RDMA04 Subscriber Data Management Outlook Jun2009

Global Telecom Software Market Analysis

By Peter Mottishaw

Subscriber Data Management

Outlook

June 2009

Global Telecom Software Market Analysis

2© 2009 Analysys Mason Ltd

Subscriber Data Management Outlook

Table of Contents

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Contents

Executive Summary...............................................................................6

Figure 1: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management spending

forecast ..................................................................................................6

Deployment Scenarios ..........................................................................7

Market Share .........................................................................................9

Figure 2: Subscriber data management market share ..........................9

Alcatel-Lucent ........................................................................................9

Bridgewater Systems...........................................................................10

Ericsson ...............................................................................................10

HP ........................................................................................................ 11

Huawei................................................................................................. 11

NSN ..................................................................................................... 11

Forecast ..............................................................................................13

Figure 3: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management forecast ...13

Figure 4: 2008-2013 Breakout of legacy and next generation subscriber

data management forecast ..................................................................14

Forecast by Region .............................................................................15

Figure 5: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management forecast by

region...................................................................................................15



Market Drivers .....................................................................................17

Drivers .................................................................................................17

Inhibitors ..............................................................................................17

High subscriber growth in emerging markets

Operational cost saving drives HLR consolidation

Operational cost saving drives broader database consolidation

Competitive pressures drive subscriber profiling

Flat rate data tariffs drive the need for subscriber policy management

Partner access to subscriber data and enabling new business models

IMS deployment

Pricing pressure

Trust and privacy issues

Business Environment .........................................................................21

Figure 6: Proliferation of subscriber data in CSP operational and network

infrastructure .......................................................................................22

Market Definition..................................................................................23

Figure 7: SDM in Analysys Mason segmentation ................................23

SDM Definition.....................................................................................24

Figure 8: Subscriber data management functional components .........25

Definition of legacy SDM and next-generation SDM ...........................25

Deployment Scenarios ........................................................................26

Scenario 1: Network database silos

Figure 9: Scenario 1: Network database silos .....................................27



Scenario 2: Network database consolidation

Figure 10: Scenario 2: Network database consolidation scenario ......28

Scenario 3: Cross network consolidation

Figure 11: Scenario 3: Cross network consolidation ..........................29

Scenario 4: SDM platform

Figure 12: Scenario 4: SDM platform .................................................30

Vendor Summaries ..............................................................................31

Alcatel-Lucent

Amdocs

Blueslice

Bridgwater Systems

Ericsson

HP

IBM

Motorola

Nokia Siemens Networks

Nortel

Oracle

Sun

Xeround

ZTE

Suppliers..............................................................................................39



Table 1: Comparison of evolved IN and next generation telecom

application server suppliers ................................................................39

Recommendations...............................................................................40



Executive summary

A detailed understanding of customer behavior and the ability to respond in real-time to customer needs can dramatically increase the competitiveness of a business. In principle communications service providers (CSPs) have very detailed knowledge of how their customers use their services and they have platforms that can be adapted in real-time to customer needs. However, the customer or subscriber data is often unavailable because it exists in many different silos often with little support for open access. The vision of subscriber data management (SDM) is to provide a platform with open interfaces to real-time subscriber data and manages the location, service settings, preferences and policies for each subscriber.

The current reality for SDM solutions is that CSPs manage subscriber data in many silos to support different operational requirements. Network databases such as HLRs and AAA servers maintain subscriber profiles for authentication and service configuration to support real-time execution of services. Real-time charging systems manage subscriber account information in real-time to support pre-paid services. Customer care systems maintain records of customer interactions and service subscriptions to support customer service representatives and customer self-care. Identity management systems manage customer access to web portals and web services. These are a few examples of how and why subscriber data is used in different silos.

Figure 1: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management spending forecast

Source: Analysys Mason

CY2008 CY2009 CY2010 CY2011 CY2012 CY2013

NG SDM (CAGR 33%) $268 $321 $399 $551 $810 $1,096

Legacy SDM (CAGR -19%) $803 $749 $679 $597 $436 $274

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Executive Summary



Analysys Mason forecasts that the overall subscriber data management market will grow from $1.07 billion in 2008 to $1.37 billion in 2013 at a CAGR of 5%. The modest growth rate reflects the transition that is occurring from high cost legacy network databases silos, such as legacy HLRs, to lower cost next-generation subscriber data management platforms (NG SDM). This transition is captured in Figure 1. Spending on next-generation subscriber data management platforms (NG SDM) will grow at a dramatic 33% CAGR from $268 million in 2008 to $1.10 billion in 2013. While spending on legacy SDM will decline from $803 million in 2008 to $274 million in 2013 at a CAGR of -19%.

Revenue estimates in this report include product software revenues (license, maintenance and product related services), but excludes hardware and general system integration and consulting services. We also include deployments of SDM to support both mobile and fixed services, but mobile is the dominant area of deployment.

In our new SDM coverage we will focus on platforms that are designed to manage subscriber data in real-time and near real-time independently from specific applications. This is an area of strategic importance to CSPs as they try to improve their ability to customize, personalize and target new services based on subscriber characteristics.

One major trend contributing to this is the replacement of legacy HLR deployments with a distributed logical subscriber database that supports multiple front-end applications including HLR, HSS, AAA, EIR and MNP. This is important because it decouples the network database application from the subscriber data management and can be extended to support the applications such as single sign-on for web portals or dynamic profiling of subscriber behavior. Most HLR vendors are pursuing this opportunity, but with different degrees of success.

Another key trend is the adoption of IT and web concepts such as federation of subscriber data, dynamic profiling of behavior, policy management and identity management. This broadens the scope of SDM to exploit existing systems and support new requirements.

Deployment scenarios

CSPs are deploying SDM in a number of different scenarios. The market drivers section provides a more detailed view on the business drivers behind these scenarios. The market definition section provides a detailed description of these scenarios. The most important deployment scenarios are:

Network database silos: traditional deployment model of stand-1.

Executive Summary



alone network databases (often deployed as mated pairs for resilience).

Network database consolidation: consolidate to a logical sub-2. scriber database supporting network database as a front end.

Cross network consolidation: extension of scenario 2 to include 3. different types of network databases and different access net-work types.

SDM platform: extension of scenario 2 or scenario 3 to support 4. a north bound access to subscriber data and support third party access to data.

