New ArcSight Log Management Suite Provides Universal Event Collection and Scalable Architecture for Collecting and Managing Avalanche of Enterprise Event Logs

Ultra-High-Performance Log Aggregation, Advanced Analysis, and Role-Based Dashboards

Optimise Enterprise-Wide Log Management for IT Operations, Security Operations, and Compliance

Core News Facts:

1.  ArcSight Log Management Suite delivers universal support for log collection from over 180 commercial event-generating sources and any custom or legacy database or application, to increase visibility across the enterprise infrastructure and to improve overall security posture.

2. The ArcSight distributed collection and centralised storage architecture scales linearly and delivers the highest performance log management solution, starting at approximately €16500[DP1] , to lower compliance, security and IT operational costs.

3. Powerful log analysis, alerting engine and personalised, role-based analysis portal greatly simplifies forensic analysis, compliance audits and organisational reporting, while eliminating inefficient, error-prone manual procedures.

4. The ArcSight Log Management Suite works in standalone configurations or can also be combined with ArcSight ESM, third-party SIEM alternatives, and network and system management solutions.

LONDON, UK – 16th November 2007 – ArcSight, Inc., a leader in enterprise security and compliance management solutions, today introduced the ArcSight Log Management Suite, its next-generation log management platform for collecting, managing, storing and analysing the full range of enterprise log data, including commercial and legacy log formats, protocols, devices, and applications not covered by niche log management solutions.   

Regulatory mandates and industry standards such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) are driving the need for cost effective, comprehensive and audit-quality log collection, storage and analysis.  These regulations also necessitate automated retention policies and intelligent analysis for reporting and alerting against all log data. Increasingly, organisations are using log management to enhance security posture, assist in network and system management, and improve service-level agreements.  ArcSight is equipped to address all of these use cases with the scale and breadth needed to adapt to evolving regulatory requirements as they encompass the application IT infrastructure.

Key Features of the ArcSight Log Management Suite:

§         Ultra-high performance log collection, archival and analysis with a broad range of price/performance options to meet the needs of small and medium businesses to the most sophisticated enterprise.

§         Complete audit-quality controls enabled by a unique distributed collection – centralised storage architecture, which supports raw data collection from the broadest range of sources and end-to-end secure and reliable transport and storage.

§         State-of-the art analysis portal enhances enterprise IT intelligence through rapid forensics searches, comprehensive reporting, personalised or role-based dashboards, and real-time alerting.

§         Comprehensive, pre-packaged, authoritative content targeted at specific mandates such as PCI and SOX empowers organisations to meet compliance initiatives efficiently and minimise extraneous manual audit efforts.

Universal Event Collection of Audit-Quality Data

The use of logs in compliance audits requires both complete log capture as well as strong audit-quality controls. Yet most commercial log management solutions lack support for the breadth of devices (especially at the application layer) required for compliance monitoring, which prevents complete collection. These solutions are also susceptible to data loss when connectivity to central sites is lost and no local buffer exists; when unreliable protocols are used for log transport, or when no integrity checks are performed. A few lost events can easily represent the missing link in a forensics investigation evidentiary trail, audit report, or can be the cause of a missed compliance violation alert that if noticed, could have saved the company from a costly breach.

ArcSight enables audit-quality data through collection of all log data and a unique distributed collection/centralised storage architecture. First, universal event collection support – both raw and parsed – ensures that audit-quality requirements can be met without compromising the efficiency, efficacy or accuracy of user- and asset-based analysis. ArcSight also delivers true audit-quality data through a turnkey remote collection option which provides local buffers to protect against network connectivity loss, provides end-to-end secure, reliable and bandwidth sensitive transport and storage, and enforces National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-92-compliant integrity checks.

Simple, Intuitive Analysis and Search Across Assets and Users

Compliance is fundamentally about asset and user context – or about the “who, what, when and where” aspects of events to demonstrate compliance to process and policy. Most log management solutions have limited support for database and application logs that provide user context. Additionally, these solutions focus on raw data collection with limited parsing, which makes user-oriented analysis and monitoring extremely challenging and error prone. As a result, only users familiar with source specific log syntax can generate reports and navigate their way through log data.

The ArcSight Log Management Suite delivers a powerful combination of historical and real-time analysis options ranging from personalised dashboards and comprehensive interactive reporting, to high speed searches and intelligent alerting. Users are presented with visually appealing, interactive and personalised dashboards that combine relevant and related reports into a single role-based view. From these aggregate dashboard views, users can drill into specific report elements to simulate audit workflow and investigate policy violations and anomalies.  Interesting results in reports can be further analysed by navigating through terabytes of log data using a simple web-based search tool to conduct ad hoc audit investigations and root cause analysis. In turn, the search patterns can be converted into real-time alerts to ensure that subsequent incidents and pattern matches lead to immediate notification as the incidents and violations occur.

