What effect will fixed mobile convergence, the availability of higher bandwidth connections to mobile devices and the increasing need to support advanced services like mobile TV have on mobile device management? In this second installment of a two-part interview conducted by Vaughan O'Grady of GSM 3G Vision, ABRAHAM JOSEPH shares his views on the likely development of the mobile device management market.

The organisation's founder and CEO, Abraham Joseph, feels that, far from complicating matters, some of these developments will simplify some aspects of DM. "One thing that is complex and challenging in DM currently is implementing robust solutions for transferring data (for example firmware updates) accurately over very limited bandwidths and possibly poor quality connections," he says. "With widespread high-bandwidth connectivity available on devices, this problem disappears and new possibilities are opened up for management. For example it will become practical to transfer entire device images or applications rather than just updates."

He feels that fixed-mobile convergence too creates opportunities for simplification of management of services and networks in the long term, "but in the short term more complexity is likely". FMC's influence is also evident in the entry of traditional fixed line players like service management software supplier Motive into the mobile DM space.

Even without FMC, however, there is a need for end-to-end management. Clearly service quality depends on the network infrastructure and content sources as well. For this reason some industry observers argue that networks need to become more application aware and/or applications more network aware. Advancing the argument that applications ought to be able to control networks, Paul Phillips, president and CEO of Extreme Networks, a provider of IP-based networking solutions, says: "Applications need to be able to do three things with data: compute, store and move. In addition to interacting with store and compute, they need to be able to interact with the 'move' part too."

"One important application of DM in a convergence context," adds Joseph, "is to manage voice services as well as new data services, delivering cost savings by ensuring that devices that are able to do so make use of wifi networks when appropriate. Nokia is working with Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel and Siemens to offer support for the deployment and management of VoIP services on devices," he adds.

Moving from bandwidth to actual services, how will DM be affected by the advent of, say, mobile advertising and mobile TV?

Obviously every service that is delivered through the device needs to either find the device already configured appropriately, or to have mechanisms to make the changes necessary for the service to run, or run optimally. The more advanced the service, the greater the number of parameters that need to be configured and monitored and the greater the importance of DM to delivering and maintaining a high quality of service. Video services are particularly challenging, says Joseph, because not only are they very demanding of device resources, but also because these demands vary with the type of content.

Paul Forostrowsky, CEO of Bluestreak, a company that provides technology that enables services and applications for mobile devices to be developed in Flash, says: "Depending on the nature of the content, mobile TV and video have several ways of being consumed - each of which has an effect on the way the content needs to be developed for, and managed on, a mobile device." He points out that some applications, such as television programmes, need to have longevity, as they can be watched numerous times and stored on a phone for an indefinite period. "In this instance, they need to be flexible enough to support changes to, and upgrades of, mobile devices," he says. "In contrast, content such as sports highlights and news bulletins have a short lifespan. In this instance, time to market is essential."

User expectations and behaviour play important roles too. For the Digicel Group, which launched a GPRS/EDGE-based mobile TV service in Jamaica in January this year, the issue was more one of customer care rather than device management. "We used software on the portal to determine the models and software versions of handsets that were coming onto the network and therefore whether a given customer was eligible to receive the mobile TV service," said Wade Howell, group product revenue manager, at a recent conference on mobile device management. "Customers that were eligible were then presented with an option to download a Symbian application to get the service."

Given the likely level of activity that such developments imply, where does Joseph see the DM industry going over the next few years? Firstly, he suggests, a number of trends will continue, notably consolidation and a continuing move towards more comprehensive solutions at the expense of point solutions like firmware update. He feels that cost savings through fixed mobile integration will continue to drive deployment in enterprises while hosted and managed services will play an increasingly important role. "

At present," he adds, "there is a gap between DM and 'user interface customisation' or 'on-device portals', as exemplified by players like Surfkitchen, Action Engine and SnapIn. I expect to see that gap narrowing if not disappearing through collaboration or M&A. I expect greater clarity in the positioning of operators, handset vendors and SI/IT solution vendors, especially with respect to the enterprise market. I expect also to see greater linkages between DM and other functional areas like security, identity management, and digital rights management.

"Finally," says Joseph, "I expect some of the debates we have been having about the business case for DM to resolve themselves. DM will be seen more as a means to an end - an important enabler for the deployment and management of services and user experience rather than an end in itself."

This article first appeared in GSM>3G Vision on 04 April 2007.