Mobile Software Management Technologies to Enable New Revenue Opportunities in Service Delivery, VisionMobile Report Finds

 ESSEX, UK, June 25, 2007 – VisionMobile, a market know-how firm delivering industry research and strategic advisory to the wireless sector, today announced the findings of a new research report entitled, “Mobile Software Management: Advancements and Opportunities in Service Delivery.” The report unveils significant cost savings and revenue streams available to operators and handset manufacturers by using Mobile Software Management (MSM) to overcome many of the commercial challenges in handset software development and service delivery today.  Based on interviews with more than 20 companies in the mobile space, the report reviews 8 vendors solutions, 11 software management technologies, and 3 operator cases, and concludes with highlighting the winners and losers in the market.

 Mobile Software Management is a relatively new and still emerging market that promises to enable feature customization at any point in the handset lifetime, not only post sales, but also before handsets hit the market and as they move across the value chain. New advancements in MSM technologies offer a genuine advantage in reducing the handset time-to-market, containing handset creation costs and decoupling service management from handset delivery.

 Based on interviews with more than 20 software vendors, network operators and handset manufacturers worldwide, the report uncovers a number of scenarios that are enabled by MSM and related revenue opportunities for service providers, manufacturers, and ISVs:

New feature purchase added to the handset at the point of sale; for example, purchase of a camera resolution upgrade
Upgrade of the handset installed base to deliver a new 4G network technology to support a new service introduced by the operator
Personalization of the handset user interface as part of the user's subscription package
Repurposing of handsets for a new channel and customization for a specific market segment, after the handset has left the factory
Component-based software integration and testing as the handset parts move along the value chain, reducing cost and time-to-market
The report provides analysis and insight into eight vendors of mobile software management solutions, namely Gemalto, HP (Bitfone), InnoPath, Mformation, Nokia S60, Open-Plug, Qualcomm BREW and Red Bend Software.

The report further paints a detailed landscape of device and delivery technologies that assist in mobile software management, their challenges and potential. It analyses the capabilities of real-time OSes, advanced OSes, application execution environments, modular operating systems, firmware updates and software component updates, and the technologies behind OMA-DM delivery, SIM cards, on-device application storefronts, over-the-cable and point-of sales solutions.

“With the emergence of software component updates across mass market handsets starting in the second half of 2008, we expect that modular updating will become the prevalent approach to software management, partly replacing Java-based and file-system-based technologies,” said Liz Laffan, lead author of the report.

 VisionMobile predicts winners in the MSM market to be operators with a ‘container’ handset software strategy such as Orange and Vodafone, as well as manufacturers who have embarked on a complete software redesign and service-focused modularity like Motorola. The report also highlights the high expectations from vendors with innovative solutions for MSM, namely

o              Open-Plug, which offers tools for software modularity

o              Red Bend Software, which provides a solution to perform software component-based updating on mobile devices and is already the preferred firmware update partner for several major OEMs

o              Mformation, which has grown its product portfolio to offer a full set of MDM and MSM services, while continually attracting venture capital and securing global deals with tier-1 operators; and

o              Abaxia, who has pioneered use of SIM cards for service delivery post-factory

 “The challenge these providers will face is to build relationships and strike deals with major operators and handset OEMs early on, while the market is still figuring out how to solve today’s issues,” said Andreas Constantinou, Research Director at VisionMobile and reknowned international expert and speaker about mobile technologies..

 This independently researched and authored report has been sponsored by Red Bend Software to raise market awareness of the mobile software management market. The report is immediately available for download at http://www.redbend.com/whitepapers/msm.asp.

 About VisionMobile

VisionMobile Ltd. is a market know-how firm delivering industry research and strategic advisory in the wireless sector. Founded in 2005, VisionMobile brings together passionate people with industry and technology know-how and innovative thinking. For more information, visit: www.visionmobile.com.