Launching TX – how we’re realising enterprise adoption of open source technology
When Fortune 500 companies tell you they love your technology but they first need help understanding how data economies, blockchain and decentralization can bring value to their organisation, it’s important to sit up and take stock.
While there is clear willingness from these huge multinational conglomerates to try new innovative technology solutions like Streamr, if the benefits of using the technology are not clear, nor easy to understand, their ability to unlock internal investment to support R&D projects is pretty limited.
Adoption of the Streamr stack is the shared goal of everyone in the Streamr community, and all avenues of achieving it should to be tried. If these multinational organisations need to be guided through the process of being educated on the potential upside a data economy can bring to their organisation, and also the down-side potential market-share associated risks of not considering this new paradigm, then that is what we must do.
Enter TX
TX is a newly established company set up to directly respond to the challenges above. TX’s goal is to develop solutions for customers that truly empower industries, organisations and people by unlocking the value of data. We achieve this through the application of the Streamr technology stack. TX provides the necessary consulting services that enterprises are accustomed to prior to procuring a technology solution. Our consulting model is comprised of three key phases which are: ‘Assess’, ‘Test’ and ‘Adopt’.
Phase 1 – Assess
For an enterprise to invest in a technology they first need to understand what problem the technology will solve and then have a business case detailing the benefits. This will comprise the cost profile and revenue opportunity. In other words, business cases are the tool Enterprises use to decide on whether to invest their R&D money.
TX will help organisations produce these business cases by undertaking an initial consulting assignment we refer to as Assess. It’s typically a 2–4 week assignment where we review the client’s need for the Streamr stack, qualify the benefits case and provide a design outline for a pilot. We’re currently undertaking several Assess assignments for major enterprises within the mobility, infrastructure and banking industries.
Phase 2 – Test
Competitive advantage is key to any successful enterprise. So when a game-changing solution is identified, enterprises tend to lock down all information under NDAs until testing and piloting has been completed. Only then are they ready for launch. Depending on the vertical, the timescales from business case to launch can vary considerably. For example, projects within the mobility industry can have up to a three year sales process. Other verticals that have less onerous compliance such as fisheries, can move more swiftly. This partly explains why the Streamr community has seen more updates about the technology being applied in the fisheries industry as opposed to mobility over the last 12 months.
Of course being locked in to an NDA also means that piloting using the public facing Streamr stack is almost impossible.
TX solves this problem by providing dedicated instances of the Streamr stack so that enterprises can test privately and even request new features before deciding whether to progress onto the final outcome of using the Streamr public stack, or having their own version of the stack. We refer to this as Phase 2, Test, and this can last anywhere from 3–12 months depending on the client’s requirements.
Phase 3 – Adopt
The final and most exciting phase in our consulting package is of course, Adopt. This is where the customer adopts the Streamr stack. We provide multiple options:
Progress
Finally, TX already has already made progress. We’ve signed a pretty big deal to build an application that utilises the upcoming Community Products feature. But we’re keeping this under wraps for the next few weeks whilst our partners, a global charity and a major financial institution in South East Asia, are ready to announce it with us.
Over the past months, my current role as Head of Partnerships has been gradually shifting more towards getting the first TX projects going, and moving forwards, it makes most sense for me to focus fully on that. Rob Holmes will be taking over partnerships on the Streamr project side — typically including companies, NGOs, governments, universities and other relationships, which are beneficial for Streamr adoption but don’t necessarily generate income. Rob has been acting as my right hand man in Streamr Partnerships team for about a year, so the transition will be seamless.
TX is here to lead enterprises into the world of data economies, blockchain and decentralization. It’s exciting work and already underway in a good number of verticals. These uncharted waters are where we will make a difference.
More Questions on TX? You might find your answer here: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamr/comments/d1t264/qa_with_henri_and_ben_regarding_streamr_and_tx/