A vast number of dashboards, reports, search filters and alerts are available out-of-the-box to address common compliance, operational and security monitoring needs. In addition, solution packages mapped to specific regulations and mandates such as PCI are also available. This pre-defined content enables organisations to kick-start and automate compliance audits based on established best practices, while also saving on internal research and development costs. All pre-built solutions leverage a unique device-independent taxonomy that allows end users to easily and intuitively navigate through log data without familiarity with source-specific log syntax. This device independent taxonomy also protects against content explosion and the resulting need to build and analyse device specific content.

Simple and Cost-Effective Deployment and Management

The ArcSight solution can be deployed entirely as turnkey appliances. For added flexibility enterprises can opt for appliance or software-based collection infrastructure in remote locations when rack space is limited and additional computing cycles are available on local hosts.  No database administration expertise or remote onsite client installation is required to deploy or manage the ArcSight solution.  Configuration and management of remote collection infrastructure parameters can be performed en masse in batch mode to roll out or modify collection parameters or software updates.

Bi-directional Integration with ArcSight ESM for Sophisticated Real-Time Correlation and Threat Detection

Log Management solutions are primarily focused on simplifying historical analysis against large log volumes with some basic real-time alerting capabilities. However, many organisations have invested in or plan to expand into robust SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) capabilities to detect sophisticated threats or compliance violations and respond to them in a timely and optimal manner. Log management and SIEM solutions are in fact part of a continuum of value extraction from logs for reporting, real-time monitoring and remediation. As such, organisations should expect synergy across these investments and the ArcSight platform is unique in delivering integrated Log Management and SIEM capabilities. The ArcSight Log Management Suite can also complement third party SIEM solutions.

Components of the ArcSight Log Management Suite

·   ArcSight Connectors: Delivers the industry’s broadest and deepest event collection support spanning the IT infrastructure, including custom sources, in-house applications and physical access points. Deployable as software or Connector Appliances.

·   ArcSight Logger: Delivers advanced, high performance log collection, cost effective archival and powerful personalised analysis.

·   Compliance Insight Packages: Delivers pre-packaged reports, alerts and dashboards mapped to the needs of regulations or industry mandates and audit best practices to automate audit reporting requirements.

For More Information

To learn more about the ArcSight Log Management Suite, visit http://www.arcsight.com/solutions_log_managment.htm

Editors Note:  See the announcement “ArcSight Expands Log Management Suite with New Channel-Friendly Appliances for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses,” also released today, for more information about the new ArcSight new SMB appliance for Level 4 PCI merchants.

ArcSight Expands Log Management Suite with New Channel-friendly Appliances for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

PCI and SOX Compliance Requirements Drive Strong Channel Opportunity for

New ArcSight Log Management Suite

LONDON, UK – 16th November 2007 – ArcSight, Inc., a leader in enterprise security and compliance management solutions, today announced an expanded ArcSight Log Management Suite that provides an easy entry point for channel sales to deliver log management capabilities across their customer bases.  The ArcSight Log Management Suite can now scale from the small business to the largest of enterprises with a family of stackable appliances suited to each company’s requirements with high-end processing rates of up to 100,000 events per second (EPS) per appliance.

The ArcSight Log Management Suite offers a cost effective distributed collection and centralised storage architecture that scales linearly and delivers a higher price/performance log management solution to lower compliance, security and IT operational costs. The ArcSight Log Management Suite delivers universal out-of-the-box support for log collection from over 180 commercial event-generating sources and any custom or legacy database or application, to increase visibility across the enterprise infrastructure and to improve overall security posture. A powerful log analysis and alerting engine and personalised role-based analysis portal greatly simplifies forensic analysis, compliance audits and organisational reporting, while eliminating inefficient, error-prone manual procedures.

Regulatory mandates and industry standards such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and PCI are driving the need for cost effective, comprehensive and audit-quality log collection, storage and analysis.  These requirements affect a large number of organisations:  The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard affects up to 6 million merchants globally, and Section 404 of SOX will extend to all US public companies (other than newly public companies) in 2008, including those with market capitalisations of less than $75 million and all foreign companies listed on US stock exchanges. These regulations also necessitate automated long-term retention policies and intelligent analysis for reporting and alerting against all log data. As a result, the average organisation is experiencing a dramatic increase in the volume of log data that needs to be captured and analysed. Increasingly, organisations are also using log management to enhance security posture, assist in network and system management and improve service-level agreements. 