Executive Summary



Market share

The market share for subscriber data management is shown in Figure 2. The overall spend was $1.1 billion in 2008. The top six suppliers account for 87% of the market. This is a highly concentrated market dominated by the big four network equipment manufacturers (NEMs). Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is the market leader with 25% market share followed by Ericsson, 24%, Alcatel-Lucent, 15%, Huawei, 14%, HP 5% and Bridgwater, 4%.

Figure 2: Subscriber data management market share


Full summaries of the SDM suppliers are provided in the Vendor summaries section towards the end of the report. Here we focus on the strength of the market leaders.

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent has brought together the HLR and network database businesses of Alcatel and Lucent and has a strong next-generation SDM offering. Lucent had invested in next-generation SDM products early and these have formed the basis of Alcatel Lucent’s next-generation SDM offering the 8650 SDM. Alcatel-Lucent continues to support the installed base of HLRs, but is well advanced in transitioning customers to the new platform. Alcatel-Lucent also offers its 8660 Data Grid Suite that supports the federation of data across multiple data sources. It has tier-1 CSP deployments where Data Grid is being used to federate data across HLR, HSS, AAA, LDAP databases and pre-paid platforms.


25%

Ericsson24%

Alcatel-Lucent15%

Huawei14%

HP5%

Bridgewater4%

Other13%

2008 SDM Revenue = $1,071 million

Market Share



Alcatel-Lucent claims more than 200 SDM customers and supports more than 775 million subscribers on its SDM solutions. Its success is based on a comprehensive SDM product offering, but it is behind Ericsson and NSN because of its smaller presence in the mobile infrastructure market.

Bridgewater Systems

Bridgewater Systems is the leading subscriber data management specialist. It has built a strong installed base with CDMA CSPs in North America addressing the needs of mobile data services. It claims more than 150 million subscribers; with more than 70 million of these from Verizon Wireless. Bridgewater has grown consistently and is in good financial shape. It has expanded beyond its original core market by addressing GSM, HSPA, UMTS, WiMAX and LTE requirements. In the WiMAX market it has 25 global customers including Sprint and its XOHM network. Bridgewater’s growth strategy is to expand beyond basic subscriber data management and address some of the new opportunities for mobile personalization, third party ecosystem enablement, customer profiling and targeted advertising. It has invested in the Subscriber Data Broker product to enable this.

Ericsson

Ericsson is the market leader in providing mobile infrastructure to CSPs and it has the most widely deployed HLR platform. It claims that more than 1.7 billion subscribers are supported on its HLR platform with 218 customers. It is strongest in Europe and Asia with less presence in North America. Ericsson’s HLR platform is built on Ericsson’s proprietary AXE platform and was originally introduced in the early 1990s. Ericsson offers a separate HSS node to support IMS and WCDMA requirements. This uses Ericsson’s TSP platform a Linux-based real-time blade server introduced in 2001.

Ericsson has been the long term leader in the SDM segment based on its leadership in HLR deployments, but has been slow to address the NG SDM requirements of CSPs. NSN took market leadership in 2008 with the acquisition of Apertio. This took NSN significantly ahead of Ericsson in terms of its NG SDM offering. Ericsson has been developing its NG SDM strategy and recently began offering a User Data Consolidation solution that supports centralization of subscriber data in a Centralized User Database (CUDB). This supports front ends for HLR, AUC and for mobile number portability. The solution does not yet have any significant installed base.

Market Share



HP

HP’s HLR platform was one of the earliest to be offered on an IT platform rather than a specialized telecom platform. It uses HP’s high availability Integrity NonStop platform. HP has established HLR market leadership in North America and is deployed with both AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. It has also won business in emerging markets with Reliance in India and Vivo in Brazil. Overall HP now has more than 250 million subscribers on its SDM platform.

HP has addressed the NG SDM requirements with its Profile Manager introduced in 2007. It can be used as the primary centralized database for subscriber profile data, supporting HLR, HSS, AAA and other SDM functions as front ends. The HP Profile Manager supports centralization and federation strategies for subscriber data. It also provides support for access from application platforms and four third-party services.

Huawei

Huawei has recently established itself as one of the top four suppliers of telecoms equipment globally and a credible competitor to Ericsson, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent. Huawei has a strong subscriber data management installed base in China, Asia-Pacific, Africa and Eastern Europe. It has been particularly successful in high-growth emerging and developing markets. It has proven that it can successfully deploy and support tier-1 CSPs such as China Mobile with installations supporting more than 100 million subscribers. This provides essential credibility as Huawei competes for business in emerging and mature markets.

Huawei currently has 170 customers for its SDM products and is supporting 900 million subscribers globally. Huawei has invested in a next-generation subscriber data management platform that supports full consolidation of the network database applications, including HLR, HSS, AAA, EIR and MNP, onto a single logical database. It launched this next generation SDM platform in early 2008 and 350 million of its subscribers are currently on this new platform. Huawei was the fastest growing of the leading SDM suppliers and poses a major threat to the top three suppliers.

NSN

NSN has built its SDM market position from the HLR business of Siemens and Nokia. It significantly enhanced its position in the SDM market with the acquisition of Apertio in early 2008. Siemens had been delivering HLR consolidation projects using the Apertio platform for a few years notably a large-scale project for T-Mobile in Europe. The Apertio

Market Share



acquisition has gone well and NSN has adopted the Apertio One-NDS platform as its next generation subscriber data management solution. NSN has continued to grow the SDM business with particular success in transitioning its existing Nokia and Siemens HLR installed base to the new platform. This led to overall leadership in the SDM market in 2008.

NSN claims more than 845 million subscribers using its One-NDS product including five deployments supporting more than 40 million subscribers and one with more than 55 million subscribers. Overall NSN has 66 customers for the One-NDS product line in 43 countries with 28 references. It has added 33 new customers since the acquisition of Apertio in January 2008. NSN states that the legacy HLR products support more than 1.5 billion subscribers. Approximately one quarter of these subscribers has migrated to the One-NDS architecture. The main source of growth for the One-NDS business is the migration of this installed base to the new platform. However, NSN has won new business outside this installed base. Notably the success at Time Warner Cable as part of an overall IP multimedia subsystems (IMS) solution due to be deployed in 2009.

Others include specialist SDM providers, IT companies such as IBM, Oracle and Sun, and other NEMs such as Motorola, Nortel and ZTE.

