In an all-out effort to woo enterprise customers to their various platters of all-you-can-eat mobile services and software, IBM Corp., Motorola Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. all debuted mobile service creation packages on the opening day of 3GSM World Congress in Cannes on Feb. 19.
The U.S.-based companies are courting mobile operators and enterprises with packages that bundle software-based services and applications with middleware, architecture and third-party content.
The services being offered and developed by IBM, Motorola and Sun for current 2G (second-generation), 2.5G (enhanced second-generation) and 3G (third-generation) mobile-phone technologies aim to allow enterprise customers to cut down on the time and cost of getting such products and services to market, all three companies said in separate statements.
At the show, Motorola is focusing on messaging, information/entertainment, corporate productivity and mobile commerce; IBM on billing, CRM (customer relationship management), provisioning, and resource management and Sun on end-to-end service delivery infrastructure, and in particular on secure payment strategies for mobile commercial transactions.
Motorola launched its Mobile Services Cafe, allowing operators and enterprises to choose from a variety of services and software from Motorola and its partners and to opt to have Motorola host and manage mobile services remotely or on site, Motorola said.
U.K.-based mobile phone operator mmO2 PLC will be the first European operator to trial the Mobile Services Cafe, working with Motorola on information and entertainment services such as SMS (Short Message Service), WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) wireless games content, and on M-Services downloads to its customers, Motorola said.
IBM is introducing its open-standards based Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE) to offer enterprise customers customized voice, text and Internet-based services, the company said. IBM is touting its use of open IT and telecommunication standards such as Parlay and OMA (Open Mobile Architecture) as well as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration). The services and software will be offered through an open “hub and spoke” integration approach, allowing services and software to be added or removed as necessary, IBM said.
Taiwanese wireless service provider, Far EasTone Communications Co. Ltd. (FET) is launching its Common Service Platform (CSP) based on IBM’s SPDE, IBM said.
For its part, Sun is demonstrating wireless services based on its Java technology, putting the focus on its use of PIN (personal identification numbers) and PKI (public key infrastructure) user authentication products integrated into mobile services, Sun said.
Sun and IBM both stress that mobile services must deliver a consistent experience and that open standards are the key to creating such consistency for users across a variety of devices and services.
The 3GSM World Congress in Cannes runs from Feb. 19 through Feb. 22. More information can be found on the show at http://www.3gsmworldcongress.com/.
Sun, in Palo Alto, Calif., can be reached at http://www.sun.com/.
IBM, in Armonk, N.Y., can be reached at http://www.ibm.com/.
Motorola, in Schaumburg, Ill., can be reached at http://www.mot.com.