The ArcSight Log Management Suite cost-effectively addresses these requirements and delivers many benefits to ArcSight global channel partners:

§         Appliance-based deployments enable partners to rapidly deploy and demonstrate compliance to their customers

§         Universal collection of all events from all logs, including legacy applications, broadens the target market and use cases that partners can pursue

§         State-of-the art analysis portal enhances enterprise IT intelligence through rapid forensics searches, comprehensive reporting, personalised role-based dashboards and real-time alerting – enabling partners to lead with a differentiated solution which offers superior analytics and visualisation capabilities

§         Comprehensive, pre-packaged and authoritative content targeted at specific mandates such as PCI and SOX assists organisations in meeting compliance initiatives efficiently and in minimising extraneous manual audit efforts

§         Powerful platform architecture provides a foundation for broader enterprise compliance and security initiatives

“Log management is a significant business opportunity for the channel today,” said Chris Peterson, vice president, worldwide channels at ArcSight.   “No matter what size the organisation or where any organisation is with their compliance initiatives, the ArcSight Log Management Suite enables them to build a log management infrastructure which is scalable, collects all raw logs from any commercial or custom source, delivers powerful, easy-to-use reporting and analysis capabilities and lowers log management operational and storage costs.”

The ArcSight Connections Partner Program

The ArcSight Connections Partner Program helps channel partners resell the full range of ArcSight security, compliance and networking solutions, enabling them to help their clients identify, prioritise and respond to security threats and network changes and comply with regulatory requirements. The comprehensive program provides deal registration, a channel-neutral compensation methodology, sales training, marketing support and opportunities for professional services offerings. 

Pricing and Availability

ArcSight Logger is available now in a range of form factors and price points, with entry-level systems starting at approximately €16500[DP1] .  Channel partners should contact their local ArcSight representatives for pricing breakdowns.

For More Information

Visit ArcSight online to learn more about the ArcSight Log Management Suite, ArcSight Logger or the ArcSight Partner Program.

Editor’s note:  See the announcement “New ArcSight Log Management Suite Provides Universal Event Collection, Scalable Architecture for Collecting and Managing Avalanche of Enterprise Event Logs,” also released today, for more specifics about the ArcSight Log Management Suite.

(Berlin, 15th November 2007): Ojom GmbH, a leading creator and global publisher of mobile games, today announced the release of its first game specifically designed for the iPhone; adapted to drag, drop and twist just like the device. The highly successful mobile puzzler, Maya, has been adapted for the iPhone, and its Deluxe version was released in conjunction with the iPhone’s Euro Launch via Jamster and Jamba, where it is currently exclusively available. Maya can be played through the integrated Safari browser and is absolutely free to iPhone users.

As people flock to the shops to pick up the much anticipated iPhone, the team at Ojom has modified Maya Deluxe to utilise the iPhone’s innovative touch-screen technology. Released earlier in the year as Maya – Temple of Secrets, this puzzle game was one of Ojom’s best selling games so far and is guaranteed to find a large group of new fans within the fast growing group of iPhone aficionados.

Just like the iPhone, Maya twists and flips as you make your way through the jungle via a series of mind challenging logic games. In the game you must solve a series of puzzles in your quest to find the Maya Temple hidden deep in the jungle. The story goes that, inside the temple, you will find a number of ‘golden artefacts’ that hold the key to an unsolved mystery. Collect the golden artefacts by solving the puzzles and unlock the secret of the Temple of Mysteries. You will be flipping and twisting the triangles with ease on the iPhone’s touch screen and will be trying to master this game at every possible opportunity.

Thomas Brockhage, General Manager of Ojom GmbH, said: “This is a great opportunity for Ojom to show that we can adapt and innovate to suit new technologies. Maya was one of our most popular games and is perfect for the iPhone’s touch sensitive screen. We are proud to release our first game specifically adapted for the iPhone.”

Maya Deluxe is part of a series of puzzle style games from Ojom and is now available to play online with the iPhone only at www.jamba.de and www.jamster.co.uk.  www.ojom.com.

- Telecoms operators can now offer their subscribers a profitable global online payment processing channel

Luxembourg, 13th November, 2007 – MACH, the leading global clearing and settlement partner for mobile-based transactions, today announced that it will provide Financial Settlement services for eBIZ.mobility's unique OneTouch Online Purchasing™ solution for digital payments.

OneTouch Online Purchasing™, the innovative online payment processing service, gives trusted service providers including telecom operators, banks and ISPs the ability to provide consumers with an easy, fast and secure multi-device payment option for content downloads. Purchases are charged directly to consumers' existing accounts via their service provider, either as pre or post-paid.

OneTouch Online Purchasing™ is the only online payment processing service that enables service providers to authenticate users directly. Only the service provider is aware of the identity of each consumer, resulting in high level privacy and security for online buyers.

