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Openwave Turns Service Providers into Internet Companies

For years, service providers could see their competitors coming head on. For example CLECs and VoIP providers are pretty easy to spot and entrenched telecom providers worldwide have adopted different strategies to battle these new entrants.

But that was the easy part of the game. After all, playing in your home stadium is often easier than playing on the road.

But this "on the road" analogy is perfectly accurate in describing what service providers will be dealing with as they enter new markets and come up against companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

Recently I had a chance to see a demo of technology from Openwave Systems which helps service providers compete more effectively with the traditional web-based competitors.

I must say that I was beyond impressed with the demo I saw of a product named Openwave Mobile Client Suite, a set of products which help turn service providers into internet companies.

I also had a chance to see some of the company's network-based technology, the Openwave Rich Mail Solution, which does what Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook clients do for the typical enterprise. The application is based on AJAX which means response times are more like software than web pages.

The look of the UI is impressive and not something you might expect your typical service provider to code themselves.

For example there are contextual menus which pop on a right-click, e-mail preview, drag-and-drop, voicemail/VoIP integration and more. You can even integrate mobile messaging and television allowing the TV to act as a hub for all messaging.

As service providers begin to embrace the concept that they should be internet companies we can expect broader adoption of such services and eventually this will lead to enough eyeballs for advertisers to get excited about.

Not surprisingly, Openwave sells a suite of advertising solutions as well which can be integrated with the solutions described above.

I am not sure I am 100% convinced service providers can make a serious dent into e-mail and other businesses of the major internet companies but I see opportunity for integration of telephony, directory assistance and account management all in a single interface which will be sticky enough for users to feel there is a credible alternative to the traditional email companies.

Even if you aren't convinced, you should be exploring a web-centric strategy... I really think all service providers should take along hard look at what this company is up to as it could really help you leverage some hidden revenue opportunities.

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Ceragon Boosts Wireless Backhaul Throughput

As wireless service providers seem to be battling to see who can provide the lowest cost unlimited voice and data plans, a problem is emerging that needs to be dealt with quickly. The issue is simply, how to cost-effectively upgrade network capacity to keep up with all the growth in voice and data capacity.

Invariably much of the challenge carriers face is in wireless backhaul as so many base stations are not located near fiber loops.

Enter Ceragon Networks and the company's newest wireless mobile backhaul solutions, the IP-10 family. In a conversation with the company's CMO Aviv Ronai and Director of Communication, Yoel Knoll the pair explained to me how this new product line offers unparalleled capacity - up to 500 mbps over a single radio carrier using a single RF carrier in fact.

Ronai had this to say about the company's latest solution, "FibeAir IP-10 enables risk-free migration to IP/Ethernet while providing the highest possible capacities at any given radio-link budget. This is achieved without any need to replace infrastructure or change the size or quantity of licensed frequency channels. Moreover, by significantly reducing the number external devices such as TDM cross-connect or Ethernet switch, both of which are integrated into the FibeAir IP-10, we offer carriers the lowest total cost of migration."

As an added bonus, the solution also includes OA&M tools.

As the move to all IP wireless mobile backhaul continues, Ceragon Networks aims to be a solid choice allowing carriers to maximize the spectrum they have so as to boost efficiency and subsequently help offset the retail price reductions that seem to be continuing to happen over time.

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Target Service Provider Marketing by Pontis

At the recent CTIA show in Las Vegas, much of the talk centered around how service providers need to focus on generating revenue from advertising as companies like Google will be giving away many of the services they hope to charge for.

A good example of such a service is Google Maps which utilizes cellular tower triangulation to approximate GPS. It doesn't stop there of course… With Google Gears for Mobile, Google is in the enviable position of allowing mobile devices to utilize hosted applications whether or not there is a live internet connection.

It isn't news that Google has a head start in delivering services and advertising… Now carriers need to catch up.

But service providers are terrible at getting into new business areas and they have little experience in advertising. You know, that reads a bit harsh. Allow me to rephrase… Let's say instead, that if wireless carriers learned to sell advertising as well as they spend money on their own ads, they will be in great shape.

What is the first step in becoming a better advertising company? In my view it is mastering how to advertise your own services to your own customers. After all, the bewildering array of services providers have in their arsenal is confusing to keep track of, let alone sell.

Enter Pontis, a company dedicated to enabling service providers to target market customers on a granular level ensuring the right offer gets to the right customer. The company provides a graphical, drag-and-drop interface which allows marketers to set up multiple campaigns based on complex criteria. These campaigns can be designed in advance and events can be predicated by triggers which alert the system to take some sort of action.

Guy Talmi the Senior Marketing Director at Pontis calls this concept "managing the marketing relevance of each customer through dynamic adaptation of product offer and purchase experience." Certainly this statement effectively sums up what the Israeli-based company does.

