Business News Holding

Author: admin

  • TwinStrata Improves Its CloudArray Cloud Storage Software

    TwinStrata and TriCore Solutions announced customer validation of cloud storage solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Oracle RMAN based on TwinStrata CloudArray software.

    CloudArray is the industry’s first purpose-built architecture and software solution that enables intelligent storage clouds to help companies address challenges related to protecting and managing the growth of business application data.

    CloudArray customers are realizing many benefits from transitioning to an adaptive IT storage infrastructure including the ability to better map business objectives to IT, respond quickly to changing needs, optimize IT operational efficiency and improve IT cost controls.

    CloudArray features include cloud storage provider management across private and public storage clouds and Compute Anywhere technology that delivers business agility and increases data availability for business applications. It also features intelligent caching where cloud storage appears and performs like local iSCSI or file storage.

    CloudArray operates as a virtual appliance and supports all market-leading hypervisors: VMware ESX/ESXi, Citrix XenServer, and Microsoft Hyper-V. CloudArray also operates in the cloud supporting Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). CloudArray enables IT solutions for data replication, backup/restore, data archiving, disaster recovery and business continuity, and Compute Anywhere application accessibility both on premise and in the cloud

  • HyperOffice Releases New Version of Cloud-Computing Collaboration Software Suite for SMBs

    HyperOffice made the new version of its award-winning, cloud-computing messaging and collaboration suite widely available to small and medium-sized businesses.

    The release brings to an end a successful beta test program that spanned six months, thousands of users, and continuous enhancements – including innovations guided by a customer-driven Product Development Committee that helped to refine the user interface as HyperOffice reinvented the entire suite.

    The software-as-a-services suite makes it easy for company owners, employees, customers, partners and suppliers to run and grow a business by working together, planning projects, sharing documents, scheduling meetings, and more.

    HyperOffice integrates a range of software-as-a-service business applications over the Internet — shared online calendars and contacts, business class email, document collaboration, project management, web conferencing, databases and web forms; forums, polls and group wikis; project and task portals, Intranets and Extranets; user rights, versioning, commenting, backup, and more.

    HyperOffice builds into the new edition of its namesake web-based collaboration software nearly 10 years of expertise and experience working with small and medium-sized businesses with 5 to 250 employees – and delivers the new edition of the suite after two years of research and development with customers worldwide.

    Under the hood, rebuilt from the ground up, Ajax and an array of Web 2.0 technologies power improvements in performance, scalability and security.

    Where the business user meets the screen, the new version introduces a streamlined, intuitive interface that is instantly familiar to any user of what now becomes the "classic" edition of HyperOffice – yet far more flexible.

    For users ready to migrate online from Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Exchange and other conventional, expensive desktop and server email products, HyperOffice provides free support by email and phone, webinars and an array of free, online and custom training options.

    Hosted online, the HyperOffice suite delivers to smaller and medium-sized businesses the power and productivity of costly enterprise collaboration software – for a low monthly subscription fee of about $7 per month, per user, secure, and hassle free.

  • IDC: Mobile Payments Will Take Longer To Bear Fruit than Most Observers Hope

    IDC Financial Insights recently released a new report, which analyzes the mobile payment and mobile banking space in the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.

    The research group highlights that the mobile commerce payments market still has a long way to go before any serious impact will be felt by consumers or by the retail industry.

    “Steady moves by card issuers to increase the adoption of contactless cards and the increasing acceptance of mobile banking as a channel are prerequisites for the emergence of any meaningful, full-sized mobile payments market in Western Europe,” say analysts.

    IDC estimates that the share of contactless/mobile/remote payment transaction in 2015 will be no more than $125 billion with less than 13% of European mobile handset users registered to use a payment service.

    According to the report, the mobile payments industry must focus less on the use of advanced technology to partially replace existing payment methods, and more on the more practical (and sometimes mundane) application of the technology to specific processes.

    A close analysis of the industry shows that over the next three to five years the lack of a positive business case for all players will hamper many mobile payments projects. IDC also predicts that mobile banking (account info access and alerts) will blaze a trail over the next two to three years, laying the foundations for mobile payments.