Based on patent-pending Federated Payment™ technology, the OneTouch Online Purchasing™ payment system complements the service provider’s existing content billing infrastructure, through a simple interface. By adding some simple code extracts to a payment page, online merchants can immediately increase their sales from an expanded base of potential customers including those without credit cards, or those who prefer not to use them online.

OneTouch™ also enables trusted service providers such as mobile operators to become a global payment processing service for their subscribers, as it eliminates the need to establish or maintain a direct relationship with online merchants.

Bruno Pagliuca, Senior Vice President Financial Clearing at MACH, commented,

“The agreement with eBIZ.mobility represents our willingness to lead by example in the evolving telecoms industry. We have been working with eBIZ.mobility since 2005 and their clear strategic vision, and innovative technology has earned our trust.

We believe that eBIZ.mobility’s OneTouch Online Purchasing™ payment system will generate more revenue for operators, as the exploding market for content downloads continues to move to the open web at the expense of walled gardens. It offers a way for our mobile operator clients to stave off the threat of becoming low margin bit pipes and offers a lucrative alternative payment channel,” Pagliuca continued.

Jeremy Kagan, eBIZ.mobility’s CEO, noted, “MACH’s proven reliability and broad reach to the majority of mobile operators worldwide makes them the best partner for providing financial settlement to participating federated merchants. This is a partnership that we are confident will benefit our customers as we continue to expand the OneTouch Federation.”

Altobridge partners with leading telecom supplier to address global demand for Radio Base Station Local Switching
 
•   Agreement enables global mobile operators to drive down transmission costs
•   Huge cost-saving impact on community-centric, low-ARPU / high-growth markets

Macau/Ireland, 13 November 2007 – Altobridge Ltd., an Irish company specialising in remote wireless communications, today announced that it has licensed its patent pending Local Connectivity Platform™ to Ericsson, the leading telecom supplier. This agreement enables Ericsson to provide local switching across its GSM Base Station portfolio. 

The Altobridge solution makes it possible for calls, originating and terminating from the same Base Station or cluster of Base Stations, to be switched locally in the GSM Radio Network, while the mobile operator’s existing call control architecture remains unaffected. This meets the critical requirements of mobile operators, i.e. there is no impact on key areas: Subscriber Services, Subscriber Management, Network Management and Charging. Coupled with this important breakthrough is an improvement in voice quality for remote subscriber groups previously connected via satellite.

Altobridge CEO, Mike Fitzgerald, stated, “This feature cuts transmission costs on all base stations on any network, but has its most profound effect on the higher cost transmissions traditionally associated with emerging markets. Switching calls as close as possible to subscribers ensures that the ultimate cost of delivering the call is kept to an absolute minimum. The opportunity for Altobridge is to roll out this important technology breakthrough to all mobile operators. Our licensing agreement with the leading telecom supplier, Ericsson, provides a platform for significant market penetration of this technology.”

“Currently, wireless network roll-out is concentrated on low-ARPU / high-growth emerging markets. Traffic analysis within these community-centric markets has deduced that the majority of calls remain local to a particular community. As transmission costs are traditionally greater in such places, the cost of delivering local calls between subscribers ends up being disproportionately high, which prohibits communication roll-out even further. Altobridge’s Local Connectivity Platform™ addresses this very cost and removes it. The significant improvement in voice quality for remote subscriber groups, e.g. when satellite is used, is also a vital factor in improving the quality of communication for the hugely important, emerging market segment,” Fitzgerald concluded.   

Dick Spring, Chairman of Altobridge and former Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, stated, “At a time when the GSM Association has just announced an initiative to drive US$50 billion of investment by the telecoms industry into delivering rural mobile communications to isolated communities across Africa over the next five years, this partnership could not have come at a more important time.”

Completes Successful Trials with Digi, Indosat, Airtel, and Globe Telecom; Commits to GSMA Standards

Mountain View CA, 12th November 2007: Bubble Motion, the pioneer and global leader of ‘voice SMS’, today announced the launch of InterCONNECT, the first platform for enabling 'voice SMS' interoperability between any operator globally. The Company has also committed to enabling full interoperability between alternative ‘voice SMS’ providers by opening the BubbleTALK APIs for direct connectivity and by engaging in standards-creation with the GSM Association.

“For ‘voice SMS’ to grow exponentially like text SMS, we must have true interoperability – not only between our own operator partners, but for all operators with ‘voice SMS’ deployments,” said Thomas Clayton, CEO & President of Bubble Motion.  “Users should be able to send Bubble messages to any of their friends, regardless of which operator service their friend might be using.” 

Bubble Motion has established a clear and easy-to-understand economic framework for any new operator to instantly connect to the BubbleTALK network.  This allows a revenue-sharing framework that is easy to understand and will benefit all of the operator partners. 

