At the end of November I’ll be attending Informa’s SDP Asia conference in Singapore.  I’ll be running a post-conference workshop on the 28th November, and a couple of sessions through the conference (26-27 November).  Outlines of the sessions are shown below, and the conference brochure can be downloaded here.  The purpose of this article is to briefly review what I hope to achieve in those sessions.

For the workshop on the 28th Nov entitled “The Business Case for Service Innovation (New Revenues): The SDP, Telco API and Web/Telco 2.0” the focus is a frank review of what is happening with SDP (Service Delivery Platform), what’s working and what is not, the business case for its deployment, and the results over the past year from my work with developers to understand their needs (this is a critical issue for the industry).  I’ll be reviewing the activities of Telenor’s Content Provider Access, O2 Litmus, Telus, Cox, Sprint’s Business Mobility Framework, Orange Partner, Telecom Italia’s NexTIM, BT, Telstra, Maxis, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Swisscom, and many more.  Examining their successes and failures, particularly around services, business model, processes and architecture. As an independent worker in the telecom industry I can focus upon the facts, not ‘spin’ for shareholders, or to make a sale, or maintain the company line; simply “I can say it as it is.”

For the session on the 26th Nov entitled “How To Combine IMS and SDP To Effectively Deploy New Products & Services” the focus is to cut through the misinformation and negativity that surrounds IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), so its core purpose is understood, why SDP functionality is required, and the business justification for its deployment.  My recent article on IMS/SDP North America provides a summary of some of the findings I’ll be presenting.

On the 27th November I’ll be chairing the day, and running the final panel session “Stimulating Service Innovation Through The Application Developer Community.”  In that session I’m fortunate to have on the panel Thomas Clayton, Varun Arora, and Kenny Mathers.  As I mentioned earlier, fulfilling application developer needs is critical to an operator’s success.  Tom, Varun and Kenny bring a vast wealth of experience on this topic, and I strongly encourage operators to attend
this session.

Over the day of the 27th Nov, we’ll have operator presentations from Alex Lim (BT), Vincenzo Amorino (Telecom Italia) and Achmad Darmawan (PT Starone Mitra Telekomunikasi), covering their SDP experiences.  Other presentations are going to bring world-class thought leadership, practical implementation advice and lots of case studies.  My objective for the day is to ensure attendees get as much frank advice as possible to aid in current or planned SDP deployments.

SDP Asia provides a great opportunity to meet with operators creating service innovations throughout the APAC region.  I always find it a refreshing and stimulating conference given the market’s diversity with quite unique challenges compared to Europe and the Americas.  Last year’s SDP Asia conference is reviewed in this article.  Contact me if you’re interested in attending and I’ll forward the Speaker Colleague & Client Discount registration form so you can save 25%.

The Business Case for Service Innovation (New Revenues): The SDP, Telco API and Web/Telco 2.0 (28th November)
The SDP (Service Delivery Platform) is now a core strategic asset within an operator’s network.  Not only is the SDP saving millions of dollars by rationalizing the delivery of multiple services and winning profitable new revenues through simplifying how new services are enabled and launched.  The SDP has become core to an operator’s service innovation strategy; that is how it will win new revenues, attract new customers and retain existing customers.

The Telco API (Application Program Interface) is one method for operators to foster innovation on their networks.  The Telco API (Application Programming Interface) enables operators to expose capabilities from their networks such as location, presence, charging, authentication, etc.  Based upon extensive studies performed with operators around the world, the Telco API has the potential to raise ARPU by up to 36%.  Just exposing the Telco API is not good enough; operators must implement an application developer community (innovation community).  Making it easy for applications to get on the operator’s network, easy to be discovered by early adopter customers, and all within an easy to use community tool that enables continuous application development to get the ‘recipe right’ for each operator’s local market.  All this is enabled through the SDP.

The workshop’s objectives are to enable the attendees to understand:

• The SDP landscape;
• Where and why SDP deployments are working, examining the reality behind the hype;
• The variety of SDP business cases;
• The failures in other operator’s ADCs (Application Developer Community), and what are the keys to success based upon extensive application developer discussions;
• What application developers need from a Telco API;
• How the SDP enables an operator’s Web / Voice / Telco 2.0 strategy; and
• What an operator needs to do given their specific local market conditions.

How To Combine IMS and SDP To Effectively Deploy New Products & Services (26th November)
IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) has had a tough time in the press since it passed over the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ and entered the ‘through of disillusionment’ on the classic hype curve. However, IMS is being deployed, with Verizon, Sprint and AT&T aggressively rolling-out and the cable operators following close behind.

• What are their rationales for deploying IMS?
• How are such operators integrating IMS with their existing service platforms and SDP plans?
• What are the services?
• What is the business case?

Stimulating Service Innovation Through The Application Developer Community (27th November)
Operators around the world are adopting the Web 2.0 paradigm to harness internet service innovations onto their networks, e.g. Verizon’s Open Developer Initiative, BT’s 21C SDK, O2 Litmus, and Vodafone’s Betavine, commonly referred to as Telco 2.0. The SDP is the underlying technology enabler to these initiatives. This session will discuss with some leading ‘2.0’ developers what they need from an operator’s application developer community to enable mutual success.

• What is meant by Telco / Web 2.0?
• What is the state of current service provider Telco 2.0 / Web 2.0 activities?
• What capabilities can telcos expose that Web 2.0 companies need?
• What are Web 2.0 companies doing today to bypass the telcos for various service enablers?
• Where is the money to be made by the telcos and application developers in working together?
• What are good and bad application developer communities?

Panelists
Thomas Clayton, President & CEO of Bubble Motion
Varun Arora, CEO of Pechora
Kenny Mathers, Head of Nokia Forum