a sort of general consensus, but you would disagree?

>> The price is the limitation, of course.

>> It is, it is. >> Right?

>> And that's why people think that, right?

>> Shelly: Right.

>> But it is interesting to me that Apple talks about it as a platform, not necessarily a device, because that's what they want to build, you know, are people going to go out and spend $4,000? No. But, if from a use case perspective, I can give you something that is driving more your emotion than your logic, you will. If you're going to make me give, you know, an experience of being at Beyonce concert in the, you know, front line, I might, and if I look at how much my tickets for Beyonce, my kid would cost me, well, maybe.

>> But how much do you pay for your pc?

>> Right. >> That's true.

>> I mean, dunno, to me, vision Pro is more of an experiment than anything-

>> But, it's certainly first gen, I mean, but every first gen is.

>> Yeah, but that's not a normal Apple style, so it even breaks from Apple tradition, I would argue. But, you know, it's a great VR headset if you want a VR headset, most people don't, and that's the bottom line.

>> Shelly: Yeah, I agree. Which is why, I mean, again, I think this XR Cube thing is an interesting concept, there are absolutely practical challenges there, but allows you to create different types of devices. And look, we're still in the experimentation phase and days of this stuff, and that'll be interesting.

>> What did you think of Zuck's video after the whole Vision Pro thing came out? And he basically was saying, we have a superior product. You guys have used them both.

>> I had a lot of comments on different social platform after posting my experience with Vision Pro. And the common remark is, I can get the Quest for a fraction of a price and have the same experience. And the reality is no, it's not, right? Now the question is, is it good enough for most people? Yes. So it is really what you want, and then the question though is, look at the number of applications that are native for Vision Pro versus Quest. Apple got to a thousand at launch day, versus the Quest being on its third generation, plus the Pro, so four generations, and we're not even close from a number perspective.

>> That's it right there.

>> So that's the power- >> Of Apple. And the ecosystem.

>> Yeah, no, sorry Shelly. >> No, you're fine.

>> I mean, at the same time, we'll see how long those companies stay in there, right? There's a big question mark about, you know-

>> You mean the Apple-

>> Yeah, the Apple ones. Yeah, and the other thing is, way more of those Apple apps are paid apps versus free ones. Because the right developers were like, well, yeah, we're not going to have a huge audience to sell to, we better charge 'em. So I don't know, we'll see what happens.

>> Carolina: But that's true for the Quest as well.

>> Yeah, no, I mean, it's for-

>> You know, because development cost is a thing.

>> But good enough is not going to get it on my face, I'll tell you that right now. (Carolina chuckles)

No way. >> But the other thing is, there's got to be better experiences, and that's still what we're waiting on. And the demos, you know, I mean, for me, the fun part was, they actually had Jean-Michel Jarre, if you're a electronic music fan, there, and he had an application-

>> Today at Qualcomm, you're talking about.

>> At Qualcomm event, and I actually, having a history of electronic musical equipment doing that-

>> Shelly: (laughs) Really?

>> Oh yeah, I used to be the editor of Electronic Musician Magazine, so I talked to him afterwards, which was funny, he's like, "Oh yeah, that was a great magazine, blah, blah, blah," and it was fun. Anyway, but, the point is, so you know, they're working with a lot of people to try and create experiences that are different, you know, with these headsets, the problem that I have with all of them is, they're cool for about five or 10 minutes and you're like, okay, I'm done.

>> Yeah, well, and there are people who want to, the feedback on the Vision Pro that I've seen has been, it's uncomfortable, it's very heavy, it's inducing headaches. And then when you're blind like Dave and I are, then you have to have some extra things to, you know? So it's not a seamless experience for everyone. And for $4,000, I mean, I'm happy to let Carolina and everybody else experiment, and you've done a terrific job, I mean, I follow you, and I know that you used it on the plane on the way over here. And so, I am learning from you in terms of what your experiences are, and I really appreciate that, and I know that's why you do those videos, plus you're a device geek. But I do think that the whole potential here in democratizing experiences, especially beyond the whole, I don't want to have one of those on and work and collaborate with Dave in, I don't need that.