InterCONNECT between BubbleTALK operators

Bubble Motion’s InterCONNECT offering connects multiple operators who have deployed the BubbleTALK service for their end-users.  Digi in Malaysia and Indosat in Indonesia, both Bubble Motion partners, recently completed a successful InterCONNECT trial.  Both operators conducted end to end calls in the same manner as they would for local voice SMS to ensure that the user experience is seamless.

Bubble Motion’s InterCONNECT product has also shown great benefit for operators with multiple deployment instances.  Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator, has recently connected all regions of India to enable seamless sending and receiving of BubbleTALK messages. 

Interoperability between BubbleTALK and alternative ‘voice SMS’ solutions

Bubble Motion is also committed to interoperating with operators who have deployed alternative ‘voice SMS’ solutions.  This interoperability will be achieved via both full support of the GSMA ‘voice SMS’ standard in development, as well as by opening the BubbleTALK APIs for direct connectivity.  This direct connectivity will provide a number of additional benefits and enhanced features for operators and their end-users. 

“Bubble Motion is fully committed to the GSM Association standards, and we have been part of the standards body working group from the outset,” said Tom Clayton.   “Our launch today confirms that as the market leader, we are committed to openness and interoperability to drive the whole market forward.”

Globe Telecom, the second largest mobile operator in the Philippines, has deployed their own ‘voice SMS’ solution, and recently conducted a successful trial connecting with the BubbleTALK service. 

“We look forward to continuing to work with existing and new operators for global InterCONNECT and interoperability.  We are convinced that ‘voice SMS’ is poised for explosive growth, and the BubbleTALK network has grown to well over one hundred million subscribers and message traffic continues to grow even more significantly with every new partner,” said Tom Clayton. 

Belgian media group Corelio has selected the Polopoly Content Management system as the future platform for all their web activities throughout the organization. The Polopoly system will serve as the central platform for the development of new, innovative digital services in multiple channels.

Corelio comprises an extensive media operation. De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad and Het Volk are all morning and national newspapers of Corelio for the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. De Standaard is the largest in the Dutch speaking quality newspaper market. Éditions de l'Avenir is a group of several regional titels, all morning newspapers and combined they give a national coverage of the French speaking part of Belgium. All titles combined make Corelio the largest newspaper publisher for the whole of Belgium.

“Corelio has high ambitions for building their online business. We are thrilled to be part of this push”, says Gustaf Sahlman, CEO of Polopoly.

Important selection criteria for Corelio was the stable and easily scalable web publishing environment capable of handling a growing number of sites, web editors and visitors. Polopoly being based on an open architecture and standards that allows easy integration with third party applications and legacy systems was also of importance - as well as the user-friendly work environment for the web editors. Furthermore Polopoly provides the necessary tools to create websites with a high level of personalization and user interactivity.

“Corelio is looking forward to work with the skilled and motivated Polopoly team”, says Toon Smolders, Directeur prepress & ICT Corelio.

Polopoly is recognized for being editorial efficient. The Polopoly Content Management is a modern system that functions well with all types of content regardless if it is generated by an editor or a user.

Recognizing Roamware’s Thought Leadership in International Mobile Connectivity and Roaming

8th November, The Hague, Netherlands – The European Patent Office today recognized Roamware, Inc.’s thought leadership in the field of international mobile connectivity and roaming by awarding Roamware exclusive patent rights for its invention of a “Method and System for Cellular Network Traffic Redirection” (European Patent Number 1527653).  The invention, now embraced by the GSM Association’s mobile industry standards known as “Steering of Roaming”, empowers a mobile roamer’s home network operator’s system to direct any of its subscribers to roam on its preferred roaming partner’s network when using their mobile phones abroad. 

The network-based approach that Roamware first created in its Roamware Traffic Redirection™ systems now permits the world’s mobile network operators to apportion outbound roaming traffic to each other as needed, in a manner that works in all countries, for all roaming partner networks, on all mobile handsets.  Rapidly emerging as the world leader in international mobile connectivity and roaming, Roamware’s systems are now installed in over 300 mobile operator networks in more than 120 countries around the world, serving nearly one billion mobile users.

In reaching today’s decision, Europe joins the governments of the United States, Singapore and India in granting Roamware exclusive patent rights in the field of steering-of-roaming.  (Singapore P-No. 109326 [WO 2004/014101], India Patent No. 81/DELNP/2005, US Patent No. 7,072,651)  Roamware’s steering of roaming patent applications are pending in a number of other countries, and Roamware currently boasts 75 families of patent applications and over 130 patent applications filed worldwide, in addition to the several it has already been issued in various nations.

