Rich Communications 2009 Conference Day 1 – Wednesday November 4th
"Amazing progress from two years ago and particular acceleration over the past year" is Diane Myers take on the world of RCS. She opened Day 1 of the Informa organised conference in Paris reminding a full conference room of delegates that the great strengths of RCS is that it is an open initiative with interoperability at its heart and co-operation between operators vital to the success. Myers' opening message was that RCS is a core capability that can be built on – driving innovation in terms of services to be put on top. Her reminder for all the delegates was that, however good RCS will be, it is vital that everyone does a good job of marketing it to consumers so they are fully aware of its capabilities and attractions.
Aude Pichelin, Chair of the GSMA RCS Project summed up the project as the "commitment of the industry to define enhanced interoperable services". She stressed that sharing of services with peers is seen as essential for success, and interoperability is the key. The essence of RCS success is built on the native phonebook with easy sharing of content without the need for log in or passwords. With Release 1 and 2 published, trials in progress and operator interest increasing, her highlights of the future direction for RCS highlighted Social Networking - "We think it is very important to work on Social Networking" - and the opportunities to address new user communities in new environments, such as the family user in their home. Pichelin also pointed to the need to look at the impact of new technology platforms – HSPA and LTE.
Interestingly, the vision of RCS in the home was echoed by Jari Ala-Ruona, Movial's CEO, in his combined live RCS demonstration and presentation. Showing a variety of Release 1 features in operation on mobile and Release 2 between pc's and mobiles, Ala-Ruona has a vision for RCS that takes it into devices, and thus market segments, that are currently not explored. His list of device targets included USB sticks (for secure authorisation), media phones, conferencing equipment and photo-frames. The latter doubled as a dynamic photo album and then an input device and screen to drive an RCS application.
The upcoming French Trial for RCS has been a topic of interest for some time. A panel comprised of representatives from 
the three French operators involved re-emphasised the importance of interoperability, whilst being candid in terms of the practicalities of preparing for the trial and launch, "It is not easy to integrate three networks!". All three operators subscribe to the philosophy that RCS in action has to be just as ubiquitous as voice calling, "It is a no-brainer – you must be able to reach everybody". Aude Pichelin took the opportunity to remind everybody that the Interoperability Testing programme in the RCS project was a significant contributor to achieving this technical capability.
And again, in the SKT presentation, a remarkably revealing and helpful series of slides showed just how important interoperability is in order for operators to unlock revenues in saturated markets. The two presenters, Sae Yi Park and Gayoung Hyun, walked the audience through their business solution to SMS market saturation by introducing a number of innovative IM based services, with (eventually) some 60% of phones having the application embedded. When interoperability between the 3 Korean operators was introduced, the take-up of services was astonishing.
Supporting the spirit of RCS was emphasised by Nuno Lopes Gama of Optimus, Portugal's 3rd largest operator. Their TAG SN and Lifeshare calling and messaging services demonstrate again the attractive nature of enriched calling, messaging and address book centred services inherent to RCS. Lopes Gama saw the user as key to success for RCS. "The best user experience will be the one used more. So, if RCS provides appealing services, then operators will implement it".
The audience was guided though an exploration of RCS's potential for the Enterprise market by Dickel Sooriah from Comverse. His descriptions covered a range of integrations that were driven by the typical needs of an enterprise user – including links to fixed line communication, web-based collaboration as well as messaging and data communication that was specific to a particular project. Following this, the audience heard from Philippe Streiff of Orange about Marketing RCS. His check list for success covered five factors: clear customer value proposal; interoperability and continuity with legacy services; a clear pricing regime; delivering a good user experience where ease of use is the key and finally, a coherent marketing campaign. Positive and convinced about RCS as the "renewal of communication services" his customer proposition centres on reinforcing a user's proximity with contacts – the phonebook being the key driver for all communication - and the ability to express themselves and pick up on the mood of friends. But he had a word of warning for Operators that acting promptly was important. Streiff's opinion was that the "Telco is seen as the natural point for the proposal of new communication services – but maybe that won't be the case forever"
Operators are naturally interested in the commercial opportunity of RCS, and Diane Myers from the Analyst company Infonetics shared her thoughts on the top level business model. The upsell opportunities by driving service usage on top of the subscription revenues, supported with evidence from the operators themselves, would indicate a good commercial opportunity. Myers proposed that some may argue the upsell opportunities were so significant that the subscription element could be considered as free.
Jari Ala-Ruona from Movial spoke again with some observations including a view of the potential battery life benefits from optimisation regimes. These included various optimisations and signal saving regimes – code optimisation, compressed signalling, IMS and network optimisation, IP transport for signalling, coding, IMS and networks.
The day ended with a lively Q&A after a challenging view of the RCS market opportunities from TMN in Portugal. One interesting topic from the Q&A aired the possibilities and benefits of opening up RCS APIs – would this promote faster and more extensive creativity? An interesting day and no doubt many conversations continued in amongst the ad hoc networking groups after the formal conference had ended.
Please note: This diary is an overview reflecting some of the presentations and discussions at the Rich Communication 2009 Conference. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the GSMA or imply any strategic direction of the GSMA RCS Project.