>> I agree with you, I think that the discipline, in a way of first adopters in trying to figure out the real use cases versus, you know, you see people walking on the street with it-

>> Shelly: Driving. >> Driving (chuckles).

>> You know, Apple has a whole list of do's and don'ts, but, obviously for liability issues too, right? But that's what it is, like, not everything is inducive to use Vision Pro,

or any XR device, right? >> Right.

>> So, you know, I watched a movie, and I was like, oh my God, the first reaction was like, I never going to watch a movie in my living room in any other way. And as soon as I finish thinking that, I was like, yeah, but it's kind of lonely, 'cause it's just me, right?

>> Shelly: Yeah, it's just you.

>> It's very isolating. Is it something you use every day?

>> I have been, for different reasons.

>> Because I watch movies on my app, on my phone because I can pay attention, I have the headphones and nobody's talking, I don't have to shush anybody, I kind of like it. (All chuckle) So maybe I should try the Vision Pro.

>> Well, yeah, and I'm thinking about my family, and you know, there was a day when we would actually watch things together, and my youngest kids are 18-year-old twins, and it's like, when we're watching anything,

everybody is- >> On a device.

>> It is lonely. It's not a family group thing anymore. So that's very interesting.

>> But you use it every day for what?

>> For different things, for collaboration sometimes. Obviously now there's a willingness to learn as well, you know, whether or not it's going to replace my Mac, and I haven't found the workflow yet, I think that's the hardest one to figure out. A lot of it because of kind of behavioral debt, right? You used to do things in a certain way. Entertainment is really great. I watch the Super Bowl in an app that gave me a screen that was four times the size of my TV screen. You know, things like that.

>> So it's more taking away from maybe TV time, not so much smartphone and PC time yet.

>> A little bit of a PC time, but it's been additive, so I'm spending more time on a different kind of screen.

>> Bob: All I have to say is, ask her in a month if she feels the same way, that's all I'm saying.

>> Well, you know what, just follow her on Instagram or Twitter and you'll know, there she is on it. Bob,

>> Important question, we only have so much time in the day,

you know, and so. >> There is.

>> I'm teasing her, but I think a lot of people are finding, and my own experience with other VR headsets in the past

has always been, again- >> I don't disagree with you.

>> That it's exciting and different, and then it gets old.

>> And I think that that is what determines a good product from a mediocre product, right? Is, because it's so different than what you do every day, if it becomes painful, either because it gives you headaches, or it's isolate, whatever the case might be, then you're not going to go back to it, and you're going to spend less and less time, right?

>> Oh, absolutely true.

>> Although if you've spent $4,000 on it, chances are good, you might try harder.

>> Well yeah, you are, but again-

>> You are, yeah.

>> It's going to be a door stop in a lot of homes that keep 'em, I'm telling you.

>> All right Bob, I want to talk now, let's talk a little bit about one of your favorite topics,

Open RAN. >> Oh yeah, all right.

>> So, update us.

>> Well, you know, so first of all, just quick overview for people, you know, Open RAN is this idea that previously telecom networks were all closed systems. So you know, you bought from Ericsson, or you bought from Nokia, or you know, a couple other vendors, and that's how you made sure they worked, because telcos originally were basically utilities, right? They weren't tech-focused, they were a utility like the water, or something else. As they've evolved over time, there's this idea, just as we have in the compute world, of mix and match of different things. So the idea with Open RAN was, oh, wouldn't it be great, we can get things more cheaply and it should work better, and we're just more competition, and blah, all those things you would normally associate with it. And there were, frankly, some geopolitical issues related to Huawei, and you know, concerns about Huawei equipment in, you know, certain countries. So that also played into all of this. Problem has been, it turns out it's really, really hard to do something like that, and oh, by the way, keep those, you know, seven nines of utility, and even now, like we saw what happened with AT&T last week, right? And that's before Open RAN sorts of stuff. So it's hard to do, it's hard to actually get the benefits, but we're seeing more and more companies start to do it. But they're taking it sort of an interesting version of it. They're saying it's Open RAN, but it's still all the equipment from one single vendor, it's just that the interfaces are open. It's like, well, that's-

