With many Open RAN companies forsaking major telco projects for the burgeoning private enterprise 5G market, and only a few holding out for the prized Tier 1 contracts, the dynamics of much of the Open RAN movement are changing. The entrance of a new type of player, the systems integrator (SI), widens Open RAN companies’ target base to enterprises that lack the inhouse resources to knit together a multivendor network. On the other hand, their involvement will potentially drive up costs for customers. Open RAN vendors must find a way around this dilemma, relying on SIs for functions that they cannot easily support themselves, while also circumventing them wherever possible in order to increase their share of the value chain,…