    According to IDC analysts, key foundations for the success of retail mobile payments in Western Europe lie in the advancement of contactless debit/credit cards POS infrastructure.

    "Mobile payments are still an emerging technology capability that will take significantly longer to bear fruit than most industry observers hope," said Trevor LaFleche, senior research analyst, with IDC Financial Insights’ European banking practice for EMEA.

    "Shifting technological foundations of what constitutes a mobile device will confound industry purists, as has often happened when a technology does not take off as predicted. The varied nature of existing infrastructure and consumer need will continue to split the EMEA region into three distinct segments, which will need to be uniquely served to improve the penetration of the correct payment service to the correct market," he added.

    Related articles
    Visa Brings Mobile Payments to iPhone
    Berg Insight: 894 Million Mobile Banking Users by 2015
    Tagattitude Transforms Mobile Phones into a Secure Payment Tools
    VeriFone Announces iPhone Secure Payments Solution

  • Google Brings Web to TV, Announces Google TV

    At the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, leading industry players announced the development of Google TV – an open platform that adds the power of the web to the television viewing experience, ushering in a new category of devices for the living room. Intel, Sony, and Logitech, together with Best Buy, DISH Network and Adobe, joined Google on stage to announce their support for Google TV.

    Over the past decade, the internet has created unprecedented opportunity for innovation and development across the world, but so far the web has largely been absent from living rooms. With Google TV, consumers will now be able to search and watch an expanded universe of content available from a variety of sources including TV providers, the web, their personal content libraries, and mobile applications.

    Search across TV, Web, and Apps

    Google TV is based on the Android platform and runs the Google Chrome web browser. Users can access all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of Internet and cloud-based information and applications, including rich Adobe® Flash based content – all from the comfort of their own living room and with the same simplicity as browsing the web. When coupled with the Intel® Atom™ processor CE4100, Intel’s latest system-on-a-chip designed specifically for consumer electronics, the new platform will offer home theatre quality A/V performance. Sony and Logitech said they would be delivering products based on the new Intel Atom processor and running Google TV later this year. While Google TV is designed to work with any TV operator, at launch the user experience will be fully optimized when paired with DISH Network.

    Google TV expands video choice from the hundreds of channels available today through a pay TV provider to the vast storehouse of video content available through the web and streaming videos. The Google TV experience is complemented by the ability to watch streaming video from leading content platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and YouTube. Google TV will also have the capability to run apps from the Android Market.

    To navigate the array of content that will now be available through a single device and on a single screen, Google TV introduces an integrated search experience to help viewers easily find relevant content across over-the-air and pay-TV channel listings, DVR, and the Internet, as well as a picture-in-picture layout to access multiple windows simultaneously. Google TV also features an innovative home screen to help viewers quickly organize their favorite content and personalize their TV viewing experience. Some of these features are only available with advanced integration from DISH Network.

    Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO said, “We are very proud to be working with this distinguished set of partners, all of whom have decades of experience in hardware, design and retail.”

    Sony announced plans to introduce “Sony Internet TV,” the World’s first TV lineup incorporating the Google TV platform. The first models are planned to be introduced in the U.S. market in the Fall of 2010 with the lineup featuring both a standalone TV model and set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive.

    Howard Stringer, Chairman, President and CEO, Sony Corporation said, “I am delighted to announce the unique alignment of Google’s rapidly growing, open source Android platform with Sony’s unparalleled expertise in the field of TV design and technology. The addition of ‘Sony Internet TV’ will further bolster Sony’s comprehensive TV lineup and will fuse new levels of enjoyment and interactivity into the TV experience.”

    Logitech will introduce a companion box that brings Google TV to existing HDTV home entertainment systems, easily integrating with any brand of HDTV and set-top box. The companion box will incorporate Logitech’s Harmony® remote control technology, and will include a controller that combines keyboard and remote control capabilities. The company also has plans to introduce an HDTV camera and video chat for Google TV, along with additional choices for navigation and control, including apps to turn a smart phone into an advanced controller for Google TV and home-entertainment systems.

