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Throughout the incredible journey of the telecom OSS/BSS sector over the last 10 years, VanillaPlus has remained a reliable source of both key news but also informative, objective and thought-provoking assessments of the key trends which have shaped our industry. I am looking forward to VanillaPlus and their more recent Stream journal continuing to play a key role in providing valuable insights as we enter one of the most exciting phases of the telecoms OSS/BSS market evolutions.

Kieran Moynihan
Vice President & CTO Telecoms
IBM Tivoli Division

Mobile Content

T-Mobile Germany launches Comverse and Jamba’s Fun Broker off-deck ringback tones

Commercial implementation of the Fun Broker off-deck ringback tone platform at T-Mobile Germany, a unit of Deutsche Telekom has gone live. This was enabled by Comverse, a supplier of software and systems for enhanced communication and billing services, with Jamba, a provider of digital entertainment services, and a joint venture between News Corporation and VeriSign.



Now available globally, Fun Broker allows content providers to sell ringback tones directly from their portals. Integrating ringback tones into the dynamic off-deck content retail market helps subscribers to personalise ringback tones easily from multiple media sources, which can increase the service’s penetration. Fun Dial, Comverse's popular ringback tone service, allows users to personalise ringing and busy signals with music and content to entertain callers waiting for the phone to be answered.



The entry of leading content players like Jamba into the ringback tone service arena will increase user awareness and choice, which can generate substantial new traffic and revenue in ringback tone content.



Lee Fenton, COO at Jamba said: "Operators have too much to do already to successfully take on the entire burden of constant promotion of ringback tones. By turning to Jamba and Comverse, T-Mobile gains energetic and motivated market-savvy content and service delivery partners, and benefits from our highly popular portal fordigital entertainment."

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Amdocs unifies its m-commerce, search and advertising

Amdocs (NYSE: DOX), a leading provider of customer experience systems, has
introduced the first unified platform for mobile service providers to offer
digital marketplaces connecting advertisers, publishers, merchants and
consumers. Talking to VanillaPlus Magazine at Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona, Spain, Moshe Kamar, general manager of the new Amdocs division
reported that the new platform from its Advertising, Commerce and Entertainment
(ACE) division integrates the Amdocs Search and Digital Advertising system with
the mobile commerce systems of Amdocs Qpass to offer service providers new
business models and revenue streams, such as ad-sponsored content.



The Search and Digital Advertising solution was launched in January as a key
part of the Amdocs Customer Experience Systems (CES) product portfolio. It
leverages service providers’ valuable assets, including subscriber data and
network infrastructure, to provide the end customer with more targeted and
personalised advertising. By combining the solutions with Amdocs Qpass, its
digital commerce offering that has processed nearly one billion transactions
since 2003, service providers can offer consumers a fully personalised
experience with both targeted ads and content recommendations.



Unlike other
siloed platforms, Amdocs’ unified solution enables service providers to support
and offer complex and evolving business models, streamlining processes and
offering consumers exciting new ways of interacting with digital content. For
example, service providers can offer a wide range of purchasing options, from fully
consumer-funded to ad-sponsored content.



Said Kamar: "Four key assets were working in silos; Amdocs Qpass, the
Advertising & Media Division, Search & Digital Advertising, andn Open
Market which allows merchants to distribute digital goods, as well as charging
to the phone bill."



Service providers will also find experienced insight from the Amdocs Consulting
Division to help effectively introduce and optimise the revenue potential of
new services through counsel on process analysis, best practices, partner
assessment and business relationship optimisation, and data analysis.



“Combining our solutions into one ecosystem helps service providers offer a
more cohesive and personalised experience for their customers without heavy
investments in negotiating digital commerce relationships,” said Charles Born,
vice president of corporate communications for Amdocs. “With 25 years of
unmatched expertise in delivering solutions to the world’s leading service
providers and the deep relationships we have with content providers through
Qpass, Amdocs’ comprehensive solution helps service providers quickly establish
themselves in the value chain in the most efficient manner.”stablish themselves in the value chain in the most

Comarch integrates LBS with instant messaging

MobiLoc is a new system from Poland's Comarch that integrates the instant communication of
mobile users with a mobile presence that they
can control. The
system can be used with all popular mobile platforms and devices including
mobile phones, PDAs, smartphones as well as PCs.



