Unified Communications? and the TV? RCS to provide seamless communication

Hi,
Just releasing a new demo of use case of our RCS Solutions Gateway. In this case the platform instances "cloud" RCS clients to mirrored with IM/file sharing apps at TV side (with TV Widgets) or at STB/deco side (using MHP and other frameworks).
In this demo you can see how mobile and TV subscriber can initiate a instant messaging session, and even the mobile can share a pic to be displayed in the TV by the receiver. Soon live video from mobile will be added.
Using Rich Communication Suite (with a live IMS core) carriers offering triple play can also offer communication capabilities to the "TV" in a very simple way.



No need to modify the RCS client at mobile, or the IMS/RCS core to deploy this use case.

If you like the video (only in that case) remember you can tweet this post using the button in the upper-left button :-)

solaiemes team

For those who do not believe that "telcos" & internet can walk together...RCS

Hi,
We are glad to post new demos and unveil a new product, with RCS Solutions Gateway, 3rd parties will have the capability to create mobile channels using a common carrier or service provider feature, RCS. In this demos we use our platform and our own first version of droid client to show how a Social Media connector is possible to reach mobile customers with RCS, both are working under a live IMS/RCS Core. The idea was demonstrating that internet space and carrier space can co-exist and help each other.




If you like the video (only in that case) remember you can tweet this post using the button in the upper-left button :-)

soon more demos

Help us to create a shared Q&A (Faq list) about Solaiemes

We try to interact with customers, potential customers, partners, analysts, media, and people eager to know more about us.
We found specially useful Twitter, as a way to make quick questions publicly or privately using DM's. Recently I knew about Formspring.com and created our profile there, it is a fantastic method to create a Q&A list that remains public, it allows anonymous questions and also people disclosing their identities in a form of just using Facebook connect.
We invite you to help us to create an interesting question list, we will try to answer accurately this "user generated interview". You can use English and/or Spanish to type your questions.
Perhaps some questions could be impossible to answer due to NDA's with other companies or internal information not able to be disclosed, but we like tranparency and will do our best to answer all your questions. You can post your questions here :-)

2009 vs 2010, what we did and what we want to do.

Last december we posted about our goals and just checking the accomplisments we are partially happy. We survived a very tough year, with dramatically reduced innovation budgets in telcos and big companies. The common feeling was "wait and see", both, for big companies needing technology and new services to launch and also for VC.
About ou goal of being funded from international VC, we were contacted by several VC's and also we contacted a few ones and we learnt "for A rounds, VC's invest only where they have office", then, we focused in our portfolio, trying to increase references and revenue and will come back to them again :-)
Other important goal, partnerships with big telco suppliers, we explore it, it seems our product fits someone else, and in the very next future we could offer together new mobility and UC use cases. About other listed 2009 goals, public references for our LiveServe video solutions will be disclosed Q1-2010, and we were mentioned in analyst reports from 2 important firms.
We finally become a Red Herring Top 100 Global last January.
We could not grow the staff but we managed to increase the revenue while saving costs, and increase brand awareness combining few events and the use of social media.
We invest in our new product, RCS Solution Gateway, to approach coming telco opportunity to the world of the web for CRM, Social Media and advertisment.
It was a difficult decision, as with limited resources, the RCS platform development delayed the global cloud/saas offering of our previous platforms, but, for sure, we are not forgetting our vision about communication solutions as a service and our RCS platform is including this vision (API's) from the beginning.

We are participating in the RCSdevChallenge next January, and unveiling our RCS portfolio coming Mobile World Congress. Stay tunned, also unveiling RCS client, no mobile, no desktop :-)
2009 was a hard year, and survived, and 2010 looks better, as the pic tries to describe, now we see the goal bigger, more space to score: our portfolio getting awareness and with sinergies with other suppliers, VC's needing to invest againg the new funds raised, M&A activity last months shows the big players are moving to strengthen their portfolios and most important, carriers needing to offer compelling service to compete with internet style service providers.

We strongly believe 2010 will be a very important year for Solaiemes, the long telco developement/sales cycle was completed in our first products and is being monetized, and for new "challenge/venture", the RCS, we are arriving just in time, no too soon, no too late.
Yes, we know some people think 2010 will be similar of worse than 2010, but it is better to focus in working everyday to exceed expectations during 2010, isn't it?
Let us dream !!!

Start-up's marketing, Twitter helps !

