Blog: Software Inventory - The Key to Personalized Mobile Services

By Roger Ordman, Director of Product Marketing

Who will be your mobile service provider in the future? Several companies are vying to become the service provider of choice in order to build a long-term relationship with consumers.

You know the contenders. They include OEMs such as Apple and RIM that have a small number of device models with tightly integrated services. Nokia and Samsung are heavily promoting their OVI and BADA services, respectively. Google has entered the fray with its Android platform and cloud-based services. Then there are the many mobile operators with established billing relationships with consumers.

While it seems that the main strategy of these service providers is to tie the consumer in with a single app store or a long-term contract, I believe that the winners will be those companies that give the consumer a personalized mobile user experience at a great value.

In order for service providers to deliver truly personalized services, however, they must first know the consumer’s preferences. With Open OS devices, this manifests itself in the software and applications a consumer installs on the device.

Here is where Red Bend’s new vRapid Mobile® solution for Mobile Software Management (MSM) comes in. The software management client identifies the full software and application inventory of the device—including built-in software and applications purchased from an app store, downloaded from the Internet or side-loaded from a memory card——and sends the inventory data back to the vRapid Mobile Software Management Center for analysis.

Based on the analysis of how consumers are personalizing their handsets, the service provider can gain immensely valuable intelligence about a consumer’s buying habits and preferences.  The old adage about “knowledge is power” is absolutely true in my view.

With knowledge about personalization comes powerful insight that can enable service providers to create new revenue opportunities in services and applications without relying on handset replacement cycles. With targeted services, adoption rates will rise and overall consumer satisfaction will increase because there is now a service provider that is attentive to the consumer’s unique interests.

Service providers throughout the world are employing myriad strategies to attract and then lock-in customers. But I do not believe these are long-term strategies to successfully compete with the new breed of mobile service providers. MSM technology such as Red Bend’s vRapid Mobile gives service providers the power to offer personalized services and applications that keep consumers happy and loyal. That’s a winning combination in the service provider battle.