The user tailors and decides
whether he or she uses the complete version of the software together with
detailed maps on his mobile terminal or just a ‘lite’ version with
more detailed information obtained via a PC. This approach minimises the problem
of illegible information being displayed on a small mobile screen. The user
decides what information is crucial for him, what is to be accessed instantly and
what to check later in the office using a PC.

 

"Technologies like LBS, allowing a user to
precisely determine their position, have become popular due to their usage in
automotive navigation systems. Comarch MobiLoc adds more content to this
application integrating existing communication, social communities and
information services with localisation opportunities. When my friends are close,
I want to be notified. I would certainly call or IM them if I know they are 400
metres away. I want to search for new contacts, new places and new pubs just
around the corner," says Stanisław Zbroja, senior product manager, Comarch
SA.

 

The
solution creates new opportunity for location commerce enabling a mobile user to
obtain immediate information, not only about a location but also about nearby hotels, restaurants, ATMs, hospitals, pubs, offices and car parks.
The information can be obtained either as a query from a mobile terminal user or
it can be pushed as an advertisement, together with basic information, a map and
instructions how to get to the place.

TALKING HEADS: CEM duo tell of role in raising revenues

In an Exclusive interview in the April issue of VanillaPlus (out April 10), Arantech's CEO and founder, Brendan McDonagh and James Doyle, the company's vice president of Marketing & Product Management talk candidly about Arantech's evangelising role in CEM (customer experience management) for telcos.



The goal is not just raising customer satisfaction levels, but improving revenues too. And work for the likes of T-Mobile Austria, as well as leading Irish and German wireless network operators is paying dividends. Following a re-direction for the company in 2000, Arantech has been able to double its revenues (year-on-year) over the last three years.



Referring to the company's "nimble" reactions to changing customer demands, McDonagh told VanillaPlus: "It is those dynamics that give us an edge when comparing ourselves against the slower moving giants like IBM."



Full report in VanillaPlus April 2008 issue. To subscribe to future issues contact: subs@vanillaplus.com

VanillaPlus is available free to qualifying individuals within Europe.

Sony Ericsson’s sort-of-answer to iPhone really grows on you

OK, so it’s not as cool as the iPhone, and it’s
not hyped as much as Samsung’s F700 with QWERTY keyboard. But at the end of a
few days together the W960i was growing on Jeremy Cowan, who was in no rush to
send it back.

 

Perhaps we
got off to a bad start, it and me. It’s a little slow to boot up, well slower
than my trusty W850i. It’s bigger too; but then it would be, to accommodate a
39 x 52 mm screen. But it soon started to win back some ground with its 3.2
megapixel camera and high screen resolution. My first digital camera barely
matched the 960’s camera and it never matched the screen size.



The change of GUI was just annoying though. I’ve had a number of Sony Ericsson
phones and – though I’ve liked them all, more or less – the applications menu
alters with every iteration. Sony Ericsson is no more guilty here than other
manufacturers; they all annoy me with needless menu changes that erode the
pleasing familiarity of an easy search for the next function.

Pros

* Touch screen – many will opt for the W960i for this alone. It’s sensitive
without being overly so. Job done.

* Jog dial – Apologies to Jonny, the first person to call me after I received
it and who I accused of mumbling -- I’d brushed the side-mounted Jog Dial which
is both navigation tool and volume control when putting it in a coat pocket
inadvertently cutting the speaker volume (duh! Faulty operative; it didn’t
happen again).

OK, so the Jog Dial’s not strictly necessary when you’ve already got a good
touch screen and a finger or stylus as your OS. But it gives usesr a quicker
option when navigating the menu and works well; rotate the discreet wheel on
the side to highlight various options until you press the wheel, mouse-style.

* Stylus (I
started thinking it was a pain, and ended up using it all the time, even when a
finger might have been quicker).

* Better battery life than previous Sony Ericsson smart phones.

* Walkman is good (though I prefer downloads from Omnifone’s Music Station).

* 8Gb memory.

Cons

* Small-ish
screen means the touch screen is susceptible to (my not very) Fat Finger
Syndrome. Try the Jog Dial or Stylus instead.