>> Homogeneous Open RAN. >> Sort of. So it's sort of closed, open. Anyway, we are seeing the beginnings of multi-vendor Open RAN, but even there, companies are realizing, you know what, A, I need one throat to choke if something does happen on my network, like, this is life or death kinds of things, you can't go down. So some of the benefits that people thought were going to be great, not so much, but we are seeing this slow progress towards it. And then the hope is that other kinds of services and other kinds of applications, because you're building your infrastructure differently, are going to be possible. 'Cause you know, one of the challenges, again, we've seen with these 5G networks is, telcos have spent a lot of money on all this equipment, and there was this big expectation that we'd be doing all these cool crazy things, like robotic surgery, and fully autonomous cars controlled over a cellular network. That's never going to happen. So, now all of a sudden they're like, wow, we paid for all this frequency spectrum, we paid for all this equipment, and in the end, what it's doing for them is, it's lowering their costs, which is fine, but not exactly exciting. And so, the idea with Open RAN is, it will force a change in the architecture that theoretically will make it easier to deliver services.

So that's why you still see- >> Which can be monetized.

>> Which then eventually can be monetized.

>> It's interesting because I was looking recently, I kind of did a retrospective, 'cause people have been talking about, is the AI boom like the dot-com boom, and so we went back. The telecommunications act of 1996, like opened up, and you remember the Level 3s, the Enrons, and Global Crossing, a lot of 'em went out of business, most of 'em did, right? But there was a half a trillion dollars spent in the dot-com boom by the telcos and the ISPs, which in today's terms is close to a trillion. But now you see a similar build-out from telcos, and you see all the cloud guys putting out, you know, another trillion, it's like a $2 trillion build out. So somebody's got to monetize this thing.

>> Well, and they are, and the people like the cloud, like AWS and Google Cloud...

>> And Azure. >> Azure. They're all starting to host some of this Open RAN software. Again, the initial step, to be honest with you, we went dedicated hardware to Virtual RAN, vRAN, where, you know, it's the same idea of virtualization in a server, and then Open RAN. But again, it's that step-by-step change, telcos are more conservative, they move a little bit more slowly. But we're starting to see that, we're starting to see other services and capabilities that become available. And you and I were talking beforehand about something like the open gateway initiative, and the idea there is to develop a set of standard APIs that application vendors can create services that would run on these networks, and they would be consistent. Because one of the problems we've had up till now is, like if I build an app for Verizon, it may not run on T-Mobile, and that's obviously not a sustainable version.

>> No, but that whole providing universal access

to operators >> Yes.

>> And really opening up the possibilities for developers, that's I think really exciting, and I'm glad to see this initiative.

>> And theoretically you can start, to bring Dave's point in, you can start to bring AI into some of these applications that are running on the telco network. So it all starts to tie together in some ways. We got to jump, but any cool research you're working on that you want to tell people about?

>> We're spending a lot of time on AI, both from an adoption perspective and both as a user, whether I'm a consumer or an enterprise user, and willing and interested in using. We are looking at sustainability as a purchase driver, whether or not there's a lot of debate around this, the reality, especially in this market, is that sustainability is driving both opportunity and risk if you are not, you know, follow the directions that are coming from the regulators. So yeah, those are kind of hot topics that we are looking into right now.

>> We did a big AI study last year, you probably-

>> Bob: I'm going to do another one this year.

>> Is 2024 going to be the year of AI ROI, or is it going to be still elusive and not really give a payback yet so that gain sharing won't happen, or is it-

>> Well, I don't know that it'll happen on the telco side, I think we will start to see some ROI on in the enterprise world.

