AT&T’s new app approach: 'Speed dating' for developers

Following its announcement yesterday about new Innovation Centers in technology hot beds in Israel, Palo Alto and Plano, Connected Planet talked with AT&T’s Peter Hill, vice president of ecosystems and innovation, and the person responsible for the technology behind the AT&T U-verse TV service. He also led the research on three-screen applications at AT&T’s IPTV labs, which created many of the U-verse applications that consumers enjoy today.

Connected Planet: What is it about these ‘Innovation Centers’ that will give AT&T a boost in terms of innovation and collaboration?

Hill: They will enable a new “fast-pitch” approach that will in particular help smaller, innovative companies who in the past had to navigate a very large, complex company to find the right contacts at AT&T. Now, they can reach out to AT&T decision makers and implementers at key locations and expedite the time it takes to get a “yes” or “no” in terms of possible partnership with us. For small companies, it’s important to get an answer quickly so they don’t waste time pitching the wrong people. Now it will be much easier to know if they are a match because we’ll have permanently staffed AT&T liaisons who can filter through requests in a much more targeted and rapid manner.

Connected Planet: What is the benefit for AT&T in investing so many millions in this type of project?

Hill: This will make it much easier to expose us to the “latest and greatest” in innovations. Our CTO has laid down aggressive goals with us set to meet 100 companies each quarter, meaning 400 companies per year. Because innovation is so ‘probablistic,’ the more outreach we do, the more exposure to great ideas.

Connected Planet: So this is like ‘speed dating’ for developers?

Hill: Yes, our hope is that by making it easier for smaller, innovative companies to work with us, we will attract the best of the best who in the past were somewhat intimidated perhaps by where to start in terms of navigating the right channels; we’ve now simplified it for them. We recognize it’s a long way for a small company with limited resources to go from Israel to somewhere like Dallas or Atlanta, and so we’re going to do more of an outbound effort to find them or help them find us.

Connected Planet: What types of potential matches are you seeking?

Hill: Well, we don’t want to limit ourselves, but the three key areas right now could be M2M communications, eHealth, and emerging Web technologies around HTML 5. We generally want companies in the earlier stages of development, or, if vendors or venture capital firms see someone of interest, we want to provide channels for them to get the message through to us as well. As stated by CTO John Donvoan, our goal is to “tap into the cutting-edge design expertise in Silicon Valley, prototyping industry applications – from automotive to education services – in Plano and the deep skills in communications protocols and innovation that reside in Israel. Working across these locations, innovation can follow the sun with a near 24-hour cycle time for agile development."

Connected Planet: Other than the actual physical infrastructure, what is special about this project?

Hill: The focus on collaboration and an ‘innovation pipeline’ is really exciting. We’ve put a lot into developing and utilizing web and cloud technologies to empower 14,000 employees to participate in quality control and management through a new collaborative environment. That, plus the Innovation Centers, and the tenants we now have internally to implement and make innovation happen is creating a lot of energy in the organization, which can think more in a venture-capital type of way within this environment.

Connected Planet: How are your suppliers and partners critical to this?

Hill: We are working with companies like Amdocs, with which we have a long-standing and deep relationship in Israel, and they know the vibrance and creativity in Ra'anana, near Tel Aviv, Israel, and the rest of the world. They will help us build the infrastructure an environment in which developers will collaborate with AT&T and its innovators, its host suppliers and other developers. We also have Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, Cisco and Juniper helping in areas like Palo Alto, CA and Plano, TX. These are our key partners.