    Gerald Quindlen, President and CEO, Logitech said, “We committed to Google TV early on because it aligns with our strategy to support open platforms that enable new immersive experiences in the digital living room. While Google TV enables seamless discovery of all your content, Logitech enables seamless control over how you experience that content. We look forward to continued collaboration with Google and the developer community to create new Google TV experiences that have yet to be imagined.”

    The Intel Atom CE4100 processor will power both the Logitech and Sony devices. Paul Otellini, Intel President and CEO praised the collaborative effort and said TV as we know it was being “reinvented.” "Today marks the next step in the evolution of TV to Smart TV. TV’s are becoming smarter as a result of the microprocessor and the Internet. Traditional TV programming will be merged seamlessly with the infinite amount of content on the Internet to enable every viewer to determine what they want to watch, when they want it. This is Moore’s Law transforming television, powered by the performance of Intel microprocessors."

    DISH Network has been a key partner with Google on advanced integration development for Google TV. The two partners began a joint trial over a year ago with more than 400 DISH Network and Google beta users. Based on the continuous feedback from the trial, Google and DISH Network have built the optimized Google TV experience that seamlessly integrates traditional TV, DVR and web content.

    Charlie Ergen, Chairman, President and CEO of DISH Network, said, “Google TV marks the next evolution in television, and we are excited to be the first to partner with Google to bring this experience to our customers. Only DISH Network Google TV customers will be able to enjoy a unified search across TV, DVR and web; easily find related content; and manage their entire TV viewing experience. Additionally, the advanced integration will allow developers to create new and exciting applications to enrich the TV viewing experience.”

    Best Buy     will bring their retail experience and consumer expertise to the project, with Google TV devices being sold at Best Buy locations nationwide later this year. “Every day, our 180,000 Blue Shirt store employees and Geek Squad Agents work with our customers to get them the best home theater experience possible”, said Brian Dunn, CEO Best Buy, “We are thrilled about the new and exciting experiences smart TVs, like Google TV, provide to our customers – and we are looking forward to showcasing those experiences in our store and ensuring customers get connected to all the products and services that bring those experiences to life.”

    Finally, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 will be integrated directly into the Google Chrome browser on Google TV, enabling viewers to experience tens of millions of web pages with rich Flash content including games, animations, applications, videos, audio and more. Shantanu Narayen, President and CEO, Adobe said, “An open web ecosystem offers endless opportunities for creativity and innovation. Flash Player 10.1 extends the advantages of full web browsing and consistent, rich experiences to smartphones, tablets, netbooks and Internet-connected TVs. We’re thrilled to be part of the Google TV initiative with other industry leaders who share a common vision of enabling access to the best web experiences possible.”

    Google also plans to open source the Google TV platform to help spur innovation in the industry and so that other developers can benefit from the project. The long term goal is to collaborate with the entire developer community to help drive entertainment in the living room forward and to introduce the next generation of TV-watching experience.

  • Mobile VoIP Becomes a Threat to Tradicional Voice Revenues

    Mobile VoIP is no longer just hype, but has become a credible threat to traditional voice revenues, says Frost & Sullivan.

    According to the research group, considering, that this is only a matter of time when IP becomes the principal transport for various access technologies, an ambitious group of mobile VoIP start-up companies are creating a paradigm shift in the way users communicate with each other, with voice services moving to a true internet era of Telco 2.0.

    New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Impact of Mobile VoIP on Next Generation Cellular Networks, finds that at the end of 2008, approximately $605.8 million of mobile VoIP revenues were generated in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. This is expected to grow to $29.57 billion by 2015.

    The technologies covered in this research service are high-speed packet access (HSPA), third-generation long-term evolution (3G LTE), global system of mobile communications (GSM), IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), HSPA+, general packet radio service (GPRS), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and session initiation protocol (SIP).

    "The emergence of flat rate mobile data pricing, positive growth of smartphone shipments, and high-speed mobile broadband availability has spurred the adoption rate of mobile VoIP," saiid Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Saverio Romeo.