>> Dave: Second half?

>> I think second half is... And you know, right now it's a lot of proof of concepts, but we'll start to see some real world applications. And that's why, you know, Nvidia is crushing it, because everybody's building out the infrastructure they need to enable these kinds of things.

>> Will that, you think, if that happens in the second half, do you think that'll accelerate the top line of IT spend, which has been kind of constricted?

>> I think it could. I do. And you know, AIPCs is another topic that we both look at a lot, and we're going to see AIPCs more, you know, later this year. We've seen some of the first ones, we're going to see a lot more happening in that front, and they're going to start to, you know, do some interesting things as well. And you know, most of it's initially what I would call hybrid AI meaning some of it will be done on the PC and some of it will be done in the cloud, but over time more and more of it will be done locally, and then that opens some interesting possibilities.

>> Guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE, it's great to have analysts like you that have deep perspectives in your fields, really appreciate the collaboration.

>> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you.

>> You bet. All right, keep it right there, Shelly and I will be back. John Ferrier as well is in the house, Savannah Peterson. This is theCUBE from MWC 2024. Keep it right there. (idle electronic music)

Bob O'Donnell | TECHnalysis Research & Carolina Milanesi | Creative Strategies, Inc.

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(upbeat music)

>> Welcome back to beautiful Barcelona, everybody, this is The Cube and we're here at MWC 2024. I'm Dave Volante, with my co-host and lead analyst at the Cube Research, managing director Shelly Kramer. And we're really excited to have two cube alums, great guests, top analyst in the business. Carolina Milanesi is here, she's with Creative Strategies. Great to see you again, Carolina.

>> Thank you for having me. >> Thanks for coming back on. And Bob O'Donnell from TECHnalysis Research. Bob, how's it going?

>> Thanks, man. Good, good. Happy to be here, Dave.

>> Yes, good action. The show is growing.

>> Yeah, well, you know, for me it's the first time back in five years, because, you know, obviously there was COVID, and then ironically for me, the day before I was supposed to come last year, I tested positive for COVID.

>> And we were supposed to do this last year.

>> That's right, we were.

>> In 2023. >> That's funny.

>> Yeah, then I couldn't do it, but oh well. But it's fun to be back, it's such an amazingly beautiful city. and I immediately had to go to see how far they had gotten on "Sagrada Familia", which was impressive, in five years, like, they got a lot done. And obviously the show is, the buzz is amazing, it's incredibly crowded, just, you can feel it in the air.

>> Yeah, you can tell by the lack of taxis in the morning, how crowded it is, versus last year, so.

>> Right, it was bad last year, and now it's impossible. But a lot has transpired. You remember last year, Carolina, I mean, we were talking about chat GPT, but it wasn't as, you know, front and center, obviously, as it is today, and it just, boom, exploded.

>> Absolutely, yeah, generative AI is everywhere. You know, we saw this to some extent as CES, where you start to talk about AI washing a little bit, and there's certainly some fatigue in listening to people all the time talking about generative AI, and actually not necessarily always helping the market understand what generative AI can do for you, just because-

>> Everything, it can do everything

>> I know, I know. >> Come on.

>> It can wash your clothes.

>> Sadly, they can do coffee in the morning for me. (Bob chuckles) But, I think that the excitement is definitely here, and what I think is important is the fact that, first of all, it's not a fad, right, it's not something that's going to disappear in six months, it is actually a tangible, useful thing with a lot of complications, we can talk about bias and what comes with it, and how we really need to deploy, you know, ethically, but it is going to impact every aspect of our lives.

>> That's why it's so exciting to talk about it, right?

>> It is. >> It is.

>> Bob: Absolutely. So I want to step back a little bit and talk, we've got two device geeks here, right? So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the cool stuff that we've seen here in Barcelona. I think that you both have had a chance to see Qualcomm's new XR hub, tell me a little bit about your first insights here.

>> Ladies first.