*
Inconsistent GUI and applications menu: Memo to all handset makers: Find a menu
format that your customers like and flippin’ stick with it. Unless you’ve come
up with a genuine improvement, that
is. It took me a while to find the Silent mode. Eventually I even had to read
the manual. (I know, it’s a bloke thing!).



Verdict(s)

Day 1: I almost sent the W960i back.

Day 5: I may be out when they come to collect it.

Enrico Salvatori named SVP and general manager of Qualcomm Europe

Qualcomm Inc (Nasdaq:  QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of
advanced wireless technologies and data solutions, has
promoted Enrico Salvatori to senior vice president and general manager of
Qualcomm Europe.  In this role, Salvatori
will have day-to-day responsibility for managing Qualcomm’s business operations
and business development efforts throughout Europe.

 

“Enrico brings a deep understanding of the European
marketplace and has a demonstrated ability to manage the diverse needs of
Qualcomm’s businesses,” said Andrew Gilbert, executive vice president of
Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm Internet Services, MediaFLO Technologies and
Qualcomm Europe. “Enrico has established himself as a leader with exceptional
knowledge of Qualcomm’s chipset business, including its products, strategy and
vision, and he’ll apply this expertise to helping drive our consumer electronics
and services businesses across Europe.”

 

Salvatori joined Qualcomm in 2002 as senior director of
technical marketing, helping to spearhead Qualcomm’s efforts in Europe. In 2004, he was promoted to vice president of
operations and assumed his current role of vice president and general manager
for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies in 2006. 

Legacy systems pose major barrier for mobile operators, says Pontis survey

A new survey carried out among marketing managers at mobile operators
highlights the problems marketers face in accessing and leveraging customer
data, particularly real time usage data, to create and deliver compelling
marketing offers and promotions.  The survey commissioned by Pontis, experts in
targeted marketing for communication service providers discovered that
47% of
respondents judged technological challenges in accessing data held on different
and non-interoperable platforms to be the biggest barrier to delivering
personalised communications, with organisational structure and processes in
second place with 29% and just 9% of respondents highlighting lack of resources
as the issue. 

The survey
reveals that the majority of marketers believe personalisation and price are the
key ingredients for a successful marketing promotion.   34% of all respondents
consider personalisation to be the most important aspect of developing a
successful marketing offer or promotion with pricing in second place at 23%
followed by communication and then timing with 21% and 17%
respectively.

The survey
reveals the difficulty marketing staff are facing in creating such personalised
communications due to the problems in accessing subscriber’s usage history, real
time behaviour and response to previous offers -- just 18% consider this to be
easy while 82% find it problematic.  This poses a particular difficulty in
marketing bundled services like triple- and quad-play offerings where 44% of
respondents consider it extremely difficult to get access to the relevant
customer data.

According to Guy
Talmi, marketing director at Pontis, “The survey graphically highlights what our
customers have been telling us for some time about the difficulties they
encounter in accessing customer data and usage history to help them deliver well
targeted marketing offers.” 



He adds, “It’s hardly surprising that marketers
have struggled to market new mobile services effectively in the absence of such
vital data.  The good news, of course, is that there are now solutions available
like our own, which automate this process and help marketers to determine the
optimal proposition, price, communication’s channel and timing to give the
maximum chance of success and help to overcome the technological and
organisational barriers that have traditionally hampered the marketing of mobile
services.”

Mobile service providers face challenging times in middle of next decade, iSuppli study says

El Segundo, California, USA, July 8, 2008 — The gloomy findings of a mobile social networking study have been released in a White Paper by its authors, iSuppli Corp.  In it they predict that the Technology,
Media, and Telecoms (TMT) business will undergo a fundamental
transformation during the next 10 years, courtesy of the coming wireless social
networking revolution. Because of this, iSuppli Corp.
believes, content providers, advertisers, telcos and
electronics suppliers — must transform their business strategies as well if they
want to maintain their relevance in the coming years.

Said Derek Lidow, president and chief executive officer at iSuppli, “The shifts
will impact most value-chain participants, and will be highly
interrelated." With
today’s TMT business representing 5% of global Gross Domestic Product, these industry realignments will have
impacts far
beyond the value chain itself.  Major
findings of this study include:

·          Within 10 years, Social Networking + Me
(SME), primarily driven by wireless devices, will become ‘must-have’
applications and devices for global consumers.