    He added that mobile operators realise they can no longer ignore the fact that mobile will be a key component of integrated IP-based communications and next generation wireless technologies such as HSPA+ and LTE.

    According to the report, significant traction in the application space, primarily driven by the success of the iPhone, has resulted in several smartphone vendors making provisions in their applications stores for users to download and use third-party VoIP clients over both wireless fidelity (WiFi) and cellular broadband networks.

    “However –the report continues– many cellular operators have prohibited the use of mobile VoIP over their cellular networks, with some imposing a surcharge to avoid cannibalisation of their circuit-switched voice revenue streams. Moreover, cellular operators face intense competition from the more popular Web-based VoIP alternatives that are permeating the mass market.”

    Romeo claims that despite user demand for cost-effective services, some mobile operators will continue to discourage mobile subscribers from using VoIP over cellular networks and suggest that it will not provide the same quality, efficiency and reliability of services offered by the GSM network.

    "Recent surveys indicate that nearly 60 to 70 per cent of the major European mobile operators prohibit or restrict the usage of VoIP over their popular mobile broadband data plans," he said.

    Analysts say that mobile operators should eventually do away with imposing bans or surcharges to their mobile broadband packages to support mobile VoIP, as the client devices supporting HSPA+ and LTE will be based on open platforms and support SIP for third-party applications.

    "When the operators migrate to an all-IP IMS network, they should drive innovative services such as multimedia telephony, high definition voice, integrating voice with context-based information about the user, and the device from a converged presence-enabled address book," concludes Romeo. "This will enable them to differentiate their services from mobile VoIP start-ups."

    Related articles
    Visiongain: The Perspectives for Mobile VoIP Market
    Carrier VoIP Continues to Transform Mobile/Fixed Networks
    More and More iPhone Apps Support VoIP over 3G

  • 2nd Annual Cloud Computing World Forum: Interview with Mathieu Poujol of PAC

    „Cloud Computing will strongly influence the future of the IT. But it will take time before it become the main way of delivering IT,” said Mathieu Poujol in an interview with Storage.Biz-news.com.

    Mathieu is a Director of Technologies at PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants), a global market research and strategic consulting firm for the Software and IT Services Industry. He will be one of the speakers at 2nd Annual Cloud Computing World Forum that will take place in London, from 29th June to 1st July 2010

    He thinks Cloud Computing has in fact being stimulated by the crisis: “it is a reality for the majority of the IT managers, according to our surveys,” he siad. He also said that in PAC’s latest recommendations for the EU’s Commission and the French goverenment, the research firm put CC as the top priority for the EU’s investments.

    “With Cloud Computing, a big part of the IT is moving from light –workforce intensive- industry to a heavy –capital and automation- intensive industry. A bit like the automotive industry between the two World Wars,” he claims.

    Mathieu Poujol

    Asked about the business value of the cloud and how the economic crisis has changed it, he had this to say: “The goal of the IT since it exists is better IT Business alignment at lower costs. Trying to meet specific needs with cost effective mutualisation. Open Source, package applications, shared services and many more are all in this line. According to our latest studies, the business value of Cloud computing is optimisation, agility, simplicity and elasticity. So it is in the right sense of the IT history.”

    Mathieu said that Cloud Computing is growing very fast in Europe–more than 20%, according to their data, and will reach 4B€ in 2010. “But it is still a huge marketing hype, with everything that is virtualised being called Cloud Computing. Companies will also see that not everything is eligible to CC,” he said.

    He said he totally agrees with Ovum analyst Laurent Lachal’s opinion, that it’s becoming a hybrid system: for example, one creates his work on software on his PC, and then he saves it and shares it through the cloud. “IT Systems are by construction hybridizing technologies. If your SAP FI/Co is working well, why taking the risk and the complexity of putting it in the CC now?” said Mathieu.

    When asked which of the deployment strategies and integration techniques he consideres the best and most promising for enterprises, he said: “As always in any IT project, planning is critical. Also try CC on some already mature workloads such as messaging then the best is to make your IT “CC compliant”, to adopt private cloud, so you ill be able to better use all kind of CC, and more important asses data, security and backsourcing issues. According to a phone survey we do in March on 200 French IT manager, 71% of them will first embrace Private CC.”