Market Share



Forecast

Analysys Mason forecasts that the overall subscriber data management market will grow from $1.07 billion in 2008 to $1.37 billion in 2013 at a CAGR of 5% (see Figure 3). The modest growth rate reflects the transition that is occurring from high cost legacy network databases platforms to lower cost NG SDM. The global economic recession will also reduce the level of SDM spending in 2009 and 2010 as CSPs take longer to evaluate projects and delay some SDM spending.

Figure 3: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management forecast


Legacy network database platforms are deployed as separate silos, either singly or as mated pairs, to support a particular set of subscribers. The GSM HLR is the most common legacy network database and a single HLR mated pair will support a few million subscribers. An operator with 20 million subscribers may deploy 10 to 15 mated pairs each of which has to be provisioned and managed independently. Legacy SDM products are often supported on proprietary hardware and software platforms and have a higher price per subscriber then next generation SDM platforms.

Next-generation SDM platforms support a single logical subscriber database with multiple front-end applications such as HLR, EIR, AAA and MNP. They are often implemented on COTS hardware platforms with a lower price per subscriber. They have significantly lower operational

CY2008 CY2009 CY2010 CY2011 CY2012 CY2013

SDM (CAGR 5%) $1,071 $1,070 $1,078 $1,147 $1,245 $1,370

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Forecast



costs than legacy platforms and greater flexibility and openness. They can also support new applications such as subscriber profiling, identity management, subscriber policy management, personalization, third-party access and targeted advertising. A more detailed description is provided in the market definition section along with some deployment scenarios.

The revenue from the legacy and the next generation product categories is broken out in Figure 4. Next generation subscriber data management will grow rapidly, with spending of $268 million in 2008 growing to $1.10 billion in 2013 at a CAGR of 33%. This extremely rapid growth is mainly driven by the replacement of legacy platforms, but towards the end of the forecast spending on next-generation SDM solutions to support new applications will become a significant growth driver. See the market drivers section for a more detailed analysis of growth drivers.

Figure 4: 2008-2013 Breakout of legacy and next generation sub-scriber data management forecast


Legacy SDM spending is mainly on maintenance contracts to support existing infrastructure. This spending will decrease rapidly from $803 million in 2008 to $274 million in 2013 at a CAGR of -19%. The decrease is driven by the termination of maintenance contracts as equipment that has reached end of life is replaced by NG SDM deployments.

CY2008 CY2009 CY2010 CY2011 CY2012 CY2013

NG SDM (CAGR 33%) $268 $321 $399 $551 $810 $1,096

Legacy SDM (CAGR -19%) $803 $749 $679 $597 $436 $274

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Forecast by region

Figure 5 shows the SDM forecast in each of the four major regions.; North America, Europe (NA), Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Central and Latin America (CALA) and Asia Pacific (APAC). Spending on subscriber data management in North America will grow from $243 million in 2008 to $268 million in 2013 at a CAGR of 2%. North America is a mature telecom services market with limited opportunity for subscriber growth. CSPs will continue to invest in next generation SDM solutions to consolidate HLR, AAA, EIR and other network databases, but this will be offset by a continuing decline in maintenance spending on legacy SDM as legacy HLRs are retired from service. In the later years of the forecast growth will be driven by opportunities to expand the use of subscriber data in support of new applications and third-party access.Spending on SDM in EMEA will grow from $419 million in 2008 to $506 million in 2013 at a CAGR of 4%. The mature markets of Western Europe are pursuing similar strategies to North America with limited subscriber growth opportunity. They will invest further in next generation SDM to consolidate databases and reduce operational costs. They will also start to spend on new ways to exploit subscriber data. In Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa investment in SDM is driven more by subscriber growth and there will be rapid growth in spending on next-generation SDM solutions to address scalability and performance requirements.

Figure 5: 2008-2013 Global subscriber data management forecast by region


CY2008 CY2009 CY2010 CY2011 CY2012 CY2013

NA (CAGR 2%) $243 $238 $235 $243 $254 $268

EMEA (CAGR 4%) $419 $417 $418 $439 $470 $506

CALA (CAGR 9%) $91 $94 $98 $108 $123 $143

APAC (CAGR 7%) $318 $321 $327 $357 $398 $453

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Spending on SDM in CALA will grow from $91 million in 2008 to $143 million in 2013 at a CAGR of 9%. This is the fastest growing market, driven by high subscriber growth rates in countries like Brazil and Mexico. CSPs will invest in next generation SDM to meet scalability requirements, but they will also explore new ways to use subscriber data.

Spending on SDM in APAC will grow from $318 million in 2008 to $453 million in 2013 at a CAGR of 7%. This is driven by high subscriber growth rates in countries like China and India. In mature markets such as Japan, Australia and Singapore, CSPs are investing in subscriber data management to achieve operational cost savings and explore new ways to use subscriber data, but these mature markets make up a smaller percentage of the telecoms spending than in other regions.

Forecast



Market drivers

SDM is an essential function in the CSPs’ service infrastructure. In the last few years it has been realized that considerable value can be delivered if the CSP moves from the standalone network database approach to a holistic subscriber data management approach. With this evolution SDM can add significant value by providing a consolidated view of subscribers and their behavior. It can also deliver efficiencies by reducing the number of subscriber data management silos.

The difficult economic climate that we expect to persist through 2009 and most of 2010, will change CSP spending priorities; shifting the emphasis to cost reduction business cases and away from risky new revenue streams. However, the attractiveness of new revenue opportunities will reassert themselves in 2011 and 2013.

Drivers

High subscriber growth in emerging markets • Operational cost saving drives HLR consolidation• Operational cost saving drives broader database consolidation• Competitive pressures drive subscriber profiling• Flat rate data tariffs drive the need for subscriber policy management• Partner access to subscriber data and enabling new business mod-• elsIMS deployment •

Inhibitors

Pricing pressure• Trust and privacy issues• CSP organizational challenges•

High subscriber growth in emerging markets

In emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and emerging Asia, CSPs are still experiencing strong mobile subscriber growth rates. The global recession will slow growth in 2009 and 2010, but growth rates are still high and will accelerate as the recession comes to an end. This growth will be the single biggest driver for spending on SDM solutions. Pricing of SDM solutions is based partly on the number of subscribers supported and CSPs will need to spend money on SDM simply to support the new subscribers. In addition, the performance and scalability requirements well drive CSPs to invest in updating to the latest SDM platforms.

