Interview – Caring about device management

Mobile Europe:
Mark, device management has been around for a while, where is it now in terms of its utilisation amongst European operators?

Mark Banfield:
Operators have, for some time now, implemented device management platforms allowing them to configure devices for their basic settings, enabling their subscribers to get access to basic services – things like MMS, GPRS and so on. InnoPath, though, is now seeing a demand to move beyond that, into a different kind of approach to device management than we have known for the past four or five years.  Unlike many others in the device management space, InnoPath is focused on a client-server type of management platform, allowing for functions such as Firmware-over-the-Air (FOTA) updates, checking and correcting of configuration settings, and more sophisticated actions such as application or security management, in a much more standardised and active way. As more smart devices enter the market, on a variety of platforms, generating higher demand for data applications and services, European operators are now starting to see the need for their customer care teams to manage this for their subscribers more intelligently. They need to be able to communicate efficiently with their users, diagnose and fix problems, put security onto the handsets, in an efficient way. Until now Europe has been a bit behind the Japanese and US markets, but now we are seeing the move to the end-to-end client server approach that InnoPath delivers, and which has delivered benefits to the wealth of Tier 1 operator customers, including KDDI, Verizon and AT&T. 

Mobile Europe:
And you see customer care as presenting a compelling ROI case for operators deploying this updated technology?

Mark Banfield:
As devices become more and more complex, we are seeing customer care call times increase. When we speak to operators today they tell us the number of the calls and the complexity of the calls is increasing. And really this is only the tip of the iceberg, because with operators only having the ability to solve more complex problems manually, we can see call times reach from 30 to 60 minutes, as customer care agents take users through complex manual configurations. But being able to do this over the air, means for the first time front-line customer care agents can reach out and touch the device live, helping with troubleshooting and correcting mis-configured settings. This is a fundamental change in the way the subscriber interacts with the operator’s customer care organization.

The benefits of this is that first time call resolution increases, customer satisfaction increases, uptake of high revenue applications increase due to ease of use, and the cost of supporting complex devices such as smartphones decreases. That means operators benefit, both in generating additional revenues and saving cost.  In terms of the ROI you mention, we’ve recently worked with Stratecast to validate this. Stratecast predicts that in 2009, operators globally will spend over $25 billion on frontline care. Mobile device management, even with today’s modest client penetration and handling a small number of uses cases, will address $3 billion of these expenses. And by 2013, MDM will address $23 billion in expenses across the industry. This means that the operators we are talking to are looking at cost savings of tens of millions of dollars a year. That’s pretty compelling.

Mobile Europe:
Does this mean you have developed solutions specifically designed for customer care departments to use?

Mark Banfield:
We have a unique care portal that presents either the subscriber or a frontline agent with an easy to use way of accessing MDM capabilities. There’s certainly a necessity to develop very simple to understand tools for customer care agents, hiding much of the technical complexity from them. For example, the agent may ‘pulse’ the phone for vital statistics, determining at a glance if something is seriously wrong. She may check on service settings, comparing these in real-time against expected values, and then send out corrections over-the-air. ActiveSync and WiFi are examples of easily mangled settings. If the worst happens, the CSR may lock and wipe the device. We’ve even developed a care portal for customer self-care, allowing subscribers to manage their own issues. I think users are getting more and more used to be being able to go online and carry out some of their own trouble shooting. And this, of course, takes even more load off carriers’ customer care operation.

Mobile Europe
You earlier mentioned the technology there, specifically FOTA and the client server model. What’s different about that approach to device management, and how InnoPath implements it?

Mark Banfield:
Device management is evolving from an early market where a high degree of customization was the norm, and where each operator had very different requirements, to a more standard approach. We can’t ignore this. As a company, we needed to make the transition as well. We’ve developed our iMDM suite as a standard product, a single platform and codebase, instead of deploying a set of applications on multiple code bases requiring deep customization for every deployment. This permits InnoPath to focus on improving the platform and its functionality. Because it is a product, new features and applications may be easily developed or integrated and the operator may more easily deploy mobile device management with reduced costs. This also creates a platform that may be easily adopted by partners wishing to do the same, and permits deployment and support by a global sales & support organization. And by product, I mean scalability to the largest of Tier 1 operators, extensibility into other access technologies such as WiMAX or even wireline, ease of adding new applications, well documented interfaces, standards compliance, a rich workflow capability that permits the operator to change how the platform operates on-the-fly, saving time and money, and a Device Capabilities Repository and accompanying test program that insures DM manageability of the largest variety of phones.

