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The recent merger of Schlumerger with Taral Networks has resulted in Airwide solutions enhancing its offerings to cater to the specific needs of the operators. Commenting on this merger, Vincent Kadar, CTO of Airwide solutions, says that, "We address few of the operating constraints through business analysis tool for mobile messaging that removes the main inhibitors to mass adoption of mobile marketing," Excerpts of the interview.
How has Schlumberger's merger with Taral Networks helped Airwide solutions meeting key customer requirements?
The merger has helped us to address the specific needs of the operators. At present we provide device management, mobile messaging, and mobile security solutions to all cellular operators. The merger has helped us in providing end-to-end messaging solutions with key security features enabled in it. The transaction combines Taral Networks' content delivery products with MSG's SMS products, unparalleled stability, and support to offer a complete content delivery and messaging infrastructure to mobile operators. Almost all the major operators worldwide use our solutions.
How these solutions help operators addressing their concerns?
Our messaging solution has the ability to deliver a high level of service availability without the overhead cost of managing clustered software. The robustness enables operators to handle large volumes of messaging traffic. The mobile secuirty solution helps operators to prevent fraud and help tracking mobile theft though Equipment Identity Register (EIR). Also it helps in preventing spamming and spoofing. The device management solution provides a device-profiling data store that is mapped to a complete view of devices present on the network. It also provides complete data analysis of subscriber and handset activities on the network providing operators with the business intelligence required to follow subscribers' preferences and adjust services and marketing campaigns accordingly.
 In India operators have not shown much interest in deploying mobile security solutions and as a result mobile theft is quite common. Your comments.
Its true mobile operators have their own concerns in India but situation is changing quite rapidly. The solution that we offer is easy to deploy and help operators in reducing spam to a great extent, which is becoming quite common in India. The operators in India have shown interest and we would see frauds and thefts taken care by operators through such solutions in near future.
Security is still an area of concern in content and m-commerce? Do you have security solutions in place to tackle such issues?
These are some crucial areas that operators worldwide are worried about. We do have solutions that take care of piracy on networks. DRM solutions are the key to handle security and piracy risks on the networks and we have such solutions.
What are the key trends do you see in messaging and what role do you foresee Airwide playing in this area?
Branding would become more prevalent on networks. Big brands have started shifting significant marketing resources to marketing through mobile phones. They are using text and multimedia messaging to reach their audience. There are three aspects attached to its success and that include the ability to reach a specific target audience, information about how the user respond to a marketing message and proof that a message has been received by the user's handset. Airwide addresses these issues through business analysis tool for mobile messaging that removes the main inhibitors to mass adoption of mobile marketing. Not only addressing the requirements of the brands, Airtrends also provides critical information to mobile operators to allow them to optimize their networks to support marketing campaigns and to prevent spam by alerting them to suspicious activity.
You don't have any direct presence in India. How do you sell your products?
We sell our products directly to operators and also we have tie-ups with equipment providers such as Ericsson, which helps us deploying our solutions on operators' network directly. Almost all major service providers including GSM and CDMA- Airtel, Hutch, and Reliance are already using our solutions and we are in talks with others as well.
Any plan to open India office in near future?
We will definitely evaluate it if the demand grows for our solutions, which I'm sure will happen. At present we are happy delivering our solutions through our partners also.
Rahul Gupta
rahulg@cybermedia.co.in
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