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Welcome to the December 07 edition of the Aepona newsletter. The “2.0” theme seems to be appearing everywhere these days, with much discussion in the industry about how Web 2.0 principles can be applied not only to the Telecoms domain, but also to Enterprise applications. In this issue we examine how Telcos that adopt Telco 2.0 principles can leverage their unique capabilities to form deeper and lasting relationships with their Enterprise customers.
At Aepona, we believe that Telecom Web Services is the enabling technology that empowers the Telco to fully participate in the new, collaborative world of Web 2.0 and realise the full potential of their network assets. By adopting the Telco 2.0 business model, Telcos can realise new revenue sources from existing assets, both circuit-switched and IP-based, and establish new channels to market, allowing them to reach the “long tail” of subscribers that value highly personalised services and applications. We’ve been participating in several industry discussions on this topic, and you can read and hear more about our views by exploring the “In the Media” section to the right.
We’ll also provide you with an update on the progress of our merger with Appium, an overview of our Solutions Programme and feedback from our highly successful annual User Forum held in September.
From all of us at Aepona, we’d like to wish all of you a relaxing and peaceful holiday, and a happy and prosperous new year.
Michael Crossey
VP Marketing
Aepona
In this Issue:
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 Enterprise 2.0: Creating new VAS opportunities for Mobile Operators
Creating a richer set of enterprise service offerings using Telecom Web Services to integrate enterprise applications with knowledge, mobility and service reach
At Aepona we view the adoption of Web 2.0 concepts and technologies as the next major step in the evolution of Telco 2.0 for Telcos seeking to offer value added services (VAS) to the enterprise market. The adoption of 2.0 technologies across the Web, Telco and enterprise domains opens up a new opportunity for Telcos seeking to deepen their relationships with their enterprise customers.
What is the opportunity for the telecom operators?
The enterprise market represents high value services for the Telco as this type of customer will pay a premium for availability, reliability and quality of service. Current mainstream offerings to the enterprise market are based around capacity and hosted services, sometimes complemented by IT outsourcing projects. The challenge for the Telcos (and particularly mobile operators) up to now has been how to offer services that can deepen the relationship with the enterprise through increasing the scope of their service offering.
Taking this concept further and mashing it up with Telco 2.0 and Web 2.0 components creates more value to the enterprise. For instance, Telco resources can be embedded within enterprise applications to identify the real time location and distribution of the service engineer’s customers (using Google Maps and Location feeds) to view the geography of the area covered. Perhaps then, real time mms push could be used to introduce a more dynamic way of allocating service engineers to customer calls rather than to have pre-scheduled lists.
The potential for improved customer retention is one of the main benefits. Revenues can be increased by offering higher value services by demonstrating to enterprise customers that combining real time network knowledge and communications with enterprise application logic can reduce costs, improve effectiveness and efficiency and increase sales.
How does the business case work & how does the Telco make money?
The Telco provides one or more APIs (as Telecom Web Services) towards the enterprise customer. These can be provided and sold as raw APIs with an access and usage charge (e.g. numbers of transactions per second). Each time an enterprise hosted application places a request upon the Telco’s network, for e.g., to set up a call, send an sms, determine a users location, etc, a usage (request) charge can be made.
What are the types of services that could be created?
- Broadcast of newsflashes using sms (mobile terminated) for such things as customer updates, sales updates, traffic information, etc.
- Targeted direct marketing campaigns on behalf of advertising agencies supplemented by “voice click through” and user profile information
- Real time management for distribution of perishable goods (e.g. groceries, confectionary, cement, etc.) in environments where traffic congestion is a problem
- Secure access to back office enterprise knowledge and information systems using carrier authentication systems
- Collection and broadcast of near-live media to emergency workers and news reporters
- Adding Q.o.S to create reliable messaging, guaranteed bandwidth, etc.
Summary
Through adopting a 2.0 service layer architecture, Telcos can now exploit the advantages they have in broad coverage and reliable networks. These can be combined with systems that enable easy integration with enterprise applications to extend the intelligence of the application with knowledge about the end users status and location. Enterprise applications can then become “user context aware”. Creating levels of closer integration between Telco networks and enterprise business logic means that the enterprise is less likely to switch Telcos on the basis of price only.
For more info please click
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 Aepona and Appium Merger Update
Since we announced our merger with Appium in June, we’ve been working hard on the integration of the two companies and we are very pleased with the progress that has been made. The development, sales, operations and marketing teams are now fully integrated and we are now executing on a single, harmonized roadmap across the new company’s product family.
In particular, we have made excellent progress towards the realisation of a harmonised “Application Gateway” product, combining the features and capabilities of the existing Aepona Network Gateway (formerly Causeway) and Telecom Application Server (formerly X-Way) products. Aepona’s customers will be
hearing more details about this programme during Q1 2008.
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Full Speed Ahead With Aepona Solutions
Aepona's Solutions Programme has continued to gain momentum, particularly since our merger with Appium. The Solutions Programme is split into two pieces - the Applications Programme and the Developer Programme.
The Applications Programme provides turnkey solutions that our customers can take directly to market, with business critical applications from our third-party partners coupled to Aepona's market-leading technology. The applications programme also provides our customers with access to bespoke or customised development capabilities through our partners. Applications include Virtual PBX, Voice Call Continuity (seamless Cellular to WiFi roaming), Multi-Line / Multi-SIM, PBX Mobile Extension, Virtual Contact Centre, and many more.
The Developer Programme was launched in September this year in New Delhi, India. It aims to provide our best-of-breed service creation environment, GBox, to the smaller groups of developers who create quick-to-market, compelling applications that are built around our Telecoms Application Server product. The paid-for element of the programme also offers them the ability to be certified as an application developer and to use our test facilities at our offices in Malmo, Sweden and Belfast, UK, together with support from our experts. Since the September launch, the Aepona developer programme has generated significant interest from partners, customers and the media.
For more info on the applications programme please click here
For more info on the developer programme please click here |
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User Forum
We held the annual Aepona User Forum in September in Dublin, Ireland. Customers such as France Telecom, Telus, BT, Vimpelcom, Eircom, KPN and Sonaecom were able to share experiences on real life deployments, listen to the views of leading industry experts on how our market is developing, and learn about recent and forthcoming developments of the Aepona portfolio.
The case studies looked at the business and market drivers affecting our customers. We heard from Shane Logan, Director, Services Architecture at TELUS on their Service Delivery Framework. We also heard from Vimpelcom’s Head of Service Platform Department, Aleksey Srednikov, on their Open Service Platform. Dominic O'Neill, Head of Service Network Architecture at France Telecom / Orange gave an insightful presentation on FT’s approach to leveraging SOA in their service network. On the topic of Opportunities for Evolving Telco Services, Dave Hook, Business Development Director at BT Design described BT’s Service Maker initiative and demonstrated some of the applications enabled their location-based capabilities.
Guest speakers included Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis , who outlined his views on the implications of the Internet for services and convergence within Mobile Operators, and Eric Newcomer, CTO of IONA Technologies provided his viewpoint on the status of Web Services technologies.
Since this year's event was the first since Aepona's merger with Appium, it was a valuable opportunity for customers of both companies to learn about the stronger portfolio of applications and solutions that Aepona now offers.
Later in the same month we held a Value Added Services seminar in New Delhi. Operators such as Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular heard about the latest developments in the Value-Added Services arena from Kunal Bajaj of BDA Connect (India) and Aepona's own experts. At this event we took the opportunity to officially launch our Indian Developer Partner Programme for software developers and telecom operators.
For more info please see click here
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