>> Oh, wow. We're going to go there. (All chuckle)

>> Dave: Wrong person to say that to.

>> I've known her long enough I felt like I could do it, but oh well.

>> I think before I get to the XR hub, which is a very interesting product, and right at the right moment, right after Vision Pro, and what Apple is doing in VR, XR, AR, whatever it is that you want to call it, it's important that we take this momentum and continue to build the market, and this is exactly what Qualcomm has been doing. But this traditionally has been a smartphone show, and the weekend has been about smartphones. What is interesting always for me now that I'm based in the US versus Europe, is how much the Chinese brands own of the smartphone market, and the momentum that there is even around AI. We don't see this in the US right? The market is very much focused around three brands nowadays, iPhone and Apple, Samsung and Motorola, that's pretty much it.

>> Well, and sometimes the European market also, they're much less expensive, I mean, they have more affordable devices that we don't really see as much in the US. So I think that plays a big role too. Yeah, that's the benefit of being in Europe, where if you don't like the price in your country, you're going to go somewhere else.

(All chuckle) >> Right. Right, absolutely, absolutely. So the...

>> Yeah, so, I mean, this XR hub is basically the guts of a smartphone in a little cube that connects wirelessly to a headset. 'Cause one of the challenges with, you know, something like the Vision Pro and other headsets is, it's a face computer, like it's a lot of junk on your face.

>> Dave: And this isn't?

>> No, this is literally, so again, it's like the Ray Ban-style sunglasses, and then connecting to a device, you know, that's got the smarts. Now, the first one's, if you're going to put a screen on those Ray Bans, that's going to obviously make it more challenging. But the idea is, you put some of the intelligence, it takes the weight, the battery life, all those things. Well, not the battery life, obviously the battery,

but because it's- >> From a compute power.

>> From a compute power perspective, it's being powered in that cube, you don't have to compute, you know, have the battery power for the headset. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see how willing people are to have two different devices they need to bring with them, but-

>> Dave: That cube is a smartphone, or it's a?

>> It's the guts of a smartphone, it's just-

>> It's a separate device? >> A little box.

>> It's little box. >> It's like a hub, actually.

>> Are you guys going to bring that with you, are you going to have a separate charger for that, or?

>> Well, I mean...

>> I mean, traditionally, if you're looking at the smartphone market through the years, at the beginning of the camera phone market was actually Sony Erickson that had the first two piece, right? So the camera was actually an add-on that you would plug into the end of your phone. Most of the time you were forgetting that, you would pick out your phone and forget the accessory, right? It's always hard when you have more than one piece, for consumers to really, you know, kind of embrace that experience.

>> So do you feel like, like even with Vision Pro, it's more of a developmental platform for programmers?

>> I wouldn't call Vision Pro a developer platform in terms of the reach. (Bob chuckles) I know, Bob and I disagree. Obviously-

>> Okay, so I thought that was a sort of general consensus, but you would disagree?

>> The price is the limitation, of course.

>> It is, it is. >> Right?

>> And that's why people think that, right?

>> Shelly: Right.

>> But it is interesting to me that Apple talks about it as a platform, not necessarily a device, because that's what they want to build, you know, are people going to go out and spend $4,000? No. But, if from a use case perspective, I can give you something that is driving more your emotion than your logic, you will. If you're going to make me give, you know, an experience of being at Beyonce concert in the, you know, front line, I might, and if I look at how much my tickets for Beyonce, my kid would cost me, well, maybe.

>> But how much do you pay for your pc?

>> Right. >> That's true.

>> I mean, dunno, to me, vision Pro is more of an experiment than anything-

>> But, it's certainly first gen, I mean, but every first gen is.

>> Yeah, but that's not a normal Apple style, so it even breaks from Apple tradition, I would argue. But, you know, it's a great VR headset if you want a VR headset, most people don't, and that's the bottom line.

>> Shelly: Yeah, I agree. Which is why, I mean, again, I think this XR Cube thing is an interesting concept, there are absolutely practical challenges there, but allows you to create different types of devices. And look, we're still in the experimentation phase and days of this stuff, and that'll be interesting.