Market Drivers



Operational cost saving drives HLR consolidation

CSPs are under increasing pressure to save operational and capital expenditure as the top line comes under pressure from the recession and competition from more efficient service provider increases. CSPs with legacy HLR infrastructure can reduce operational costs by more than half by consolidating to a next generation SDM solution. A typical tier-1 mobile operator with 25 million subscribers and 20 mated pairs of legacy HLRs can move to a single logical database and reduce the number of platforms managed, simplify provisioning and move to a lower cost COTS hardware. This transition is well underway in the industry with most tier-1 CSPs in the process of implementing HLR consolidation.

Operational cost saving drives broader database consolidation

CSPs can achieve further cost savings by consolidating multiple SDM functions onto a single SDM solution. A CSP that operates a GSM/UMTS network can consolidate the HLR, AAA, MNP and HSS functions onto a single SDM platform. This extends the cost savings of HLR consolidation and many operators will choose to do this when they consolidate legacy HLR platforms. CSPs that operate multiple network types can also consolidate SDM functions across networks. An operator with a CDMA and GSM network for example, can consolidate all SDM functions onto a single SDM solution. In the longer term, as CSPs consolidate mobile, fixed and Internet services are SDM platforms will be extended to support common identity, policies and personalization should across multiple services.

Competitive pressures drive subscriber profiling

In mature markets, such as North America, Western Europe, parts of the Middle East and Asia, competition will continue to put increasing pressure on CSPs to improve customer experience, reduce churn and find new sources of revenue. In these markets there are normally three or more CSPs to choose from when purchasing mobile or broadband services. The entry of non-traditional competitors from adjacent industries into telecom services has further increased the competitive pressure.

Search and information portal providers such as Google and Yahoo are aggressively exploiting the shift of advertising dollars from traditional media outlets to the web. Device manufacturers such as Apple and Nokia are also offering mobile services that limit the opportunity for existing CSPs. These companies are a strategic threat because of their ability to disrupt the value chain.

CSPs are responding by improving their ability to understand and

Market Drivers



respond to customer behavior. SDM systems are starting to support these requirements by providing real-time access to subscriber profiles to support new applications such as real-time business intelligence, personalization of services and targeted advertising. These trends will be increasingly important towards the end of the forecast period.

Flat rate data tariffs drive the need for subscriber policy management

Competitive pressures are driving mobile and broadband CSPs to offer flat rate data tariffs. As a consequence CSPs are seeing dramatic growth in data traffic with insufficient revenue growth to support the required infrastructure build-out. In some cases relatively few subscribers are making a disproportionate contribution to data growth through sharing of large media files.

SDM can help CSPs address this issue by supporting subscriber specific policies. This enables the CSP to offer a number of “flat rate” data tariffs with differing caps on bandwidth, overall data volume and allowed services. This requirement can be addressed without a separate SDM function, but a next generation SDM solution is a good platform for managing subscriber policies independent of the application implementing those policies.

Partner access to subscriber data and enabling new business models

CSPs will increasingly recognize the importance of third parties and new value chains in delivering new and innovative services. Internet companies such as Amazon, eBay, Google and Yahoo, have demonstrated the attractiveness of a business model based on flexible personalization of services and tracking of customer preferences. CSPs are exploring the opportunities for providing similar levels of personalization and tracking of customer behavior. They are also starting to provide access to service enablers within their own infrastructure to third parties. This has the potential to create new value chains and enable CSPs to participate in some of the “Internet value chains”. Subscriber data is potentially very attractive to third parties to enhance the services they can offer using the CSPs infrastructure. It can also be provided in an anonymized format to advertisers.

IMS deployment

IMS provides a more flexible and lower cost control layer for both wireless and wireline services. It provides access to a rich set of service enablers. The number of IMS deployments will increase steadily over the forecast period and this will drive spending on SDM solutions. IMS

Market Drivers



requires a specific SDM function, the home subscriber server (HSS). CSPs that have not already done so will choose to consolidate and upgrade SDM functions as part of the IMS deployment.

Pricing pressure

The price per subscriber of SDM solutions has declined steadily and will continue to do so over the forecast period. This is driven by the move to COTS hardware platforms and by increased competition between vendors. Huawei and ZTE in particular are driving costs down further based on low-cost development in China. There is a risk that pricing pressure will increase further, which is attractive to CSPs, but will reduce the overall spending on SDM.

Trust and privacy issues

The use of subscriber data to profile customer behavior can be controversial and the public perception may prove to be an inhibitor to some next generation SDM opportunities. It is an issue when the data is shared with third parties or used to support targeted advertising. The recent experience with using Phorm in the UK is an indication of the problems. The EU Commission has started proceedings against the UK government because of concerns that Phorm has been used by UK CSPs in a way that infringes privacy and personal data protection rules.This is an area where CSPs will need to be very careful about public perception. Most issues can be addressed by ensuring that the customer opts in before any profiling data sharing occurs. Providing incentives such as discounts or service announcements should be enough to encourage most customers to opt in. If CSPs manage this poorly the regulatory framework is likely to restrict their ability to extract value from subscriber data.

CSP organizational challenges

A significant inhibitor for the broader SDM consolidation projects is the organizational challenges they face. CSPs are typically organized in silos with ownership for separate parts of the service infrastructure. SDM consolidation will eventually require business units responsible for mobile, fixed and Internet services to work together and use a common SDM infrastructure. Where operators are organized as separate operating companies in each country there is a similar challenge. These barriers will slow some of the more ambitious SDM consolidation projects, but in most cases the cost savings will be compelling. The current recession is also likely to reduce objections to consolidation of infrastructure.

Market Drivers



Business environment

SDM is becoming a broad requirement for the real-time and near real-time management of customer data. Originally it evolved from an embedded function of telephone switches to become an independent network database and is now evolving into a distributed platform supporting multiple network and service level functions. Major drivers in this evolution were the need to manage mobility and authentication. The GSM networks deployed by CSPs in the early 1990s included a home location register to maintain subscriber data essential to mobility management. Along with the AUC and EIR it supported the need for identity management, authentication, mobility management and some server settings for the GSM service. At the same time the growth in residential broadband services drove the deployment of AAA network databases to support authentication and accounting needs.

These network databases evolved to support specific protocols and requirements. They were deployed as stand-alone network nodes or as mated pairs with one database acting as a redundant hot standby. Most of the network databases deployed were built on special purpose telecom hardware platforms. The operational and capital costs of this approach started to become an issue in the early part of this decade and most vendors began developing next generation solutions that used standard IT software and hardware platforms. They also looked at new multi-layer architectures that could deliver improved scalability and resilience through a distributed approach.