I suppose it would be very nice to have full pockets to have resources for marketing and brand awareness, but being a technology "bootstrapping" start-up, resources are very limited :-)
We have to decide each brand/marketing action valuable to spend our restricted marketing budget, and our own time.
We learnt about social networks by doing, and started with Twitter shyly and being a bit skeptical, but now, our first tweet was written 18 months ago.
Today, we read in a Nurun (a global presence marketing & communication company) report (report available in spanish) that Solaiemes is the 4th spanish most "conversational" brand in Twitter. Of course we are not leading by number of followers (about 300, more or less as following but not symetrica at all) or number of tweets, mere activity, we are happy because we are well positioned just where we need, conversation.
We used Twitter to announce products, our blog posts, our slideshare keynotes, and try to generate debates. We could create conversation with analysts, other start-up's, potential partners and costumers, communication managers of very nice companies able to provide feedback, where we suppose cold door email will never work, it seems tweeter is not a cold door if used properly, with non invasive style.
Of course we are aware that we should keep posting, creating presentations to share producs ot views, shooting video-demos of our portfolio, being at Facebook & Linkedin and of course, we need to update the website (be patient), but...Twitter becomes the circle around the communication strategy, and we recommend start-up's to use it, learning slowly but avoiding the risk of being considered spammer, or just 1 way emitter and use it to announce new info available in the other social or corporate communications channels.

Thanks Twitter for your help and thanks Nurun to just seeing us in the middle of so many brands using Twitter.

What about including Push to Talk in RCS ?

When talking about RCS (Rich Communication Suite) current features are Presence, Instant Messaging, VideoShare (enriched call) and file sharing...With all of them, using a "common use" a lot of applications and services could be offered on top, and Solaiemes is also working in a platform to make really easy for 3rd parties reach their customers using RCS.
But....we still miss the Push To Talk there.
Half duplex VoIP could be a great enabler for user generated content (UGC) to social media, voice alerts, and voice updates from social media and CRM universes.
Being triggered from the enhanced phonebook, Push To Talk is the missing feature to ensure the RCS success and complete the types of media directly reaching the web world from mobiles. PTT deserves a second chance to show its potential, more focused to subscriber <-> solution use cases system rather than subscriber <-> subscriber use case.

Come on !!! GSMA people...for mobility's sake, let's include PTT in the RCS specs !!!

Big fishes, small fishes, who eats who?

We are just facing the decisive time regarding the boost of mobility. Till now, carriers considered themshelves the big fishes, owners of the market,
and able to eat the small fishes at any moment. But that is becoming increasingly unclear. Once extended the mobile data, with a fixed monthly
fee for data, external service providers (basically internet-style service providers) pay more attention to mobility. Till now, in mobility they were small fishes, very limited by the walled garden carrier model, but that is changing.
Internet (and HW) companies such as Google, Skype, Apple/iTunes are seeing increasingly capable devices and affordable mobile data prices as their opportunity. In mobility they can be considered small fishes, but they are really big fishes overall, and not only big, also fast swimmers.
Application marketplaces where revenues from apps are shared between providers and the marketplace owners are constraining possible carrier value added solutions based revenue, and even in the case of "loved by users" devices, they are forced to share their data revenue with the manufacturer :-) It is clear that the big fish is not so big, the small fish is not so small, or even being smaller their strategy is better.

Could the carriers avoid becoming a mere dumb pipe, what they consider a defeat? Yes, but....
The internet-style boost of mobility has weaknesses: apps, device fragmentation, no common use model, the target of users is not the whole mobile user. Carriers can offer rich solutions based on common services, easy to learn and compatible with most devices, they can offer the next
generation of SMS model (you learn one service, and you can do very different things). Carriers still have services not properly "squeezed" to get juicy value added services, VideoCall/VideoShare, Push to Talk, and right now RCS (Rich Communication Suite) are, properly combined, an incredible framework to build mobile solutions on.
Then, the operators have not been defeated yet, but they need perhaps to be smaller but faster, in the modern world speed and time to market are more important than sheer size.

Obviously carriers can try to block protocols, but the generalized use of mobile data is changing the mind of regulators, and they are more keen on supporting mobile net neutrality.

The lessons learnt from internet says that Skype becomes long distance minutes leader, succesful VoIP providers leading the integration of voice with apps (Voxeo, Ifbyphone, Twilio, etc), Google Voice becoming a real alternative. In mobility the device fragmentation offer an opportunity to carriers, the only ones who have the capability and the goal to offer new possibilities to mid and low tier users, and monetize that.

The future of carriers still depends on themshelves, but only for a little while, they have to move faster and offer their alternative, boosting the mobility based on common mobile services being used by 3rd party ecosystem to deliver use cases based on them.

Created company profile at dotopen.com

We just created our profile in dotopen.com, a database/social network of companies, organization, ngo's, networking companies, start-ups related with mobility and communications.
Sometimes it is a bit hard to fullfill complete profiles, and in this case it takes some time but it worths. We like the profile, the info you can edit is complete, you can describe your product/service lines as projects and you can embed in the media tab your best slideshare ppt's or youtube demos.
We strongly advice start-ups to join dotopen.com and share info, we can find partners when sinergies are possible.
You can also "follow" other members activity (pure social media) and rate the companies, a good point to get some feedback :-)
And carriers, investors, journalist, don't be shy, join also and start the conversation :-)

Explaining RCS, will RCS become the killer enabler?