·          Although there have not been any
successful implementations of wireless social networking to date, the widespread
adoption of mobile Internet devices like the iPhone will spur an entirely new
generation of wireless social networking businesses and business models starting
in 2009.

·          Many wireless service providers
will face very challenging times in the middle years of next decade as intense
battles break out against alternate providers of wireless access over who
controls the distribution of all the content and services that will be enabled,
and will be highly sought after by wireless subscribers.

·          By 2020, there will be close to 7
billion wireless accounts, with many individuals having more than one account,
and with wireless communication devices being the primary communication, service
and content delivery channel for virtually all users.

·          Basic wireless social networking
service could be provided for a global average of around $15.30 per month per
user, using constant 2007 U.S. dollars.

iSuppli has summarized the findings from
its wireless social networking study in a new whitepaper, entitled: Social
Networking Wireless Social Networking Revolution Set to Reshape Global Tech
Industry.

www.isuppli.com

Will Yahoo's play for mobile pay off? - New report

London, UK, 23 July 2008.  Yahoo, the number two internet search engine, currently leads in mobile web
destinations due to an aggressive play to capitalise on the still emerging
mobile search and advertising space.  Google,
Microsoft, AOL, and other players are all jockeying to be first to pocket
profits from the most lucrative market to arise since internet search and
shopping.  Advertisers will spend US$1.8 billion on mobile media in 2007, which
visiongain predicts will rise to $17.5 billion by 2012.



In a new report,
visiongain explores Yahoo’s strategy in mobile in the medium-term future, and
discusses the significant opportunities and threats that the company poses to
current industry players.  How will Yahoo affect your operations? Should you be working with the company
to leverage its expertise in mobile search and advertising, or would you be
better off working with one of its competitors instead?

Is Yahoo likely to launch a VoIP phone leveraging current partner eBay's
Skype or an enhanced version of its own Yahoo! Voice?  3 recently became the
first operator to offer a mass market device tailor-made for free
calling over the internet from a mobile.  Now, all of Skype's 246 million
registered users can be reached for free with the 3 Skypephone.  Will Yahoo
produce a similar device, or will it enter this deal in a very big way
considering Yahoo already has partnered with 3 to provide Yahoo! Go for Mobile
2.0 to 3 Group customers in the UK, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, and Denmark, with
other 3 Group markets expected to follow by year end? This report addresses
bleeding edge issues Yahoo and the industry face, providing insightful analysis
on deals, market plays, and future mergers yet to be explored in other
studies.



The report tackles several key questions:

• What are Yahoo’s strategic visions and future plans in
mobile?

• How will Yahoo’s model perform in the mobile landscape?

• What
are Yahoo’s current activities in this space?

• What strategies and
opportunities are open to Yahoo in mobile?

• Will Yahoo launch a VoIP or
cellular phone?

• Will Google’s text ads be overshadowed by Yahoo’s mobile
display ads?



For more information on the report contact Qahramon Ikromov at:

telecoms.conferences1@conferencesandreports.com

Russia's SMM uses NDS to protect IP and mobile TV content

 

 

 

London, UK. 24
July, 2008 – NDS, a leading provider of technology solutions
for digital pay-TV, today announced that Russian media giant Sistema Mass Media has selected the NDS Unified Headend™ to manage and protect TV content delivery to subscribers
across both IP and mobile networks.



The NDS Unified
Headend™ integrates conditional access (CA), Digital Rights Management (DRM) and
third party applications, allowing operators to deliver secure broadcast and
Video-On-Demand (VOD) services to a variety of devices – set-top boxes (STBs),
mobile phones, PCs, Portable Media Players (PMPs) and digital video recorders
(DVRs). SMM will use the NDS Unified Headend to deliver content to STBs, PCs and
mobile devices with optimum operational efficiency, using a single system to
control content distribution.



SMM’s
deployment will include VideoGuard Mobile™, NDS’ secure mobile TV solution, part of the NDS Unified Headend, to
protect its upcoming DVB-H mobile TV service. Digital Teleradiobroadcasting Ltd (DTB), an SMM
subsidiary, will launch the mobile TV service.