In parallel with these developments real-time and near real-time requirements were becoming more important to the service offered by operators and the customer experience they needed to deliver. Pre-paid services are a good example of this. Originally targeted at customers with low credit ratings, they have evolved to provide real-time account management for most mobile consumer customers. The web has also contributed to the expectation of near real-time management of services, whether it is a Yahoo e-mail account or updates to a Facebook account. The potential areas of the OSS, BSS and SDP infrastructure requiring real-time or near real-time SDM are indicated in Figure 6. Most of these are currently supported by separate databases, which are loosely synchronized using the fulfillment processes. There is a long term need for a common dedicated SDM function that can meet the needs of each of the application areas.

Business Environment



Figure 6: Proliferation of subscriber data in CSP operational and network infrastructure


As the SDM function evolves it will enable new services and capabilities. CSPs are aware of the potential value of the customer data embedded in their many subscriber database silos. The move towards a common platform will make it easier to provide a holistic near real-time view of customer behavior. This can include account balance, location, services in use, device type and status giving a very complete picture of the subscriber’s preferences and interests. This type of data can be used to target offers of new services, advertising and adapt existing services to better suite subscriber needs. Clearly there are many regulatory and privacy issues that must be addressed, but Amazon, Google and others have demonstrated how a business model can be enhanced by detailed knowledge of user preferences.

Business Environment



Market definition

Analysys Mason uses the buying behavior of CSPs to define market segments. CSPs are purchasing subscriber data management solutions to consolidate subscriber data onto fewer platforms and to open up subscriber data to support new applications and business opportunities.Figure 7 below illustrates the 23 functional categories of telecoms software analyzed by Analysys Mason grouped under their major segments: Service Assurance, Service Fulfillment, Billing, Customer Care, Service Delivery Platforms and Network Management Systems. The subscriber data management segment is currently not part of one of the major segments. We plan to include it in broader coverage of the service layer at a future date.

Figure 7: Subscriber data management in Analysys Mason segmentation


Market Definition



SDM definition

In this report, we define SDM as the software product that supports real-time and near real-time access to subscriber data to support the execution of services. The real-time requirement is driven by services such as voice that have a tight latency budget of the order of 250 milliseconds. The look up to the subscriber database should take less than 50 milliseconds of that budget. Other less sensitive services can be supported with near real-time performance of up to a few seconds. The subscriber data that is managed includes identity information such as IMSI and IMISDN, authentication information, personalization information, policy settings and settings for specific services. The requirement for real-time response requires the subscriber data to be simple and specific to the services supported.

In the revenue and market share estimates we exclude revenue from hardware and general system integration and consulting services. Hardware is of decreasing significance as vendors move to use COTS hardware.

An area of confusion is that subscriber data is managed in many different parts of the CSP’s OSS, BSS and network infrastructure. Pre-paid charging platforms for example provide subscriber data management in real-time. These are not included in our definition of the SDM segment because they are not providing a general purpose SDM function that is available to any service or application. The SDM they provide is tied to the particular application they support. One of the architectural trade-offs is whether a piece of subscriber data should be stored in the SDM system, or with the application that requires it. As a general rule, if the data is likely to be used by more than one application it should be in the SDM system. We are already seeing a migration of subscriber data from other platforms such as messaging platforms, pre-paid platforms, telecoms application servers and web portals to the SDM platform.

We include a “subscriber management” sub-segment within the customer care segment in Figure 7. This is distinguished by not supporting the real-time requirements of network services and being focused on supporting only the customer care operation.The major functional areas included in the subscriber data management segment are illustrated in Figure 8.

Market Definition



Figure 8: Subscriber data management functional components


Definition of legacy SDM and next-generation SDM

Legacy network database platforms are deployed as separate silos, either singly or as mated pairs, to support a particular set of subscribers. The GSM HLR is the most common legacy network database and a single HLR mated pair will support a few million subscribers. An operator with 20 million subscribers may deploy 10 to 15 mated pairs each of which has to be provisioned and managed independently. Legacy SDM products are often supported on proprietary hardware and software platforms and have a higher price per subscriber then next generation SDM platforms.

Next-generation SDM platforms support a single logical subscriber database with multiple front-end applications such as HLR, EIR, AAA and MNP. They are often implemented on COTS hardware platforms with a lower price per subscriber. They have significantly lower operational costs than legacy platforms and greater flexibility and openness. They can also support new applications such as subscriber profiling, identity management, subscriber policy management, personalization, third-party access and targeted advertising.

Market Definition



Deployment scenarios

CSPs are deploying SDM in a number of different scenarios. The market drivers section provides a more detailed view on the business drivers behind these scenarios. The most important deployment scenarios are:

Scenario 1: Network database silos: traditional deployment model of standalone network databases (often deployed as mated pairs for resilience).

Scenario 2: Network database consolidation: consolidate to a logical subscriber database supporting network database as a front end.

Scenario 3: Cross network consolidation: extension of scenario 2 to include different types of network databases and different access network types.

Scenario 4: SDM platform: extension of scenario 2 or scenario 3 to support a north bound access to subscriber data and support 3rd party access to data.

CSPs tend to evolve from one scenario to the next, but this happens at different rates for different service infrastructure and operating companies.

Market Definition



Scenario 1: Network database silos

The traditional deployment paradigm for network databases, such as HLRs, is for each HLR (or HLR mated pair) to operate independently with responsibility for a subset of the subscriber base (see Figure 9). An HLR mated pair provides geographical resilience by duplicating the HLR functionality in two different locations. The provisioning (or fulfillment) system is responsible for partitioning the subscriber base and configuring individual subscriber settings (see Service Fulfillment Market Review, April 2008, OSS Observer ).

In this report this type of deployment is classified as “legacy SDM” because it does not provide a platform for the broader requirements of SDM.

Figure 9: Scenario 1: Network database silos


Market Definition



Scenario 2: Network database consolidation

In the last few years vendors have started to offer SDM solutions that consolidate subscriber data into a single logical database or “back end” platform (see Figure 10). The “front end” platforms support the required network interfaces and cache subscriber data dynamically. This provides immediate benefits with more efficient use of resources on the front end platforms and greater flexibility in offering resilience to failures. It also simplifies the provisioning process.

In this report scenario 2 deployments are categorized as next generation SDM because it is the first step to supporting broader SDM requirements.