    Mathieu also shared with us his thoughts on “private cloud”: “It will be either in-house or with a hosting company. As with traditional outsourcing, it is a good way to better use external cloud providers and not depend entirely on them.

    With private Cloud you manage your data and your security and have less network problems. IT inside the company is heading this way as it is confronted to the competition of external providers.

    Also, some regulations and security measures will prevent you from outsourcing some data: for example, none of Europe’s banks can put its client data out of its country of origin,” he said.

    When asked “Would you agree that cloud services will replace the Microsoft desktop?”, he answered: “VDI will also grow by more than 20% and competition is more open now with interesting Open Source and SaaS offers. But MS has also this kind of offers and capacities to remain a leader on this market. What I see, it that this increase competition, mostly based on prices will damage MS margins.”

    He also said that green IT and sustainable computing are not issues for the cloud today, “even if marketing is pushing it.”

    “Cost optimisation is the issue and the CC mutualisation, a bit like public transportation, is greener,” he said.

    Asked about the key challenge for 2010 in cloud computing, he said: “For the coming year, network will be the issue. No bandwidth, no CC.”

    Mathieu expects to meet CC project owners and share with them at the 2nd Annual Cloud Computing World Forum in London.

  • Gartner: Worldwide Smarpthone Sales Grew 49% in Q1 2010

    Worldwide smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 48.7% from the first quarter of 2009, according to Gartner. Mobile phone sales totalled 314.7 million units, a 17% increase from the same period in 2009.

    Gartner report "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q10" shows that among the most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of operating system, hardware and services.

    "In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

    Q1 2010 saw RIM, “a pure smartphone player”, make its debut in the top five mobile devices manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android’s momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707% year-on-year.

    According to the report, growth in the mobile devices market was driven by double-digit growth of smartphone sales in mature markets, helped by wider product availability as well as mass market price tags.

    “Increasing sales of white-box products in some emerging regions, in particular India, also drove sales of mobile phones upward. We expect sales of white-box products to remain very healthy for the remainder of 2010, especially outside of China,” said Milanesi.

    The first quarter also saw some movement outside the top five mobile handset vendor rankings: Hong Kong-based manufacturer G-Five made its debut into the top 10, grabbing 1.4% of market share

    The rise of white-box manufacturers from Asia has also helped the "others" section, as a proportion of overall sales, increase its market share to 19.20%, up 2.7 percentage points.

    “This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset manufacturers’ combined share that dropped from 73.3 in the first quarter of 2009 to 70.7% in the first quarter of 2010,” said Milanesi.

    In Q1 2010, Nokia‘s mobile phone sales to end users reached 110.1 million units, a 1.2% decline in market share year-on-year. Although Nokia’s midtier products sold well, Nokia lacks a high-volume driver in the high-end, according to the analysts.

    “MeeGo based devices and other high-end products will not rejuvenate Nokia’s premium portfolio until the end of the third quarter of 2010 at the earliest, and Nokia will continue to feel pressure on its average selling price (ASP) from vendors such as HTC, RIM and Samsung,” said Milanesi.

    The reorganisation announced last week demonstrated that Nokia is trying to streamline the reporting process to deliver results quickly, which Gartner believes shows its recognition of the pressure it faces from investors.

    Samsung sold 64.9 million devices in Q1 2010, an increase of 26.3% year-on-year. Samsung was one of the five vendors in the top10 vendors ranking to grow its market share, which increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year.

    RIM’s mobile phone sales reached 10.6 million units, a 45.9% increase year-on-year. RIM is making its debut into the top five worldwide mobile handset manufacturers ranking. RIM’s focus this quarter was centred on its ecosystem strategy, its tightly integrated control of store, OS and device played to RIM’s strengths, according to the report.

    The reports also shows that the first quarter of 2010 was Apple’s strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2% increase in mobile devices sales.

