2024 - A Year in Review
2024 - A Year in Review
In all company town halls, you’ll often hear US Signal's CEO, Dan Watts, emphasize the importance of always looking forward, rather than in the rear view mirror. This hits at a cultural norm here, which is to quickly learn from our challenges but always be looking forward to continuous improvement. We dwell only on those things which we can control.
Today, I’ll do something rare and look back on the year that was. We have seen industry shake-ups, an explosion of all things AI, new data centers, and, of course, the acquisition of OneNeck IT Solutions, which greatly enhanced our people and service capabilities.
Virtualization Shake-ups
Even industry outsiders heard of the shake-up when Broadcom acquired VMWare. Looking back, I think 2024 will be viewed as an inflection point in the virtualization space, with workload placement finally being in the enterprise vernacular.
That’s why, in addition to continuing to support and invest in our existing cloud-hosting IaaS platforms, we introduced US Signal OpenCloud in late September. OpenCloud is based on the open-source virtualization projects Apache CloudStack and KVM, which gives our customers long-term cost certainty. It is also highly performant, reliable, compliant, and brings true cloud consumption to private cloud IaaS hosting.
Voice is Dead (no, it isn’t!)
Despite the reputation of voice as a dying business need (next to printers, fax machines, etc.), the obvious truth is that communication is a constant in business. What is happening is how we communicate has changed – which is why US Signal introduced Business Cloud Communications in late 2024. BCC aims to allow for work from anywhere, enables calling through Microsoft Teams, and deploys simply with over-the-top voice technology.
OneNeck Acquisition
The acquisition of OneNeck means a lot for both organizations. Looking at it from a purely customer point of view – this combination expands our geographic reach, increases our technical capabilities (via Nutanix ReliaCloud, Azure CSP, and a litany of managed services), and expands our consulting and deployment capabilities via the design, build, and deploy “Solution Provider” business.
AI
It’s 2024 – it would be against some law somewhere to not mention AI. I was recently listening to Lenny’s Podcast interview with Seth Godin, who mentioned early on that if AI is a product feature now, it will quickly move into an integrated part of all ecosystems next.
What does the AI boom mean for US Signal and our customers? Our approach is to deliver the fiber, data center, and other connective tissue to provide interference at the edge. That’s part of why we’ve been “on a tear”, acquiring edge data centers throughout 2024.
Looking Forward
As we go into 2025, our focus will be on the core business of data centers and network, with exploration into one-step adjacencies based on customer demand. Indeed, our product roadmap is heavily influenced by input from our customers, partners, and advisors. I welcome you to share your feedback or requests with your account team or me directly if you so choose.
I am so appreciative of our customers, employees, and partners as we shift into 2025. The best is yet to come!