Dr Wulf Bauerfeld T-Systems Enterprise Services – Head of Innovative Internet Products

Rating: The communication industry is turning into a software industry

by Bena Roberts

Dr. Wulf started his presentation with a joke. He said, IP is everywhere; don’t confuse it with I. P (I pee) everywhere. (Oh dear- but some of the other analysts laughed!).

But the point of this presentation was to focus on Voice 2.0 and the move from transferring just voice to transferring voice applications. I have to say that I liked Mr. Bauerfeld and I even sat next to him at Dinner (see later post) but when it comes to strategy and business we are not on the same page.

I agree that Deutsche Telekom can be a broker for voice and data and wholesale still has vast potential but his analogies of eBay being the success story of the Internet (more than Google) lead me to believe that the apparent threat of the branded mobile search players are passing him by.

For me, in 2.0 everything comes down to search, advertising and interaction. This does not mean if you had a sponsored link; a search box and then a chat room everything will be fixed. Search is not just about a search box it’s a discovery tool. It’s the ability to interact with the medium. Advertising is a way of making money from the link by providing triggers of paid links to drive the connection. Interaction is the voice; but it’s also the data and the gel to facilitate growth in the industry. (Annie wrote a great article on this in the 2.0 Analyst recently).

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