Figure 10: Scenario 2: Network database consolidation scenario


Market Definition



Scenario 3: Cross network consolidation

Further efficiencies can be achieved by supporting multiple “front end” applications from the same “back end” database. In a mobile network, for example, HLR, AAA, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) and HSS “front ends” can be supported from the same “back-end” system. This provides greater efficiency in resource utilization and also supports the consolidation of operational processes. The approach can be extended to a common platform that supports SDM across multiple networks (see Figure 11).In this report scenario 3 is classified as next generation SDM.

Figure 11: Scenario 3: Cross network consolidation


Market Definition



Scenario 4: SDM platform

The final scenario is normally an evolution of scenario 2 or scenario 3. It provides support for other applications to access subscriber data in real-time (see Figure 12). This includes applications that respond in real-time to subscriber behavior and potentially for access from third-party service providers. It also supports the migration of subscriber databases from application servers and real-time charging platforms to the common subscriber data management platform.

This is classified as a next-generation SDM deployment and is typically the vision that many CSPs have when investing in upgrading existing network databases to support broader subscriber data management requirements.

Figure 12: Scenario 4: SDM platform


Market Definition



Vendor summaries

The following provides short summaries of the market position and products of selected subscriber data management vendors.

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent has the broadest SDM offering of any of the vendors. It includes network databases, next-generation SDM, personalization, identity management, subscriber policy management, consolidation of network databases and federation of subscriber data. Its next-generation SDM solution is the 8650 Subscriber Data Manager. The Alcatel-Lucent HLR solutions, the 1430 ngHLR and the 1440 USDS, can be seamlessly upgraded to the 8650 SDM. The 8650 SDM creates a single, virtual data store to enable the management of subscriber profile data and support HLR/SLF/HSS/AAA/MNP/EIR applications across multiple networks.

By centralizing the subscriber data, it allows mobile service providers to evolve their networks without replacing the SDM solution, for example, moving from a GSM/UMTS network to LTE, IMS and all-IP network. In addition to the 8650, which is focused on subscriber profile data, the Alcatel-Lucent 8661 Directory Server supports subscriber personalization, identity and privacy preferences. The 8661 Directory Server is an open repository of data that can also simultaneously support multiple applications. It has been deployed to support messaging applications, friends and family data for pre-paid/post-paid applications as well as personalization of portals and other identity and web-based services.

Alcatel-Lucent also offers the 8660 Data Grid Suite (DGS). Its virtualization ability blends data from multiple domains including the IT and real-time network domains as well it federates data from third-party resources such as marketing partners. The 8660 DGS is able to simultaneously support multiple protocols to multiple data sources to extract needed data records including HLR/HSS/AAA information from the 1430 ngHLR, 1440 USDS and 8650 SDM or other third-party HLR/HSS/AAAs. It simplifies the enablement and integration of new applications into a service provider environment. The 8660 DGS handles the multiple queries and protocols to the multiple data sources to return the required information in real-time.

Amdocs

Amdocs is the leading telecom software supplier. It provides near real-time subscriber data management in a number of its products, but does not provide a standalone subscriber data management solution.

Vendor Summaries



It provides a master data management solution for customer data that can provide near real-time analysis of subscriber behavior. This is based on the IBM platform. Amdocs recently acquired ChangingWorlds that provides a specialist platform, which adapts to mobile subscriber behavior in real-time.

Blueslice

Blueslice is a specialist SDM vendor offering a common next-generation SDM platform that supports HLR , HSS and AAA requirements. It is focused on the HLR/HSS opportunity, particularly the replacement of legacy platforms. It claims 15 CSP customers and has a partnership with Comverse. Significant customers include BT and VimpelCom.

Bridgwater Systems

Bridgewater Systems built its success around the AAA requirements for CDMA operators in North America. These requirements are addressed by its Service Controller product. Bridgewater does not provide the HLR function, but provides subscriber data management for the associated mobile data services. Bridgewater has added a policy controller that controls subscriber access to network resources, applications, and quality of service. It has also added the Subscriber Data Broker that supports access by third parties to subscriber data. This enables Bridgewater to address the needs of a number of different types of mobile operators. For example, for CDMA EV-DO markets, they may deploy the Service Controller (AAA), Policy Controller, and Subscriber Data Broker. In WiMAX deployments the Service Controller and Subscriber Data Broker are deployed. For LTE deployments, Bridgewater’s suite includes an HSS, 3GPP-AAA (Service Controller), PCRF (Policy Controller), and Subscriber Data Broker function.

Bridgewater supports both consolidation of subscriber data and federation where the business case for replacing existing platforms is not compelling. The Subscriber Data Broker supports federation enabling the deployment of a mixture of consolidation and federation to meet CSP requirements. The Subscriber Data Broker also enables service providers to open the mobile ecosystem and deliver a wide range of personalized services and applications to subscribers. It brings together dynamic subscriber data with the tools to broker that data securely to third-party application providers to support new business models and revenue sources, such as mobile advertising. This is a major strategic focus for Bridgewater.

Vendor Summaries



Ericsson

Ericsson is the market leader in providing mobile infrastructure to CSPs and it has the most widely deployed HLR platform. It claims that more than 1.7 billion subscribers are supported on its HLR platform. Its HLR installed base is strongest in Europe and Asia with little presence in North America. The HLR platform supports both HLR and AUC specifications on a single node. It is built on Ericsson’s proprietary AXE platform and was originally introduced in the early 1990s. Ericsson offers a separate HSS node to support IMS and WCDMA requirements. This uses Ericsson’s TSP platform a Linux-based real-time blade server introduced in 2001.

Ericsson has been developing its NG SDM strategy and recently started to offer a User Data Consolidation solution that supports a layered architecture. This includes centralization of subscriber data in a CUDB. This supports front ends for HLR, AUC and of mobile number portability. Existing HLR and HSS can be used as front end servers so that the existing installed base can be transitioned to a layered architecture. The architecture enables high availability with pooled Front End Servers and clustered redundancy in the CUDB. The CUDB is intended to provide a centralized single data access for CSP applications. The CUDB is based on a generic computing and database platform.

HP

HP has been providing SDM solutions for CSPs since the mid-1990s. Its original success was with the Tandem HLR product it acquired with the Compaq acquisition. This is part of HP’s OpenCall portfolio of telecoms platforms and it runs on HP’s high availability Integrity NonStop platform. This was initially successful with CDMA operators in North America, but HP has expanded to address GSM/UMTS requirements and become the leading supplier of HLR platforms in North America with AT&T and Verizon Wireless as customers. It has also won business in emerging markets with Reliance in India and Vivo in Brazil. Overall HP now has more than 250 million subscribers on its SDM platform.