>> What did you think of Zuck's video after the whole Vision Pro thing came out? And he basically was saying, we have a superior product. You guys have used them both.

>> I had a lot of comments on different social platform after posting my experience with Vision Pro. And the common remark is, I can get the Quest for a fraction of a price and have the same experience. And the reality is no, it's not, right? Now the question is, is it good enough for most people? Yes. So it is really what you want, and then the question though is, look at the number of applications that are native for Vision Pro versus Quest. Apple got to a thousand at launch day, versus the Quest being on its third generation, plus the Pro, so four generations, and we're not even close from a number perspective.

>> That's it right there.

>> So that's the power- >> Of Apple. And the ecosystem.

>> Yeah, no, sorry Shelly. >> No, you're fine.

>> I mean, at the same time, we'll see how long those companies stay in there, right? There's a big question mark about, you know-

>> You mean the Apple-

>> Yeah, the Apple ones. Yeah, and the other thing is, way more of those Apple apps are paid apps versus free ones. Because the right developers were like, well, yeah, we're not going to have a huge audience to sell to, we better charge 'em. So I don't know, we'll see what happens.

>> Carolina: But that's true for the Quest as well.

>> Yeah, no, I mean, it's for-

>> You know, because development cost is a thing.

>> But good enough is not going to get it on my face, I'll tell you that right now. (Carolina chuckles)

No way. >> But the other thing is, there's got to be better experiences, and that's still what we're waiting on. And the demos, you know, I mean, for me, the fun part was, they actually had Jean-Michel Jarre, if you're a electronic music fan, there, and he had an application-

>> Today at Qualcomm, you're talking about.

>> At Qualcomm event, and I actually, having a history of electronic musical equipment doing that-

>> Shelly: (laughs) Really?

>> Oh yeah, I used to be the editor of Electronic Musician Magazine, so I talked to him afterwards, which was funny, he's like, "Oh yeah, that was a great magazine, blah, blah, blah," and it was fun. Anyway, but, the point is, so you know, they're working with a lot of people to try and create experiences that are different, you know, with these headsets, the problem that I have with all of them is, they're cool for about five or 10 minutes and you're like, okay, I'm done.

>> Yeah, well, and there are people who want to, the feedback on the Vision Pro that I've seen has been, it's uncomfortable, it's very heavy, it's inducing headaches. And then when you're blind like Dave and I are, then you have to have some extra things to, you know? So it's not a seamless experience for everyone. And for $4,000, I mean, I'm happy to let Carolina and everybody else experiment, and you've done a terrific job, I mean, I follow you, and I know that you used it on the plane on the way over here. And so, I am learning from you in terms of what your experiences are, and I really appreciate that, and I know that's why you do those videos, plus you're a device geek. But I do think that the whole potential here in democratizing experiences, especially beyond the whole, I don't want to have one of those on and work and collaborate with Dave in, I don't need that.

>> I agree with you, I think that the discipline, in a way of first adopters in trying to figure out the real use cases versus, you know, you see people walking on the street with it-

>> Shelly: Driving. >> Driving (chuckles).

>> You know, Apple has a whole list of do's and don'ts, but, obviously for liability issues too, right? But that's what it is, like, not everything is inducive to use Vision Pro,

or any XR device, right? >> Right.

>> So, you know, I watched a movie, and I was like, oh my God, the first reaction was like, I never going to watch a movie in my living room in any other way. And as soon as I finish thinking that, I was like, yeah, but it's kind of lonely, 'cause it's just me, right?

>> Shelly: Yeah, it's just you.

>> It's very isolating. Is it something you use every day?

>> I have been, for different reasons.

>> Because I watch movies on my app, on my phone because I can pay attention, I have the headphones and nobody's talking, I don't have to shush anybody, I kind of like it. (All chuckle) So maybe I should try the Vision Pro.

