IBM has opened telecommunications development centres to help Communication Service Providers (CSPs) create new business models while improving the customer experience and operational efficiencies.
p>IBM has opened telecommunications development centres to help Communication Service Providers (CSPs) create new business models while improving the customer experience and operational efficiencies.
Located in China, South Africa and Malaysia, the centres provide a broad array of advanced technical skills and specialised offerings. IBM has announced, also, a dedicated centre in for solutions based on products and services from Comverse.
Drawing on IBM's globally-integrated network of capabilities and partnerships, the centres offer a range of new telecommunications software solutions based on IBM's Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE) 3.0 framework, as well as hardware, services and business partner applications. Clients will include telecommunication operators, network equipment suppliers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and extended service providers.
"To sustain growth in today's economy, service providers are seeking ways to offer subscribers a more positive and differentiated user experience while reducing complexity and cost," said Scott Stainken, general manager for IBM's telecommunications industry. "IBM's specialised global centres and labs offer the telco industry an unparalleled level of expertise and support to speed implementation and facilitate more effective use of applications and technologies."
Creating centres of excellence
IBM's new Comverse Centre of Excellence (CoE) has been established within the IBM Telecom Solutions Lab in France. Its goal is to reduce risk and speed time-to-value of telecom solutions. The CoE creates a BSS/OSS (Business Support System/Operational Support System) and Service-Delivery environment using software components from IBM and Comverse that allow clients to test proofs of concept. IBM server and storage hardware, including Power Systems and Bladecentre, provide the dynamic infrastructure foundation for the CoE.
"IBM understands how critical it is to offer systems and processes that support the new business models that operators must deliver to stay competitive," said Dror Bin, President of Global Sales at Comverse. "We believe that the Comverse-IBM relationship backed by the centre of Excellence will enable them to develop new business models that will lead to more efficient operations and generate new revenues."
IBM's main Telecom Solutions Lab (TSL) in Sub-Sahara Africa is located in Johannesburg, but clients will also be able to access IBM solution demonstrations from three additional satellite locations in Africa: (Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town).
The South African TSL features a "proof of concept" solution called "The Enterprise Applications for IMS + SDP for Mobile Healthcare" which is aimed at improving doctor's productivity and delivery of healthcare services using a wireless infrastructure. This solution allows onsite medical resources (general practitioners, clinic staff) to have immediate access to remote specialists. These specialists would be able access a patient's information in real time to enable rapid diagnosis and remedial action without the need for an in-person examination. For CSPs this solution demonstrates ways to quickly adapt a solution for new business opportunities in adjacent markets.
Located in IBM's China Development Labs, the IBM Telecommunication Solutions Centre (TSC) has been established to accelerate solution development and streamline product delivery. Recently, China Mobile Communications Corporation has been working closely with experts at the China TSC to deploy a platform - based on IBM Service Delivery Platform, Data Warehouse and Cognos Business Intelligence - that supports service creation, deployment, execution, integration and management. As a result, China Mobile is able to reduce time-to-market for new products, increase revenue and improve customer service with end-to-end monitoring and analysis.
IBM is also opening an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Telecom centre of Excellence (CoE) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to support CSPs in this diverse and challenging region. CSPs in ASEAN are faced with the requirement to innovate and invest in new services while simultaneously grappling with challenges from mobile number portability, decreased roaming revenue and competition from next generation broadband networks. IBM's goal in this region is to help CSPs improve customer life cycle management through business intelligence, analytics and service delivery platforms while reducing cost through increased infrastructure and operational efficiencies.
