Reality Check: Helping operators manage cost of services without slowing down adoption

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
Mass adoption of mobile data services is becoming more and more driven by end users rather than operators or mobile service providers as an increasing number of devices at the lower end of the device portfolio are loaded with cool applications that make it easy for the average user to access the Internet and Web services. There is no turning back and mobile operators need to get their device portfolio, their service infrastructure and their network ready for the massive explosion of data usage that is already happening with early adopters who are now taking full advantages of their increasingly sophisticated devices, which give them anywhere, anytime, desktop-like use of personal, play or professional applications.
Challenges faced by operators remain the same: How do you drive adoption while controlling cost of service; how do you lower churn rate; how do measure the profitability of mobile services; and most importantly, how do you make investments that will not turn obsolete within a year and survive the accelerated pace of change and competitiveness of the mobile industry? Deploying services and related infrastructure components that are cost effective and can be extended to new services, applications or devices – while not compromising the ultimate killer app on any device, ease of use – is a must.
Operators have several choices. They can opt to deploy best-of-breed applications and services for every single device and operating system in their device portfolio, and tackle the resulting fragmentation, complexity and inefficient use of their network downstream through their service delivery organization. This, of course, most likely results in additional and unnecessary costs. Or they can select a more cost-effective solution, which is to deploy a multi-service, multi-device solution that can help them consolidate their infrastructure, simplify the delivery of services, and keep the cost of services under control.
The multi-service platform from Seven is one of these solutions that can help operators rapidly answer the market demand for services like integrated messaging and social networking while keeping the costs of delivery under control and building an infrastructure that can evolve with the market. Seven has taken a plug-and-play approach to delivering best-of-class services on a wide range of devices. New devices can be added at any time to the operator’s portfolio and still take full advantage of already deployed services. New services can be rolled out as part of new device launches, as well as be added to devices already in market. New device platforms can be introduced into the device portfolio without the need to integrate additional costly infrastructure components. Any client application already present on the device can be upgraded over the air with minimal disruption to user activity on the device. In every case, every service can take full advantage of the Seven push technology, which delivers significantly better battery life and is designed for optimized use of the network bandwidth, and is proven to drive higher user adoption and retention rate.
Bottom line, a plug-and-play approach like Seven has for its push platform for mobile applications and integrated messaging allows operators to deploy high-impact solutions such as access to social networks while helping them remain strategic in technology choices – meaning that their investments will be able to evolve along with any drastic market changes.
Isabelle Dumont is senior director of product and corporate marketing at Seven Networks Inc. Dumont is responsible for all global marketing activities, including the overall positioning of the company and its solutions to the market. Dumont brings more than 20 years of software marketing and business planning experience to Seven spanning enterprise, open source, business intelligence and SaaS solutions. Most recently, she was responsible for the Open Source line of business at CollabNet, including marketing, developer community and global sales of Subversion-related solutions and services. Prior to that, she was part of the senior marketing staff at Oracle where she led competitive go-to-market initiatives for the entire Oracle portfolio of products. Before moving to Silicon Valley, Isabelle held several business development and technical positions at IRI Software in Europe where she contributed to the company by opening offices in 12 different European countries. Dumont holds a Master of Computer Sciences and Artificial Intelligence from the Ecole Centrale of Lyon, France.