>> Well, yeah, and I'm thinking about my family, and you know, there was a day when we would actually watch things together, and my youngest kids are 18-year-old twins, and it's like, when we're watching anything,

everybody is- >> On a device.

>> It is lonely. It's not a family group thing anymore. So that's very interesting.

>> But you use it every day for what?

>> For different things, for collaboration sometimes. Obviously now there's a willingness to learn as well, you know, whether or not it's going to replace my Mac, and I haven't found the workflow yet, I think that's the hardest one to figure out. A lot of it because of kind of behavioral debt, right? You used to do things in a certain way. Entertainment is really great. I watch the Super Bowl in an app that gave me a screen that was four times the size of my TV screen. You know, things like that.

>> So it's more taking away from maybe TV time, not so much smartphone and PC time yet.

>> A little bit of a PC time, but it's been additive, so I'm spending more time on a different kind of screen.

>> Bob: All I have to say is, ask her in a month if she feels the same way, that's all I'm saying.

>> Well, you know what, just follow her on Instagram or Twitter and you'll know, there she is on it. Bob,

>> Important question, we only have so much time in the day,

you know, and so. >> There is.

>> I'm teasing her, but I think a lot of people are finding, and my own experience with other VR headsets in the past

has always been, again- >> I don't disagree with you.

>> That it's exciting and different, and then it gets old.

>> And I think that that is what determines a good product from a mediocre product, right? Is, because it's so different than what you do every day, if it becomes painful, either because it gives you headaches, or it's isolate, whatever the case might be, then you're not going to go back to it, and you're going to spend less and less time, right?

>> Oh, absolutely true.

>> Although if you've spent $4,000 on it, chances are good, you might try harder.

>> Well yeah, you are, but again-

>> You are, yeah.

>> It's going to be a door stop in a lot of homes that keep 'em, I'm telling you.

>> All right Bob, I want to talk now, let's talk a little bit about one of your favorite topics,

Open RAN. >> Oh yeah, all right.

>> So, update us.

>> Well, you know, so first of all, just quick overview for people, you know, Open RAN is this idea that previously telecom networks were all closed systems. So you know, you bought from Ericsson, or you bought from Nokia, or you know, a couple other vendors, and that's how you made sure they worked, because telcos originally were basically utilities, right? They weren't tech-focused, they were a utility like the water, or something else. As they've evolved over time, there's this idea, just as we have in the compute world, of mix and match of different things. So the idea with Open RAN was, oh, wouldn't it be great, we can get things more cheaply and it should work better, and we're just more competition, and blah, all those things you would normally associate with it. And there were, frankly, some geopolitical issues related to Huawei, and you know, concerns about Huawei equipment in, you know, certain countries. So that also played into all of this. Problem has been, it turns out it's really, really hard to do something like that, and oh, by the way, keep those, you know, seven nines of utility, and even now, like we saw what happened with AT&T last week, right? And that's before Open RAN sorts of stuff. So it's hard to do, it's hard to actually get the benefits, but we're seeing more and more companies start to do it. But they're taking it sort of an interesting version of it. They're saying it's Open RAN, but it's still all the equipment from one single vendor, it's just that the interfaces are open. It's like, well, that's-

>> Homogeneous Open RAN. >> Sort of. So it's sort of closed, open. Anyway, we are seeing the beginnings of multi-vendor Open RAN, but even there, companies are realizing, you know what, A, I need one throat to choke if something does happen on my network, like, this is life or death kinds of things, you can't go down. So some of the benefits that people thought were going to be great, not so much, but we are seeing this slow progress towards it. And then the hope is that other kinds of services and other kinds of applications, because you're building your infrastructure differently, are going to be possible. 'Cause you know, one of the challenges, again, we've seen with these 5G networks is, telcos have spent a lot of money on all this equipment, and there was this big expectation that we'd be doing all these cool crazy things, like robotic surgery, and fully autonomous cars controlled over a cellular network. That's never going to happen. So, now all of a sudden they're like, wow, we paid for all this frequency spectrum, we paid for all this equipment, and in the end, what it's doing for them is, it's lowering their costs, which is fine, but not exactly exciting. And so, the idea with Open RAN is, it will force a change in the architecture that theoretically will make it easier to deliver services.