Roamware invented network-based steering of roaming, and the main techniques of traffic shaping and traffic steering employed by the world’s mobile operators today.  The company deployed the first actual live installations of its Roamware Traffic Redirection systems in Europe in 2003. 

“Before we invented our Traffic Redirection – network-based steering of roaming systems – the marketplace for international roaming was somewhat inefficient.  Operators negotiating bilateral roaming agreements with each other actually had no effective way of promising each other any certain volume or type of traffic.  We created Traffic Redirection to give home operators real control over how their outbound roaming traffic is apportioned to foreign operators.  We are proud to have played this role in creating a transparent and truly competitive marketplace for international roaming, to the benefit of mobile subscribers worldwide,” comments Roamware co-founder and CTO John Jiang, co-inventor of the patent granted in Europe today.

“Very few technology and innovation providers are as fortunate as Roamware, to be deployed all over the world, in so many of the world’s leading mobile operators,” explains Roamware CEO Bobby Srinivasan.  “Traffic Redirection was only the beginning.   Our global breadth and our expanding technical expertise permits us continually to create, and be the first to market with the types of unifying technology solutions that bridge communications communities the world over.” 

60% of women say that they can’t live without their mobile phones – but only use them for phoning and texting

London – 8th November 2007: Research published today reveals that whilst 60% of women in the UK say they can’t live without their mobile phones, they mainly use them for calling and texting; ignoring the host of other features and services that their phone offers.

The research, conducted on behalf of six of the UK’s leading mobile applications companies shows that, despite the emergence of a whole host of content and services on the mobile phone, men are much more likely to use their phones to listen to music and browse the Internet than women.  Only 33 percent of women have used their mobile phone to surf compared to 47 percent of men.

The six organisations involved in developing the study are all pioneers in the development of lifestyle applications for the mobile phone and have developed six mobile applications designed to make life easier and more fun for women. 

The companies involved are Mills and Boon/ICUE; Lastminute.com/Cool Gorilla; LocatioNet; The Light Agency; Pocket Group and Singtones.  Their innovative mobile lifestyle tools are listed below.

Lifestyle Applications for the Mobile Phone:

•   Lastminute.com and Cool Gorilla have launched a new mobile phrasebook, perfect for those moments when you’re desperate to find your hotel, order a coffee or flirt with the locals.

•   LocatioNet’s amAze application enables mobile phone users to access clear maps, route-planning, weather forecasts and local search information from anywhere in the UK, so you’ll never be lost again! 

•   Mills and Boon is giving lovers of romantic fiction everywhere the option to download books straight onto their mobile phones: perfect for those journeys into work and for poolside reading.

•   PocketDoctor offers daily advice on topics such as giving up smoking, dieting or as a reminder service for people taking regular medication. Your mobile phone can become the doctor in your pocket.

•   Shop, Scan, Save is a revolutionary way to save money by receiving discount vouchers that can be used in your local shops. 

•   Singtones allows you to sing your own ringtone, with the added benefit that using ReVoice Singtone technology they will make you sound in tune every time – you will be guaranteed a unique ringtone.

- Signals expansion of End2End’s full service capabilities -

(November 06, 2007) End2End, Europe’s leading enabler of consumer mobile data applications utilising a managed services environment, today announced the appointment of Charles Damen as Vice President of Business Development for its VAS Business unit. Charles will be leading a dedicated Business intelligence and Portal Management team in the expansion of End2End’s full service capabilities to help operators increase content revenues.
 
Capitalising on End2End’s data analytics and reporting tools this value-added offering provides detailed measurements and customer insight of the browsing and purchasing behaviour of mobile consumers to improve the performance of the mobile portal for its customers.

Charles brings to his new appointment more than 10 years of mobile industry experience with leading companies including Sybase 365, Oberthur, De La Rue and Philips Electronics. Charles made his mark on the mobile industry when he co-founded Mobileway, which became Sybase 365, where Charles headed up Business Development and Strategy for EMEA prior to joining End2End. 

Bernadette Lyons, Managing Director of End2End VAS said: “As mobile content markets mature, customer segmentation and business intelligence become increasingly important to boost operator content revenues. Charles’ track record in working with major mobile operators and content providers adds significant value to End2End’s content marketing services.”

Charles Damen added: “As the leading enabler of consumer mobile data applications, End2End has the track record, expertise and tools in place that will boost content usage and revenues for our customers. I am pleased to be joining End2End’s leadership team and look forward to using my insight and experience to create significant incremental business for our customers”

- Poor Accuracy in Location Technology is Costing Millions for FMS Operators -

London, November 6, 2007 - Seeker Wireless, the world’s leading zone detection technology provider, today announced the launch of a cannibalisation calculator and a detailed study to highlight the loss in revenues operators can suffer as a result of inaccurate location technology. Seeker Wireless worked closely with a number of mobile operators and a telecom pricing data provider to ensure that the analysis was an accurate reflection of Fixed Mobile Substitution (FMS) trends worldwide. The calculator and study are designed to help operators effectively plan their FMS solutions.