HP has addressed the NG SDM requirements with its Profile Manager introduced in 2007. It can be used as the primary centralized database for subscriber profile data, supporting HLR, HSS, AAA and other SDM functions as front ends. The HP Profile Manager supports centralization and federation strategies for subscriber data. It also provides support for access from application platforms and four third-party services.

Vendor Summaries



Huawei

Huawei is the leading supplier of SDM solutions in China and has extensive deployments in emerging and developing markets. Huawei introduced its first HLR in 1998 and replaced it with the ngHLR in 2002 based on compact peripheral component interconnect (PCI) platform. These HLR products have been widely deployed, but each HLR is a separate platform requiring provisioning and redundancy. Huawei addressed this issue when it launched its Unified Subscriber Centre (USC) early in 2008. The objective was to deliver added value to operators by converging all of the subscriber information in a centrally-accessible database that can be used for traditional telecoms functions such as HLRs and newer functions such as HSS. It also supports integration with emerging services spanning the Internet and telecoms.

The USC separates the front-end real-time application from the back-end database. The USC is deployed on Huawei’s ATCA platform. Huawei supplies front-end applications to support HLR, HSS, AAA, AUC, EIR, MNP and identity management. The back-end platform is based on Oracle 9i and provides a unified view across multiple front-end applications. The back-end platform provides a common provisioning interface and supports open interfaces for subscriber profiling by third-party applications.

IBM

IBM provides a range of products and solutions related to next generation SDM, but does not provide network database products such as HLR or HSS. IBM positions SDM as part of its SDP solution. SPDE 3.0 is the most recent release of the IBM SDP offering. The deployment at Bharti Airtel in India is the biggest SPDE deployment and IBM deployed and operates the SDP.

IBM has many products that support SDM requirements including the Tivoli identity management and directory products (Directory Server, Access Manager, Federated Identity Manager and Directory Integrator), the InfoSphere master data management products and the solidDB in memory database. It has significant subscriber data management deployments at AT&T, Bell Canada and Bharti Airtel. The Bharti deployment supports more than 90 million subscribers and uses the Tivoli directory products to support access to subscriber data from applications for near real-time requirements.

IBM also provides software components to the NEMs for their SDM products. SolidDB is an in-memory database used in a number of third party SDM products.

Vendor Summaries



Motorola

Motorola provides subscriber data management as part of its core infrastructure offering. It has offered legacy network databases such as HLR and AUC for many years. It started offering a next-generation SDM solution in the form of its home location server in 2006 and had some early success. However, this is based on the Apertio One-NDS platform and the acquisition of Apertio by NSN has undermined this strategy.


NSN is a major NEM that has provided SDM HLR and other network databases since the early 1990s. It acquired SDM specialist Apertio early in 2008. Siemens had been delivering HLR consolidation projects using the Apertio platform for a few years notably a large-scale project for T-Mobile in Europe. The Apertio acquisition has gone well and NSN has adopted the Apertio One-NDS platform as its next generation SDM solution.

The acquisition of Apertio provided NSN with a leading edge subscriber data management solution. Apertio was a start-up focused on SDM that had developed an X.500 based network directory server to support consolidation of multiple network databases onto a single logical database. The One-NDS architecture provides a core subscriber database with applications that support specific service logic and network protocols. These include HLR, HSS, MNP, EIR and AAA. NSN claims that the One-NDS architecture can be scaled to at least serve 250 million subscribers. Its largest current deployments are in excess of 50 million subscribers.

NSNs’ vision is to expand the scope of the Apertio platform to address the broader opportunity in SDM. This includes supporting open interfaces to subscriber data to support CSPs in developing applications that use dynamic profiling of subscriber behavior. It also includes identity management and support for a consolidated view of the subscriber across multiple network database front ends.

NSN has also started to win non-traditional telecoms business with machine-to-machine deployment with iMetrik. It also continues to expand existing One-NDS deployments with new applications such as identity management and subscriber profile. NSN has sponsored the Subscriber Profile User Group (SPUG) to share practical experience and develop industry best practice on the design, implementation and operation of subscriber profile centric networks. Members include AIS, Bharti, , Sprint, T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3. SPUG has a road map of more than 100 applications that can use the One-NDS platform.

Vendor Summaries



Nortel

Nortel was a significant supplier of HLRs, but has slipped a long way behind other NEMs over the last five years. This is mainly as a side effect of its lack of success in winning new GSM network business and its failure in the WCDMA equipment market. As a consequence it does not provide a NG SDM product. It has continued to win business in the GSM-R niche and provides its existing HLR to support this.

Oracle

Oracle provides a number of products that support next-generation subscriber data management, but does not provide network databases such as HLR, HSS or AAA.

Oracle supports SDM from three different perspectives. The first perspective is focused around virtualiziation of subscriber profile data from multiple subscriber profile data stores (such as HSS, HLR, LDAP, RDBMS) and providing a unified API to that data. The current product delivering this approach is the Universal Subscriber Profile (USP) component of the Oracle Communications Converged Application Server.

The second approach is focused on creating a dedicated, real-time, distributed data services tier at the application services layer, a data caching layer and a data integration layer. The vision is for a “data services grid”, which employs a data integration layer to pull subscriber profile data from disparate data stores such as HSS, LDAP, HLR, RDBMS, and storing it into the data caching tier. This will allow applications at the services layer to retrieve profile data around such things as presence, location, and group lists in real-time, without having to query the back-end data stores. Oracle currently delivers this by integrating a number of different products to meet specific customer requirements.

The third approach is focused on securely exposing subscriber profile data to third party developers within the operator’s third party partner ecosystem. This approach allows operators to maintain tight control over the subscriber’s privacy, while at the same time, allowing third party partners to use the operator’s charging and payment facilities to charge the operator’s end-users for using their applications and content. This capability is currently supported and delivered via the Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper. It provides facilities to implement subscriber-specific SLAs and policies, which can be enforced at runtime for each type of end-user requests for specific network services.

In addition Oracle has a dedicated identity management product family

Vendor Summaries



called Oracle Identity Management Suite, which is deployed by a number of CSPs, but mainly for identity management within their own organization.

Oracle also supplies it’s relational and in-memory databases as components for suppliers of network databases and SDM products. Oracle TimesTen in-memory database is used for subscriber management in real-time charging systems, network databases and telecom application servers. Public references are Bridgwater Systems, BroadSoft and Sylantro.