The DVB-H
service will debut in Moscow, which will be followed by a series of launches in
16 other Russian cities with populations of over one million. Unlike most other
DVB-H deployments which are tied to a specific mobile operator and require a
subscription and operator-specific SIM, SMM’s upcoming DVB-H service will be
available to all Russian mobile subscribers regardless of their network service
provider.



VideoGuard
Mobile supports both the Open Security Framework (OSF) and OMA BCAST smartcard
profile standards and offers a clear and seamless migration path between both.
VideoGuard Mobile is fully compliant with DVB-H, DVB-SH, DMB, MediaFLO, CMMB and
STIMI standards.

BT buys Silicon Valley's Ribbit for US$105m

London, UK. July 29, 2008 - Ribbit has been acquired by UK incumbent telco, BT for  $105m.  Ribbit is an open platform for multi-protocol communication, that is said by its US creators to "empower a new market of voiceware applications and services".  BT's mission with Ribbit is to accelerate voice innovation by enabling
developers to bring to market the applications and products that end users need to stay in touch with their friends, family, colleagues
and customers.

As communications and computing are quickly coming
together, we are seeing new technologies being invented, new business models forming
and new partnerships being created.  Ribbit and BT intend that, through Ribbit's developer community, they will enable the dvelopment of improved voice services.

The Ribbit platform is designed to give developers,
integrators and product innovators the opportunity to ride on our
platform and leverage its APIs to create new communication solutions
for private businesses, global enterprises, vertical markets and the
masses.

The platform enables developers to bring
together the richness of voice calling and Web 2.0 experiences. With
Ribbit, voice can become a rich feature that can be added to any
application, on any device. Free from a traditional handset or the
latest mobile phone, voice can now be delivered and received on
multiple devices in multiple locations, across any network. It can be
integrated, monetized and personalized using the Ribbit platform.



Inevitably, Ribbit will be seen in the contect of Google's Android and Apple'siPhone. For some the former is merely a cloak for increasing Google's Advertisement sales, while the latter is tied to the Apple iPhone platform.  Although this is an open platform technology, BT's challenge will be to see if it can escape being associated purely with BT's own services. 

IBM software mimics PC features on mobile devices

Digitania Pakistan to provide services and content to GEO.tv

Islamabad, Pakistan. August 19, 2008. Digitania Pakistan  has announced today that it has signed a deal
with GEO TV (www.geo.tv) to provide GEO TV with 

• Mobile Service Delivery Platform


• Content Hosting and Management Platform, and its


• WAP Portal System

These systems are
designed on an open architecture giving GEO TV enhanced capabilities to
offer mobile-based interactive products and services to its viewers and
to constantly add new features and products to its existing system.

The solutions provided by
Digitania to GEO TV will significantly reduce time to market and
will make Digitania a one-stop-shop for the content and service delivery needs of the Pakistan TV channel.

The implementation of
this system -- which is expected to be completed by November, 2008 -- is a landmark
achievement of Digitania. It is increasing its
clientele in various industry sectors and its ability to deploy
state of the art, customised and demand-specific systems for companies
like GEO TV, while maintaining performance benchmarks even at places where traffic and
demand are enormously high.

Wild Jack Mobile Casino incorporates Payforit billing on Vodafone UK

London, UK. August 20, 2008: Wild Jack Mobile Casino (www.wjmc.com), has announced a deal which enables
customers of Vodafone UK to
purchase credits easily and charge them directly to their mobile bill to play the
award-winning and exciting casino mobile games.

Before anyone can deposit and play a
Wild Jack Mobile Casino game, Vodafone UK will verify each user’s age through
its customer records, a move that will help prevent minors from gaining access
to the service.

While playing, gamers can view their
balance and should they want to buy more credits, they can easily navigate to
the banking section within the game.

Wild Jack Mobile Casino, which is one
of the first mobile casinos in the UK using Spin3’s award-winning
platform, works on more than a 1,000 mobile handsets and is promoted for its of
ease-of-use, slick graphics and exciting game play. The casino offers 14 games, ranging from Roulette and BlackJack to the progressive jackpot slot Major
Millions™, which is currently climbing to the GB£1,000,000 mark.

“We are delighted to make playing
Wild Jack Mobile Casino even easier through this deal with Vodafone UK. Our
focus is on usability and fun, this deal opens up our offering to literally
millions of potential customers,” said Robbie Guy, marketing manager for Wild
Jack.