One of the first steps in any properly customized campaign is the segmentation step which allows you to apply analytics to purchase data in order to differentiate various customer classes or subsets.

Your analysis could point out for example that mobile prepaid customers are not topping off as often as they used to. Could the problem be these customers are being lured away by another offer from the competition?

Either way, you need to respond, right? One way to do this is to segment the customers who are not topping off and come up with a way to turn your churn lemons into returning customer lemonade.

You can further segment this group into customers who use SMS, Java games, video downloads and ring tones. Now you are ready to play the game of Churn Reduction. All you need is a board, some plastic playing pieces and a friend. Just kidding, in this game you just need solutions from Pontis (or equivalent) and some imagination.

In this hypothetical example you could send messages to your selected customers offering them two free ring tones if they top off their accounts with 10 euros or more. If this works well, you can come back to this audience at a later date and offer a large discount on future ringtone purchases if they top off with 25 euros or more.

The segment that didn't respond should not be abandoned. For them you could offer a 20% bonus on top off amounts with a 10 euro minimum for example.

Using solutions from Pontis, you could achieve this marketing outreach with WAP push, SMS, MMS or other means.

The system also allows reminders to be sent before expiration deadlines.

Pontis handles the systems integration if needed and as you might imagine, this is the tough part of making all of this targeted and integrated marketing solution work.

Although I used a wireless example here, the company's solutions are also powering VoIP, cable and IPTV providers around the world.

My final thought to service providers is that you should explore the exciting world of customized advertising very soon as getting into the advertising market seems more like a mandate from an evolving market than something you embark upon when you feel the time is right.

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Google and SalesForce Enhance Relationship

It was over a year and a half ago when I had a chance to listen to Marc Benioff talk about how his company's software would be integrating with Google to provide a mashup allowing companies to better track their Google advertising. Using the services together, companies would be able to utilize the CRM portion of the software to track where customers came from... Which ad, which keyword, which landing page, etc.

The matter was so important I made the article a High Priority column in Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine.

The two companies have decided to take the collaboration one step further and as a result, you will now be able to purchase Google Applications via SalesForce.com and there will be tighter integration between the two companies.

For example, e-mails sent to customers via Google's mail application will be connected to customer records in SalesForce.com.

While this collaboration is great, there are still companies who worry about how to maintain security when their vital corporate data is stored on the servers of another company.

Perhaps this move will manage to make customers more comfortable with the hosted approach as Google has a strong reputation and helps boost SalesForce.com's credibility -- not that the company really needed it but having such a large partner would help anyone.

In my opinion, there are many companies who don't want to worry about having idle employees if their broadband provider or router fails.

I have to say that I really appreciate Marc Benioff as a spokesperson for SalesForce.com because he calls them as he sees them. No longer having Tom Siebel to go after, Benioff has resorted to blasting Microsoft.

If you want a more specific example of what I mean, consider the memo put out by Benioff in November of 2005 where he had the following to say:

Last month, our number one competitor surrendered, and decided to take its place beside several former competitors at software's Shady Pines Rest Home, also known as Oracle. It was a merciful outcome for shareholders, but a time of con"fusion" for customers.

This is what Benioff now has to say about Microsoft:

This will make it easier for us to convince more businesses to stop buying Microsoft Office and switch to better services like this that are emerging in the cloud.

But there is more... He has also said in the past:

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend

Microsoft has proven they will not sit back and take it and in fact to me it seems the company thrives on the competition. In fact Brad Wilson, the company's general manager for the CRM unit had this to say:

Salesforce has belatedly recognized that it is important to link CRM  apps to productivity tools. It has been core to our product since we launched five years ago. It validates our strategy.

But really these comments are more icing on the cake -- the fun stuff if you will.

The real meat of this news is that Google and SalesForce.com will collaborate to make their solutions better. They will integrate more effectively and do their best to ensure they have solutions that are very competitive with those sold by not just Microsoft but every other company on the market.

In addition to the obvious synergies between the two companies the real winner here is Google because as this deal strengthens they will get an outside spokesman for their applications in Benioff. This man has proven to get under the skin of the competition and he seems to drive them crazy.

Of course I don't want to make a mountain out of a mole hill but this sort of news could have the potential to unite more Microsoft competitors. It would be interesting to see Adobe, Apple and RIM somehow get involved and say they too will work with SalesForce.com and Google.

This may be a stretch of course but there seems to be momentum growing and perhaps others will see this as a great time to join the party.

Microsoft for its part has a big advantage in the CRM space due to its UC push and the mindshare it has in this market. In addition the company's close ties with Aspect are a tremendous help in the CRM space -- especially as it relates to contact centers.

The war has gotten a lot more interesting over the past month and it will be very interesting to see what the next moves are for each of the various players.

See Also:

Salesforce.com to Sell Google Apps
Google, Others Expand Online Services Offerings
Salesforce.com becomes sales channel, showcase for Google software applications

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