Mobile Europe:
Can you provide an example?

Mark Banfield:
As an example, at China Unicom, deployment through a partner and customer acceptance required less than six months. These types of deployments are indicative of our product stability and standardization, as well as the ability of our operations team to work closely with our partners and wireless operators.

Mobile Europe:
Picking up on the standards issue you raise. Are the standards now stable in this area, and how does InnoPath exploit them for its customers’ benefits?

Mark Banfield:
OMA DM, which is the set of standards we are talking about, is very stable, and we have made more contributions to those standards than anyone – we’ve also been awarded over 20 US patents. Accordingly, our new Smart Client is the first post-load client to conform to OMA-DM standards. Of course, standards will always lag some way behind technological developments, as functionality increases, but InnoPath has continually focused on delivering a standards-based solution. Where we have expanded upon the standards, which we call Standards+, we’ve insured that interoperability is maintained.  It’s also important to understand that being standards-compliant is not just a matter of having a standards-compatible server, or client, I isolation. It’s about using the standard protocols in how the two interact, so that you have true interoperability.  This means that operators can have confidence that our clients embedded in handsets, whether that is by Nokia, or Sony Ericsson, or any of our partners, can be managed by their platform in a uniform way. It’s about true future proofing because it avoids vendor lock in. It also means customers can have confidence in their future strategies, as they add functionality and services. That level of standards integration is a true differentiator for InnoPath.

Mobile Europe:
Is the enterprise market one that is especially active at the moment?

Mark Banfield:
In parallel with our emphasis on MDM-enabled customer care, we’re also engaged by our operator customers for hosted enterprise device management (EDM). Importantly, many of the capabilities developed for operator consumer deployments – configuration, security, application management, and smartphone support – may be leveraged for a hosted offering. The platform supports what we call Multi-Tenancy, where the operator may delegate authority to multiple customers. In fact, if the operator chooses to do so, it could deploy the same platform for both consumers and enterprises, saving on deployment and training expenses. The operator-hosted EDM market is still in its early days, in terms of product positioning, applications required, and the different companies, large and small, approaching it from different angles. We’re following it closely.

Mobile Europe:
And with Android making such a splash currently, and the LiMO Foundation also involved in developing its flavour of Linux OS, how does a device management platform provider keep abreast of all the differing developments at the OS level.

Mark Banfield:
On the client end, separate from our support for featurephones and smartphones based on the likes of Windows Mobile and Symbian, we also work with OS platform providers to port our technology. We’re heavily involved in LiMO, where we chair the device management working group, and we’ve also ported our client to the Android platform. Being able to work with the widest cross section of platforms is critical, and is something we take a lead in. We continue to gain momentum in the client space, and have recently announced additional wins at Samsung, LG, and Pantech. At the upcomging Symbian Smartphone Show we’re demonstrating interoperability of our iMDM Server with a variety of Symbian handsets (Nokia and S-E) and will show a set of key care capabilities including device updates, diagnosing configuration settings and changing when required, all integrated with the unique care portal I described earlier.

Mobile Europe:
If operators don’t invest in MDM, do they risk losing control of customers to either the device manufacturers, or other parties?

Mark Banfield:
There is potential for the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Apple and RIM to address their customers’ devices with MDM, effectively addressing some of the areas the operator would like to address and thereby take control of the device and service provision, with device updates, device security and diagnostics.  Also, on the enterprise side, operators face challenges from behind the firewall software providers and the large systems integrators, challenging the hosted model. Anyone with a RIM enterprise server, for example, already has device management capabilities built in for Blackberry devices.

With operators needing to compete effectively and reduce their rising cost base, MDM is not a useful tool, but a mission critical must have capability. Any operator not considering MDM investments should spend some time looking closely at  their Customer Care environments and they will discover quickly that they are facing a massive problem which MDM can help them fix.