Saturated markets in developed countries and rapid expansion in developing countries have led a number of operators to turn to FMS to expand their markets and drive revenues, offering consumers a single mobile handset for use at home and while out and about. HomeZones have become a key component of many operator FMS strategies; offering mobile subscribers competitive tariffs based on their location. Most HomeZone solutions however, have been based on network Cell-ID technology and this has delivered poor accuracy and significant cannibalisation of revenue.

The Seeker Wireless study found that with Cell-ID, up to 30% of calls are incorrectly tariffed as “at home” when users are actually outside the vicinity of their home, compared to as little as 3% with an advanced zone detection solution. The result is massive revenue cannibalisation with Cell-ID systems. The cannibalisation calculator allows operators to study their subscriber data and business case by country and compare the financial implication of deploying different technologies for HomeZone solutions.

Carrie Pawsey, Senior Wireless Analyst at Ovum comments: "Our research also shows that without increased accuracy, operators could experience significant revenue cannibalisation with traditional HomeZone solutions. For FMS to be profitable, operators need the right technology to ensure an accurate service that delivers value and meets consumer expectations."

Dr Chris Drane, Chief Executive Officer at Seeker Wireless says: “The voice market is increasingly shifting from the traditional fixed-line towards a mobile future, and our study is further testament to our efforts to raise the bar on accuracy in location technology to make FMS truly profitable for operators. All too often operators considered accuracy to be the Achilles’ heel in location technology; our study quantifies the impact of using network Cell-ID and demonstrates that the technology now exists to make location a real business driver.”

SeekerZone™ developed by Seeker Wireless for the Fixed Mobile Substitution market has already been trialled by operators in EMEA and Asia Pacific and has been deployed in partnership with HP by one of the world’s leading mobile operator groups. The detailed study demonstrates that by using Seeker Wireless’s advanced zone detection system, operators are able to reduce zone size by up to 50 times and reduce cannibalisation of revenue by up to 90% compared to existing Cell-ID systems.

End2End Strengthens Mobile Gaming Offering with Acquisition of Terraplay Creates market leading solution for hosted mobile gaming

(October 24, 2007) – San Francisco, CA - End2End, the leading provider of managed service solutions for mobile data, today announced its acquisition of Terraplay, the leading provider of connected-gaming services. The deal substantiates End2End's position at the forefront of developments in the mobile gaming space and allows End2End to offer operators market leading solutions in connected and multiplayer gaming, a fully managed mobile gaming offering, in addition to its full mobile content delivery platform.

Terraplay is a world leader in connected mobile gaming and has been an innovator in developing solutions which allow operators and games publishers to connect their mobile gaming communities. The company's expertise ranges from community tools to multiplayer functionality, in-game micro billing and in-game advertising, with many leading publishers among the customers that have already adopted Terraplay’s technology.

The acquisition of Terraplay will see End2End become a world-leading mobile gaming specialist, with a wealth of experience in delivering outsourced solutions for mobile data. End2End is now perfectly placed to help operators increase revenues by effectively managing their mobile gaming offerings.

Bernadette Lyons, Managing Director at End2End commented: “We expect connected gaming to be major factor in the dramatic growth of the mobile gaming market and Terraplay are the best in the business. Connected gaming can transform the experience for the gamer, with features such as multiplayer, competitions and buddy lists, but it can also have a major impact on operators, creating opportunities for flexible business models such as pay-per-play, rental and advertising.�

“By combining Terraplay's expertise in connected gaming with End2End's experience in mobile content delivery, we believe we have created an incredibly valuable and unique proposition for operators,� said Sven Hålling, CEO of Terraplay. “It is an exciting deal which will allow the company to offer innovative new solutions and a market leading connected gaming experience.�

End2End’s customer base now includes all the major mobile carriers, including Vodafone, T-Mobile, 3, Orange and O2, and with the mobile gaming market expected to grow from $3 billion at the end of 2006 to $17.5 billion by the end of 2011, the opportunity for those operators is clear. As advancements in technology create an influx of new handsets with improved game graphics and functionality, connected gaming is expected to play a major part as the market grows.

Ethos Networks Launches to Enable Carriers to Offer Unlimited Services over Ethernet

- Shortfalls in the Ethernet Can Cost Carriers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Lost Revenues -

London 23 October 2007: Ethos Networks is launching today to help global carriers address the challenges of providing competitive IP services. Ethos Networks which secured an additional US$8m of funding, provides a dramatically different connection-oriented Ethernet solution. The solution allows carriers to increase profitability by offering an unlimited range of services with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), at a low total cost of ownership.

