ok. now i remember things better let me rephrase it. matrix was initiated by/inside amdocs. it (given that it was amdocs) was meant to be sold to telecoms to compete with OTT offerings (open source wording, etc - amdocs was adding it to everything back in this timeframe as it was trendy).
I was sufficiently "high up" in organization to hear this pitch. For record I said that they (telecoms) won't buy it and I didn't like project technically
Later when Amdocs saw that it's a no go they span you outside and later cut the funding.
it was initiated very much by me & the UC team while inside Amdocs.
> it (given that it was amdocs) was meant to be sold to telecoms to compete with OTT offerings
in the 5-10 year horizon, yes. And indeed eventually (as Element) we have ended up with a bunch of telco customers. However, this was not the immediate goal at the time - it's not like Matrix was created to improve EBIT for Amdocs UC; it was a long-term R&D play.
> Later when Amdocs saw that it's a no go they span you outside and later cut the funding.
It was the opposite. Amdocs saw that Matrix had legs - e.g. Ericsson started selling Matrix-based solutions (stuff like https://matrix.org/blog/2016/11/23/when-ericsson-discovered-...) - but also saw that it didn't fit inside Amdocs. The whole idea of Matrix is to be an open standard for everyone, just like XMPP or SIP or HTTP. For it to succeed, it obviously couldn't live inside Amdocs.
So, they agreed to both cut funding and span us out; we then raised funding independently and set up The Matrix.org Foundation as non-profit to look after Matrix for everyone, and separately set up Element as for-profit to fund our work on Matrix. It's not exactly been a smooth journey (see https://youtu.be/lkCKhP1jxdk?t=363 for my FOSDEM talk trying to explain the route so far), but I can confidently say that Matrix was not borne out of trying to scratch an immediate business itch for Amdocs, but instead a longer-term experiment in building something better for everyone (including Amdocs).
>it was initiated very much by me & the UC team while inside Amdocs.
in other words by amdocs.
ericsson starting to sell matrix based solution while amdocs not selling any (or none of traditional amdocs clients like AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, etc expressing interest in buying one), it's the definition of "no go" and "no fit" for amdocs. At this timeframe, amdocs could sink tens of millions of dollars into open source project if they thought that they will get some money back. ONAP will be prime example of this.
internal presentation in amdocs that were circulated on VP+ level most definitely talked about scratching immediate business itch for Amdocs. It was talking about how telecoms are upset that OTT messaging killing SMS and profits and that matrix is attempt to give to telecoms something to compete with it. I said that idea that telecoms can get this market back is bananas, but management had shiny new toy to play with and they were excited about it. Hence they allowed it to run till the moment that they saw that no profit can be done there.
I was sufficiently "high up" in organization to hear this pitch. For record I said that they (telecoms) won't buy it and I didn't like project technically
Later when Amdocs saw that it's a no go they span you outside and later cut the funding.