So that's why you still see- >> Which can be monetized.

>> Which then eventually can be monetized.

>> It's interesting because I was looking recently, I kind of did a retrospective, 'cause people have been talking about, is the AI boom like the dot-com boom, and so we went back. The telecommunications act of 1996, like opened up, and you remember the Level 3s, the Enrons, and Global Crossing, a lot of 'em went out of business, most of 'em did, right? But there was a half a trillion dollars spent in the dot-com boom by the telcos and the ISPs, which in today's terms is close to a trillion. But now you see a similar build-out from telcos, and you see all the cloud guys putting out, you know, another trillion, it's like a $2 trillion build out. So somebody's got to monetize this thing.

>> Well, and they are, and the people like the cloud, like AWS and Google Cloud...

>> And Azure. >> Azure. They're all starting to host some of this Open RAN software. Again, the initial step, to be honest with you, we went dedicated hardware to Virtual RAN, vRAN, where, you know, it's the same idea of virtualization in a server, and then Open RAN. But again, it's that step-by-step change, telcos are more conservative, they move a little bit more slowly. But we're starting to see that, we're starting to see other services and capabilities that become available. And you and I were talking beforehand about something like the open gateway initiative, and the idea there is to develop a set of standard APIs that application vendors can create services that would run on these networks, and they would be consistent. Because one of the problems we've had up till now is, like if I build an app for Verizon, it may not run on T-Mobile, and that's obviously not a sustainable version.

>> No, but that whole providing universal access

to operators >> Yes.

>> And really opening up the possibilities for developers, that's I think really exciting, and I'm glad to see this initiative.

>> And theoretically you can start, to bring Dave's point in, you can start to bring AI into some of these applications that are running on the telco network. So it all starts to tie together in some ways. We got to jump, but any cool research you're working on that you want to tell people about?

>> We're spending a lot of time on AI, both from an adoption perspective and both as a user, whether I'm a consumer or an enterprise user, and willing and interested in using. We are looking at sustainability as a purchase driver, whether or not there's a lot of debate around this, the reality, especially in this market, is that sustainability is driving both opportunity and risk if you are not, you know, follow the directions that are coming from the regulators. So yeah, those are kind of hot topics that we are looking into right now.

>> We did a big AI study last year, you probably-

>> Bob: I'm going to do another one this year.

>> Is 2024 going to be the year of AI ROI, or is it going to be still elusive and not really give a payback yet so that gain sharing won't happen, or is it-

>> Well, I don't know that it'll happen on the telco side, I think we will start to see some ROI on in the enterprise world.

>> Dave: Second half?

>> I think second half is... And you know, right now it's a lot of proof of concepts, but we'll start to see some real world applications. And that's why, you know, Nvidia is crushing it, because everybody's building out the infrastructure they need to enable these kinds of things.

>> Will that, you think, if that happens in the second half, do you think that'll accelerate the top line of IT spend, which has been kind of constricted?

>> I think it could. I do. And you know, AIPCs is another topic that we both look at a lot, and we're going to see AIPCs more, you know, later this year. We've seen some of the first ones, we're going to see a lot more happening in that front, and they're going to start to, you know, do some interesting things as well. And you know, most of it's initially what I would call hybrid AI meaning some of it will be done on the PC and some of it will be done in the cloud, but over time more and more of it will be done locally, and then that opens some interesting possibilities.

>> Guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE, it's great to have analysts like you that have deep perspectives in your fields, really appreciate the collaboration.

>> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you.

>> You bet. All right, keep it right there, Shelly and I will be back. John Ferrier as well is in the house, Savannah Peterson. This is theCUBE from MWC 2024. Keep it right there. (idle electronic music)