We just made a presentation using the minimalist Lawrence Lessig style. It's about the need of simplifying communication tools for mobile and unified communication and at the same time provide rich experience and the possibility of interaction with everybody and "everything" as your social media profiles and your providers customer care.
For us RCS, Rich Communication Suite is "THE ENABLER", we are working to enrich their potential use cases and want to help to RCS to be understood, adopted by carriers and have the people accepting and using as a "natural" rich communication method in the next future.

eComm Highlights (part II)

Keeping up with the previous two days a fantastic day at eComm at Amsterdam, ideas pouring, challenging audience. Politically incorrect but valid things said on stage, you will never hear that in other events. A bunch of quick notes summarizing the first and last days:

Martin Geddes, BT: "goodbye minutes, welcome moments"
Current voicemail (automatic messages left by IVRs, etc.) ineffective: relies on customer acting, doing + poor user experience + inefficient + unsecure (how to re-authenticate customer call back? how do I know message is from tax agency and not from a fraudster?)
What can be done to e.g. enhance voicemail:
1. use better existing channels (e.g. phweet)
2. insert/update/delete APIs (chargable events) + high definition audio + personalise interactions + smarter containers for messages + add multimodal channels

Sample revenue opportunities for new-think voicemail:
• connect: message informing or asking to contact.
• interact: avoid CRM call by using smart containers (e.g. data in the message avoids the call).
• transact: collect payment on behalf of the enterprise.

James Enck mCapital:
Future is not going to be a repeat of the past. World is not going to be the same.
So ... what do we have to say about all this? Are we a serious industry allocating capital to Kindle, iPhones, etc.?
Greatest value will be found in solving real problems (some of which we haven't found yet): Awareness + engagement + investment + reorientation.

J. Salanave, IDAE: Telecom in 2015: death or bazaar
Future scenario for telcos? Model possible outcomes as a 2x2 matrix:
• Telecom market expanding vs declining-stagnant
• Competition integration model: concentrated-vertical vs fragmented-horizontal
4 possible outocomes
• Silent death: surviving of the fattest, perhaps bailouts from governments and becoming utilities
• Market shakeout: service providers entities mixing device partnerships, spectrum, brands. Probably forced by investors.
• Clash of giants: vertical integration + optimized content + RCS + succeeds.
• Generative bazaar: open model prevails.
Bazaar means do-it-yourself connectivity? No, some entity will be needed to provide interconnection (key aspect) and other services.

Rudolf van der Berg, Logica: "almost everything in telco services is wrong"
Telcos not satisfied being an utility, they see no value being vodafone, they invest in being apple/google/etc.
All telcos offer the same, stuck in a standard value proposition. Telcos fail at innovation.
But ... other approaches are possible and successful in the real marketplace: Free.fr: everything for 30€. How? Keep back-office simple; finances and business cases are simple and transparent, not faked; offer the best product; deny competitors competition on price or capacity. 1000 total staff, 850 staff in call centres.
How to copy free.fr? Accept you work for a telco. Think cool things. Simply billing with single contract + top ups.

G. Leonhard MediaFuturist.com :
Media future: Must transition from ego-system to ecosystem, and, by the way, driven by capitalism, not by goodwill or philanthropy. Price moving from expensive to cheaper (but not cheap enough) to flat rates and bundles. Pricing logic will flip: lower prices, ubiquitous access.
But content pricing and licensing can’t be solved without engaging ISP, advertising, right holders, social networks (recommendations, trend setting). Spotify solved it, paying 0,1 cents per song, but it might become a time bomb if there are no upper caps.

After these 2 last post, we will prepare for coming week a post explaining the view of Solaiemes about the Telecom trends, and the possible scenarios of next decade telco/communication industry, stay tunned, and remember, the debate is open

Jose Recio

eComm Highlights (part I)

I am attending the eComm Europe event in Amsterdam, just amazed by the level of the speakers and the quality and rythm of the 15 minutes keynotes schedule.
Just writting this post (and additional one after the event with final thoughts) just to share some headlines and sentences to think about :-)

VoiceSage:
There are white spaces in the enterprises: communication-enabled services may help to surface them and optimize/monetize/ save costs. An edge perspective allows to surface this data. Simple example: allowing customers to confirm just a bit earlier may have big impacts in resources.

Nauiokas Park:
There is nothing wrong with being a dump pipe, capital structures will adapt to be cash flow driven.
Platform and APIs basically selling trust, technical capabilities are a must, but not enough.
Everything as a Service is coming (including banking). Future platforms blending identity + trust + messaging may allow that.

Mangrove:
Major disruptive driver in the last years: Telecom operators displaced to their rightful place in the eco-system: providers of the tubes. Capital models will have to change to adapt to that situation.