    “Growth came partly from new communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea,” said Milanesi.

    She claims that the second quarter of 2010 will be a very important one for Apple. “We expect that Apple will present its new iPhone in June during its Worldwide Developer Conference, which will be the first to feature the latest release of the iPhone OS that includes welcome improvements for developers and users, such as multitasking,” she said.

    OS market
    In the smartphone OS market, Android and Apple were the winners in Q1 2010. Android moved to the No. 4 position displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile for the first time. Both Android and Apple were the only two OSs vendors among the top five to increase market share year-on-year.

    Symbian remained in the No. 1 position but continued to lose as Nokia remains weak in the high-end portfolio.

    Smartphones accounted for 17.3% of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter of 2010, up from 13.6% in the same period in 2009.

    “As seen with the iPad and web books based on Google’s Android platform, mobile OS ecosystems are developing and will move beyond smartphones to continue to deliver consumer value and a rich user experience,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.

    Related articles
    NPD: Android Shakes Up U.S. Smartphone Market
    IDC: Mobile Phone Recovery Continues with Nearly 22% Growth in Q1
    Berg Insight: 894 Million Mobile Banking Users by 2015

  • ABI Research: 2012 Will Be a “Bellwether” Year for 4G

    ABI Research has been tracking cities and population coverage for 4G for the past year. The research group reports that at the end of 2009 there were more than 170 802.16e carriers across 65 countries, covering 480 million people. That number is projected to cross the 1 billion mark by 4Q-2012.

    According to ABI, USB dongles have been an excellent vehicle to prime the market along with CPE and laptops, but mobile handsets will be essential to the success of WiMAX.

    Yota, Sprint, and Clearwire have already started beefing up their lineups with models from HTC and Samsung. Meanwhile, mobile operators are seeking out LTE licenses. ABI predicts that twenty carriers will launch by 4Q-2010. Population coverage lags WiMAX but will catch up, reaching 600 million people by 4Q-2012. LTE coverage will start in urban hotspots but carriers indicate they will push coverage rapidly in order to handle the increasing mobile data wave.

    Analysts also think that the 4G market could well have 150 million subscriptions by 4Q-2014. They claim that the split between WiMAX and LTE will depend on WiMAX carrier commitments to upgrade to 802.16m. “WiMAX vendors such as Motorola and Huawei are gearing up to offer “802.16e+” which will bring features of 802.16m to the current market. Many companies in the ecosystem are already working on interoperability testing for 802.16m,” says the report.

    According to Jake Saunders, VP for forecasting at ABI Research, TD-LTE is the “wildcard.” “It was originally primed as an evolutionary technology for TD-SCDMA carrier China Mobile, but has been gaining interest from some WiMAX carriers. Both camps will be frantically trying to ramp up IC wafer manufacturing, product portfolios and population coverage. There will be considerable scrutiny over the next few years,” he said.

    Practice director Philip Solis added, “Some WiMAX service providers may switch from WiMAX to TD-LTE, but others are doing this partly as insurance and partly to assure investors of an alternate path so they may go forward with WiMAX. This is something for smaller greenfield service providers to consider. Large mobile operators will move forward with LTE whether it be on FDD or TDD spectrum. Clearwire can do both WiMAX and LTE if it wants to since it has the spectrum to do so.”

    Related articles
    America’s First 4G Phone, HTC EVO, Debuts on June 4
    In-Stat: 4G LTE Gated by 3G Success, not WiMAX
    ABI Research: 4G Mobile Consumer Service Revenue Will Exceed $70 Billion in 2014

  • Empirix Brings VoIP and IMS Expertise to Mobile Networks

    Empirix has expanded its flagship Hammer XMS technology to provide end-to-end network monitoring for mobile core architectures.

    For mobile operators transitioning to all IP LTE networks, and traditional wire line operators or MSOs that are adding mobile service offerings, Hammer XMS "helps lower the cost of deploying and maintaining multi-protocol network architectures and ensures a more consistent customer experience," as the company claims.

