European Trade Show Consortium Launched
22 September 2009
RCL is pleased to announce the launch of our latest venture, the European Trade Show Solutions consortium. The ETS project grew out of a need we recognised some time ago in our dealings with clients, many of whom felt that they weren't getting the most from their trade show attendance, either because they lacked the time and resource to organise an effective show or because they were attending events without a clear vision and plan.
The idea behind the ETS consortium is to draw together a multi-skilled virtual team that could provide a one-stop solution for all of our client's trade show activities, offloading not only the burden of logistics and on-site management but also pre/ post show marketing, PR, stand creation, design and build. In short, a one-stop shop for all your trade show requirements.
The ETS website launched last month (www.europeantradeshowsolutions.com), please take the time to visit, check out our partners and see what we can help with. We hope it's going to be a valuable resource for our clients with a regularly updated "hints and tips" section, which we intend to evolve into a trade show best practice guide - we're keen to hear your opinions and comments so please feel free to contribute to what we think will be a valuable online resource.
RCL and Moriana chair sessions at SDP Global Summit in London
07 September 2009
RCL and Moriana chair sessions at SDP Global Summit in London
Informa's SDP Global Summit has just been held in London! RCL was present for the third year, chairing key sessions and participating in panel discussions.
Guy Redmill of RCL and representatives from Moriana were also present at the SDP Analyst Breakfast Briefing on Day 2. It was an early start, but was worth it for dedicated access to leading industry experts from the analyst community.
Guy also chaired the afternoon session of Day 2, in the stream "The Role of SDP, Convergence and Next Generation Services".
What did we learn? Well, the iPhone still concerns operators more than the specific services than they plan to launch, or that's the impression we formed. Yes, it's been a fantastic achievement, but surely it's time to start focusing on innovation from the operator community (or from outside!) and executing?! Get over it, as they say. We know from the Moriana IMS research that average sales cycles are still greater than 12 months - no wonder the internet world continues to forge ahead.
The SDP market seems to be highly evolved, with solid forecasts behind it. But, we mustn't forget that the term covers a wide range of solutions (indeed, the industry has still to reach agreement on a precise definition). Hmm. Well, why is it that almost every RFX our customers see require insertion of an application server and other supporting architecture, such as media servers and gateways? Mature SDPs implies that the infrastructure is already present and that applications, which most of our customers sell, can simply be plugged into an existing J2EE or JAIN SLEE environment. The fact that this never seems to be the case suggests a) that we have a long way to go to reach maturity; and b) that those application servers already deployed can't support multiple applications at scale. Any thoughts? Perhaps we are wrong, but it's still worth thinking about.
Once again, Informa did a great job in attracting operators and vendors from around the world and it was nice to catch up with old friends and colleagues from the industry. There was a very interesting presentation on the GSMA ONE API initiative - it seems this is now to incorporate RESTful web services interfaces for key telco enablers. Could this mean that ONE has a real role to play, rather than being just another telco API? It's early days, but this is something we plan to research further.
More on the SDP Global Summit in our next newsletter, when we have fully digested the lessons to be shared with our readership.
