Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 10

	This Month's Issue:
	Managing the Content Revolution

A Short Review of Mobile World Congress

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Services can be delivered by a combination of device-based applications and server-based applications accessed over the Internet.
The server-based applications could be hosted by a carrier, or by a third-party over-the-top service provider.
Device software can be shipped with the phone or downloaded by the customer. This trend will continue, with the inevitable increase in the availability of devices that are fully unlocked: open to networks and open to applications.

(3) OSS/BSS where are you?

We were on the lookout for companies in the OSS/BSS space. The usual suspects and a few more were there – we estimate about 10% of the exhibitors could be clearly classified as OSS/BSS specialists, and we didn’t see much new to get excited about this time. Perhaps managing all this complexity and billing for it is simply becoming business as usual: necessary rather than exciting. However Keith Willetts and his team on the TM Forum stand believe there are still exciting things to be done in this space to create a cost-effective management environment fit for the new telecom ecosystem.

We met with several OSS companies and found that even though their message wasn't as flashy as some of the other firms at the show, they did have good things to say. Tribold seems to be making very good progress with a few more service providers in Europe, and are very close to being able to announce their first North American deal, too. Patni is using their enhanced capabilities and industry street cred acquired with Logan Orviss to be poised to announce some new ISV partnerships. We also met with Orga (who is happy with their client base and pipeline of new work), NetCracker (who showed a slightly more cautious optimism that their sector still has lots of opportunities) and Highdeal (who see their traction steadily growing with the shift to focus on content partnership, where they feel their capabilities are very strong).

There were many, many companies we didn't get a chance to meet with because there simply wasn't time! We weren't alone in seeking out the OSS types. The TMF booth attracted a steady stream of interested visitors, with companies like NetScout and Nakina drawing a fair bit of attention. “Mobile World Congress 2008 exceeded our expectations,” said Chris Chartrand, Director of Marketing for Nakina. “For an event heavily focused on new mobile devices and services, there was a remarkable amount of interest from companies across the globe in vendor neutral network management solutions.”

..Messaging, video, location, search, social networking... You can make voice calls on these things too, I understand.

(4) Companies that caught our eye

We talked to a number of companies that have developed software, services and capabilities that live in this sprawling application layer that straddles the carrier space, handheld devices and Internet locations. With a show of this size, it's

difficult to look at everything in depth, so this is a random sample of companies that caught our attention, with apologies to all the geniuses who didn't catch our eye.

NewStep showed us a solid approach to fixed mobile convergence that seems to be winning favor with carriers. Everything has been abstracted to a network-aware applications layer that can reside equally well inside a carrier environment or alongside it. Depending on your perspective you can therefore view NewStep’s approach as providing a key feature of IMS, or making that IMS feature unnecessary. You choose.

Trackaphone is a location service provider that delivers asset and person location services for enterprises, governments, and individuals. The services can make use of Cell ID, enhanced Cell ID or GPS, or a mixture. The service receives Cell ID location feeds from multiple carriers, providing customers with presence and other services that cross wireless carrier boundaries. The company has had recent success with a large European carrier and is hopeful of further carrier wins in the near future. However, the Trackaphone software need not sit within the carrier environment at all, and Trackaphone also delivers the service to enterprises as a hosted service.

OneTouch Online Purchasing™ from eBiz.mobility tackles a problem experienced by people who want to buy content on-line but are hampered by cross boundary restrictions on credit card use, or concerns about security. The product enables carriers, banks, ISPs, and content providers to offer their customers secure and convenient way to pay for on-line digital content.

Mobile Acuity has a fun approach to search that primarily uses pictures, not words. No, it’s not just for people who can’t read, because the responses are in text, not pictures. The "query" is a photo taken by the phone and submitted on line; the search matches the graphic to a graphics library entry, which is linked to related information. Example: snap a photo of a book cover or a movie poster with your mobile phone, and

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