VURB:
Peering-up is the best way to cope with climate change, peak oil, financial crisis, ...

RJ Auburn - Voxeo:
To innovators: Get passionate or get out.
Voice is coming out, text is in. Kids and next generation don’t talk on the phone unless they have to, TXT is second nature to them. Communication pace is faster than voice now, customers want instantaneous answers, not wasting time waiting for IVR answers. No money in voice, cost saving in text (permits multitasking, voice not).
Building person to person communication based on bots and mash-ups. What happens with the existing phone applications?: look at IMified. Just use text instead of bots.

Jay Phillips - Voxeo:
If open source is communism … where is the proletarian?
Voice is not the application; it’s the spice to make the soup taste better.
Innovators to build lots of little voice experimental apps to find the right soup.
Voxeo open sourcing SIPMethod !!!

Jan Linden - Global IP Solutions:
H264 SVC codec for the Internet era.

Dean Bubbley - Disruptive Analysis: “LTE hostage of voice?”
IMS is the dead parrot in the Monthy Python sketch. Dead but nailed to the perch of LTE.
Is industry using LTE as the lever to persuade operators to deploy IMS? CS fallback: 2-3 seconds longer setup times (sometimes 8-10 seg, and double that for LTE-LTE calls). Drops data connection !!!. Extra capex in network.
And SMS on LTE? SMS was completely forgotten in LTE until it was too late. Fact is: You need SMS for backoffice operations (configuration, activations, passwords, prepaid top up, etc.) even if you use LTE only for data.

Sten Tamkivi - Skype: “peace, love and pstn”.
Skype processes 100 billion calls a year. Their view is that they are not taking revenue from telecoms, most of Skype minutes would never happen without Skype. 33% Skype calls include video.
Skype is for the people I actually want to talk to (average skype contact list is a single figure number). Somebody told Skype founders it would never happen because people don't have headsets, but people invested in headset to talk with their valued contacts.

To cover global needs, you need something relevant to developed (“peace and love” way of thinking, good voice quality, video, etc.) and emerging (PSTN, bad voice quality doesn’t matter so much, no video needed). Things like a MVNO focused on price and regular quality (long call setup, not very good audio, etc.) can’t be global (may succeed in emerging, but would be niche in
developed).

Voxygen:
Good user experience: calling a service number and directly listening what you wanted (e.g. ticket status, appointment confirmation), with no delay, no input of account, etc.
How much money wasted by couriers checking parcel delivery times, etc.?
Unlock that value !!!

Tomorrow more :-)

Jose Recio, VP Alliances

AVISG Tecnology for Multimodal Interaction explained

When demonstrating the AVISG tecnology for mobile multimodal web interaction (see videos here) customers tell us about how can it be possible, how to synchronize real time voice and mobile web if mobile browsers are not AJAX enabled. The others concern is about the possibility of reusing their IVR/ASR/TTS. Basically the answers are: YES, Solaiemes AVISG can synchronize real time voice and web content with only xhtml capable devices and AVISG can use whatever pre-existing IVR or using cloud IVR's. But in order to explain better our technology and advantadge we just prepared a ppt product sheet to help architects of partners and final customers understand how AVISG can be combined with their offers or cover their needs.

Solaiemes featured in the Moriana Group IMS & RCS Report 2009

Solaiemes has been featured in the vendors appendix of the Moriana Group IMS & RCS Report 2009.
Our vendor profile is included with other 13 companies profiles. We are very happy to see our company profile together big industry players as Intel, Huawei , ZTE among others, and see other 2 companies based in Spain (Almira Labs and Genaker) also listed.
We understood how difficult is entrepreneuring in technology in Spain with limited funding and it could help to boost VC operations when investors realized the important matters are vision and execution rather than company location :-)
Solaiemes aims to contribute with its vision to improve the mobility, convergence and UC, and participated in the last edicion of IMS forum, and believe IMS & RCS could have a key role, you can find our keynote here.

The Moriana Group (from it own about) specializes in the telecom service layer and next generation networks. Our focus is on: Service Delivery Platforms, Next Generation OSS/BSS, Convergent Charging and Billing, IMS, FMC, VoIP, WiMAX, IPTV, Triple Play Mobile Commerce and Advertising and other key technologies and services. Their mission is to help network operators and service providers to transform their business models, service offerings and network infrastructure to create new revenue streams and to meet the challenges of the competitive Telecom market and the growing pressure from Internet and Web 2.0 players.

Latest Solaiemes Company Profile presentation.

In this company executive summary presentation we explain: "the problem" we are trying to solve, our approach, what is different and is a real enhancement, our aimed business model, and our portfolio and real use cases applications.

If you are interested in see the demos visit http://www.youtube.com/solaiemes
Feedback, comments, suggestions, more than welcomed.