    Hammer XMS includes a suite of protocol support for both GSM and CDMA networks including MAP, CAP, IS-41, CAMEL and WIN services, complementing existing SS7/C7 and IMS protocol support. The new solution by Empirix extends its hallmark end-to-end view across TDM and IP domains to the mobile market. Acoording to the company, it gives operators ‘unparalleled visibility into the customer experience throughout the core network.”

    Transaction monitoring, real-time packet analysis and historical storage of CDRs enable operators to troubleshoot, analyze and report on service quality much more effectively – thereby giving them the ability to more quickly identify and fix issues before they impact their customers.

    “As the boundaries between fixed and mobile services blur, end-to-end network validation will only become a larger, more complex task for providers adding mobile services as well as mobile operators migrating to all-IP networks,” said J.D. Doyle, General Manager of service assurance solutions at Empirix.

    “Ultimately, however, these new services will help them become more nimble and Empirix is committed to smoothing the inevitable transition to IP, lowering costs and speeding the time to market for our customers,” he said.

    Hammer XMS also provides operators with the tools to introduce and monitor multiple IP-based elements and services. End-to-end correlation between TDM and IP domains is provided for mobile softswitches, helping carriers assure the quality of service over SIP-based trunks to the PSTN.

    According to Empirix, femto cell launches will go more smoothly as carriers will have the ability to monitor the quality of voice as traffic from femto cell is carried over the broadband network. Carriers can then assure a smooth integration of femto based sessions into the core mobile network. Additionally, carriers will be able to more effectively enforce SLAs with lower cost IP interconnect partners.

  • New iPhone Ad Platform Extends Services—and Raises Questions

    The recent unveiling by Apple of its new iAd advertising platform extends the company’s array of inventive services for the iPhone, but also continues a distinctive collaboration-versus-competition dynamic between the giant technology trendsetter and its partner companies, according to iSuppli.

    “Thanks to the phenomenal success of the iPhone apps store and iTunes, Apple is in a unique position to partner with best-in-class companies and offer innovative services, products and apps to the market,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli.

    “The launch of one of these services, iAd, is a result of Apple’s recent purchase of Quattro Wireless and points to what appears to be an emerging modus operandi being employed by Apple – namely, a pattern of initial amicable association between Apple and its partner companies that then turns into a competitive relationship,” he said.

    In the smart phone market, Apple was the only player in the Top 5 to achieve a substantial increase and consistent gain throughout 2009, growing its share from 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 to 16 percent in the final quarter.

    In contrast, top-ranked Nokia saw only a 3 percent increase during the period and suffered a dip in the third quarter, while the share of No. 2 RIM fell from 21 percent to 19 percent during the year. Rounding out the Top 5 were HTC with 6 percent share and Motorola with a 4 percent share.

    The iAd platform joins a host of major changes in Apple’s updated iPhone OS 4. In the case of iAd, developers will be able to embed ads into their applications, allowing iPhone users to interact with the ad without leaving the app. Apple CEO Steve Jobs says iAd not only presents additional revenue opportunities for iPhone developers but also provides users with improved advertising quality and access to ads.

    According to iSuppli, while iAd is the progeny of Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless, Apple’s moves in the past have been less overt but nonetheless ended up pitting the giant against its former partners.

    “For instance, Apple partnered with Amazon.com to allow the Kindle app to run on the iPhone. Within a year or two, Apple now has launched its own iBook store for eBooks and other electronic publications. Prior to that, Apple originally partnered with Google Inc. for search and mapping capabilities on the iPhone, but Apple within two years achieved in-house capabilities for those functions and now, with iAd, is going after Google’s highly lucrative advertising business,” as the research group claims.

    As these developments illustrate, Apple is acquiring valuable domain knowledge that is allowing the company to enter into competition with some of its partners, iSuppli believes. And while Apple’s actions could be viewed as a reaction by the company to the moves of its partners, they also can set in motion possibly antagonistic relationships.

    “Should Apple continue to operate in this manner, the company might find it difficult in the future to form an association with best-in-class partners—connections in which friendly partnerships at the beginning alter and then deteriorate into aggressive rivalry,” said Sideco.