By being able to guarantee end-to-end QoS and offer an unlimited variety of services, Ethos Networks’ solution enables carriers to increase revenues and reduce the total cost of managing Ethernet networks.

At a recent conference in New York, Dr. Yuval Davidor, Chief Executive Officer at Ethos Networks, highlighted that carriers risk losing millions in revenues as existing Ethernet systems are not able to cope with the new services operators hope to launch. Operators’ networks are under enormous pressure as they push for increased performance and profitability.

The key to unlocking the value of data networks is convergence of high level, high margin guaranteed services with an extensive mix of many levels of differentiated SLAs (service level agreements). This is the only way for carriers to fully exploit the demand from consumers and their varying willingness to pay. Current converged networks cannot deliver multiple differentiated services with guaranteed service levels; a problem that is being compounded by the exponential growth in broadband access and the launch of new services, such as video, which has put enormous pressure on carriers’ networks. 

Current Ethernet networks have only limited QoS and provisioning mechanisms and therefore may fail to provide the scale and flexibility carriers require to deploy new data services. For example, vast deployments of IPTV broadcast require the fine management of every subscriber’s stream as well as meeting strict quality levels in multipoint networking. Video on Demand (VoD) deployments require dynamic, flexible management of customers’ bandwidth in real-time. Both are out of scope of today’s Ethernet capabilities. Ethos Networks’ solution replaces the unpredictable behaviour of existing networks with predictable and controlled behaviour by dynamically engineering the traffic to help carriers deliver a vast range of services.
 
“The telecoms sector has changed considerably over recent years and today’s carriers face an intensely competitive market�, commented Dr. Yuval Davidor, Chief Executive Officer at Ethos Networks. “Limitations on existing packet networks mean that some operators have had to delay the launch of converged networks and new services like IPTV and L2 VPNs. With Ethos’ solution, carriers no longer need to compromise on the service mix, level of profitability or the number of new services launched. For the first time, operators have the ability to operate a truly converged service where one network can handle all the different services.�

Its current financiers and the new carrier investor helped Ethos Networks raise the additional US$8m. Ethos Networks was co-founded by Dr. Yuval Davidor, Mr. Hayim Porat and Mr. Adam Dunsky to allow operators to realise the full potential of the Next Generation Ethernet. Dr Davidor has brought together an experienced management team with a combined total of over 80 years of experience in the sector having worked with companies such as Nokia Siemens, ECI, Corrigent, Atrica, RAD and Cisco.

Flash Networks Launches Open Mobile Browsing Solution to Improve Web-to-Mobile User Experience

CTIA, San Francisco, USA October 23, 2007 – Flash Networks, a leading provider of mobile Internet Quality of Experience (QoE) solutions, today announced the launch of their Open Mobile Browsing Solution which provides wire line-like browsing experience using mobile devices. This solution combines Acceleration and Multi-Media web adaptation providing faster browsing and downloads, smart content rendering for the smaller screen, and video streaming shaping for smoother higher quality viewing of multi-media applications. 

Despite the growing demand to access the open Internet, the quality of experience has been a barrier since the Internet is not designed for mobile access.    Flash Networks’ Open Mobile Browsing Solution provides fast, consistent and reliable access to all types of websites, while enabling operators to brand the improved user experience to boost customer loyalty.  In addition, Flash Networks Open Mobile Browsing is less costly to implement and maintain since it supports thousands of devices without the hassle of managing downloads and updates of software clients. 

Liam Galin, CEO of Flash Networks, commented: “Flash Networks’ Open Mobile Browsing Solution boosts data revenues and ARPU by combining quick browsing and downloads with the best of breed web and video adaptation.  Flash Networks’ latest QoE service running on the Harmony modular platform enables the mobile Internet to become a popular destination for users and a source of competitive advantage, revenues and customer loyalty for operatorsâ€�.

Open Mobile Browsing Capabilities

Flash Networks Open Mobile Browsing speeds up browsing and downloads by applying several patented optimization capabilities based on the specific download requirements, device capabilities and current network conditions.  Each and every element on the web page is analyzed and adapted to the smaller screen giving prominence to more important elements while automatically identifying and passing over mobile aware sites. 

Viewing of video is enabled by transcoding Internet video streams to mobile formats. Frame rate is continuously adjusted based on available bandwidth, latency, and noise conditions ensuring video quality, smoothness, and picture sharpness.

Operators can brand the user experience by defining headers, footers, messages, titles, text attributes and backgrounds.  In addition subscribers can mirror desktop browsing habits with favorites and history including look & feel settings, preferred skin, image size and font size.