Sun

Sun does not provide network databases directly, but is a major supplier of hardware and software components to NEMs and other SDM solution providers. Its main product is the MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition an open source distributed relational database that can support the real-time requirements of HLR and HSS platforms. It is used by a number of major NEMs and has the attractiveness of being an open source platform. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nortel are customers for the MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition platform.

Tekelec

Tekelec is the leading supplier of signaling and control infrastructure for the telecom network. The Eagle platform is the most widely used SS7 signaling transfer point. Tekelec has invested in the next generation SIP signaling infrastructure and has a well thought through strategy of smoothing the migration for CSPs from legacy SS7 to the next generation IP network. Tekelec does not provide a general purpose SDM solution but addresses some subscriber data management requirements with embedded capabilities on its signaling platform. This gives significant performance advantages for certain applications. Mobile number portability and optimizing the routing of signaling traffic to HLRs are examples.

Xeround

Xeround is a start-up focused on real-time subscriber databases for CSPs. Xeround’s Intelligent Data Grid enables virtualization of desperate subscriber data in real-time. It has deployments at Pelephone in Europe and T-Mobile USA. Deployments are in support of specific subscriber management requirements (e.g. Call center routing) rather than replacement of existing network databases.

Vendor Summaries



ZTE

ZTE provides a next-generation SDM solution with a common back-end supporting front ends for HLR, HSS, EIR, AAA and others. This can be offered as an upgrade to its legacy network database deployments. It provides common subscriber data management across multiple technologies including PHS, GSM, UMTS, TD-SCDMA, CDMA, IMS and WIMAX. ZTE claim 1 billion subscribers for its legacy HLR and 340 million for its next generation SDM platform. ZTE have been particularly successful in China and Africa.

Vendor Summaries



Suppliers

We have identified 16 SDM suppliers in Table 1. We believe these companies are sufficiently important to be worth serious consideration by CSPs. Leadership qualities include market penetration by region, telecom segment, and application area. Relative market strength is categorized as either ‘market leader’; ‘significant player’ or ‘present’.Vendors we have designated as leaders in a particular market segment or sub-segment are those that attract the most revenue in the segment and that we predict will continue to do so. Those we judge to be significant have recognition in the indicated segment due to significant sales. Those we have indicated as merely present offer products in the indicated segment, but we have no indication of significant sales.

Table 1: Comparison of evolved IN and next generation telecom ap-plication server suppliers

Com

pany

Ove

rall

NA

EM

EA

CA

LA

APA

C

Alcatel-Lucent

Amdocs

Blueslice

Bridgewater

Ericsson

HP

Huawei

IBM

Motorola


Nortel

Oracle

Sun

Tekelec

Xeround

ZTE Source: Analysys Mason & company briefings = has a presence in the market = has a notable presence in the market = market leader

Suppliers



Recommendations

CSPs in mature and emerging markets should have a strategy of how they will migrate remaining legacy SDM silos in their infrastructure to a next generation SDM platform. The business case for replacing ageing network databases with a next-generation SDM platform is compelling because of the savings in operational expenditure (OPEX) that come from a simplified, low cost, horizontal platform. It also brings advantages in terms of flexibility and future scalability. In other words, CSPs should move from scenario 1 to scenario 2 as legacy platforms approach end of life and to deliver cost savings. Scenario 3 is also attractive in terms of OPEX savings, but more complex to implement. There is a solid business case for moving to scenario 3, but the timing of the move depends on the details of existing infrastructure.

CSPs in mature markets should evaluate scenario 4. This opens up opportunities to support a broader range of applications from the NG SDM platform. Some of these involve the migration of subscriber data from existing platforms such as messaging platforms, telecom application servers and pre-paid charging platforms. These choices depend on the details of the specific infrastructure, but there are strategic advantages in having widely used subscriber data in a common NG SDM platform. Individual business cases should be evaluated for each platform.

CSPs should evaluate the more exciting opportunities generated by scenario 4, such as subscriber profiling and targeted advertising. CSPs must think carefully about customer perception of acceptable use of the data and the various regulatory requirements. There are potentially some attractive new revenue streams, but CSPs must proceed carefully.

Over the last year, we have seen an increasing number of CSPs providing web services access to service enablers to enable third-party service providers to offer new services. This is strategically important because of the potential for stimulating an ecosystem of innovative partners that will help CSPs compete with Internet players such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the myriad of smaller Internet innovators. Subscriber data is a key service enabler and scenario 4 opens up the possibility of including subscriber data as part of the third-party interface. This would be very attractive to third parties, but raises many issues. Subscriber data can be anonymized to address some of these issues, but it is still an area of sensitivity.

CSPs in emerging markets should also have scenario 4 in mind when selecting vendors and making architectural choices, but for the forecast period dealing with subscriber growth will be a much higher priority.The growth opportunities in the next generation SDM market have gotten

Recommendations



the attention of many vendors, but the attractiveness of this opportunity depends on a vendor’s current position in the market. NEMs such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens Networks who have a significant installed base of network databases should invest heavily in supporting the migration of customers to a next-generation SDM platform. They are well positioned to be the leading vendors of next-generation SDM platforms. NEMs can maximize the value of their platforms by providing standard open interfaces to subscriber data and establish partnerships with application vendors who can address needs for business intelligence, subscriber profiling, targeted advertising and other new opportunities.

The major IT vendors have many products and platforms that support functions closely related to SDM, but were developed for enterprise IT rather than the specialist needs of the telecoms vertical. Examples include identity management, business intelligence, master data management and real-time databases. Companies such as HP, IBM, Oracle and Sun should invest in enhancing these to support the next generation SDM requirements. However, they should generally avoid direct competition with the NEMs and focus on the new opportunities enabled by a next-generation SDM platform. They should also look to offer building blocks to the NEMs such as the real-time databases IBM and Oracle already offer.

Specialist vendors should also look for adjacent opportunities enabled by next-generation SDM platforms. They have the advantage of greater flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs and market opportunity. They can also address smaller market opportunities than the big NEMs and IT vendors. Apertio and Bridgewater Systems have demonstrated that specialist vendors can build a strong business in the SDM segment. In the coming years the opportunity will be in leading the market with support for subscriber profiling, subscriber policy management, targeted advertising, real-time business intelligence and other leading edge capabilities.

Recommendations

Documents

RDMA04 Subscriber Data Management Outlook Jun2009