Record number of live Catalyst projects covering digital services, enterprise cloud, customer experience, cyber security, data analytics, revenue management and more showcased in Nice, France

MORRISTOWN, NJ — April 18, 2013: What do Category 5 hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, denial of service attacks, cloud mobility, eHealth services for remote regions of Africa, smart cities, and data centers of the future all have in common? They have all been part of TM Forum’s award-winning Catalyst rapid technology innovation projects that quickly bring new ideas and solutions to life. TM Forum is showcasing its most recent Catalyst projects at its flagship Management World 2013 conference, held May 13-16, at the Acropolis Convention Center in Nice, France.

TM Forum’s unique Catalyst projects are backed by a broad sweep of companies ranging from the smallest innovators to some of the world’s largest. They include service providers and cable operators, software and hardware suppliers, universities, cities and end-user companies acting as champions and participants working together to tackle a wide range of thorny issues from eHealth and smart grid digital services, threat intelligence, cloud mobility, data centers, and much more.

The Forum is showcasing this year’s Catalyst projects in The Hub, the heart of Management World 2013 and the one-stop shop for all things about the Forum. The Hub features five zones, including Customer Experience Management, Digital Services, Revenue Management, Security and Privacy, Enabling Enterprise Cloud, and a zone focused on TM Forum’s Frameworx best practices and standards. In addition to the Catalysts in The Hub, TM Forum is also highlighting innovative demos on a variety of collaboration projects such as multi-cloud management, cloud services and more.

“Our Collaboration Program is the heart of our organization and our Catalyst projects showcase the real world results of our members’ collaborative efforts to rapidly move the industry forward into new frontiers,” said Keith Willetts, chairman, TM Forum. “The exciting projects set for Nice showcase the ‘art of the possible’ by enabling new and fascinating digital services as well as helping service providers to improve the way they deliver and manage those services.”

Management World 2013’s Catalyst rapid technology innovation projects are being demonstrated in the five zones of The Hub as follows:

Digital Services Zone

• Catalog Management in Digital Services Mash-Ups – This project demonstrates how communication service providers, partners, suppliers and enterprise customers can communicate, expose, and mash-up existing services into new and innovative services in an efficient and easily understood manner.
  Participants: Cisco, Ericsson

• Connecting the Smart Grid to the Digital World – This Catalyst showcases a real-world smart metering scenario that includes initial provisioning; configuration; key use cases such as tariff changes, billing, de-provisioning and re-provisioning; ongoing cloud-based IP/ICT fault and performance monitoring; energy monitoring; security; integration and more.
  Champions: Salzburg AG
  Participants: BaseN, CSG, INFONOVA, TOA Technologies

• Defining the Digital Health Value Chain – This catalyst demonstrates how to address the challenges and create new business service models for eHealth.
  Champions: France Telecom-Orange, Rogers Communications, Inc.
  Participants: Amdocs, BaseN, Detecon International GmbH, INFONOVA, TOA Technologies
  Supporters: Ranck Consulting, University of Cape Town

• Implementing an Open Wholesale B2B Marketplace – This project demonstrates how partners in a service value chain can work together seamlessly and effectively using common interfaces and best practices in a wholesale B2B service scenario.
  Participants: DGIT
  Supporter: NBN Co.

• Richer Services, Richer Ecosystems – This demonstration explores how a service provider can offer an Amazon-type capability for its ecosystem partners so that the partners can brand, productize, and package their own solutions with value added services.
  Champions: BT, France Telecom-Orange
  Participants: Enstratius, Inc., INFONOVA

Customer Experience Management Zone

• Converged Network Operations Improving Customer Experience – This project focuses on proactively and predictively managing the customer’s experience through real-time operational and network decisions on a converged wireless/wireline network.
  Champions: Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom-Orange
  Participants: Comarch, HP, Orchestral Networks
  Supporters: Juniper Networks, ZTEsoft

• Measuring the Touch Points of the Customer Lifecycle – This project outlines the real-life back office functions that are required to deliver a great customer experience to a consumer watching a live video on a mobile device, ensuring that everything involved, such as customer experience management, complex partner interactions, mobile money, cross sell and upsell opportunities, and device management, all happen as they should.
  Champions: China Mobile Communications Corp.
  Participants: Amdocs, Huawei, Mformation Software Technologies, Inc., SundaySky, Velocent Systems, Ventraq, Inc.

• Quantifying Customer Experience through Performance and Probe Measurement – This Catalyst demonstrates how vital quality of experience metrics for mobile broadband services can be enhanced by leveraging and combining network probe and performance data.
  Champions: Telefónica, Telecom Italia
  Participants: Astellia, Comarch, HP, MYCOM, TEOCO, Wipro Technologies

Enabling Enterprise Cloud Zone

• Data Center of the Future – This project showcases designs for the data center of the next four to five years in new ways through the use of software-defined infrastructure.
  Champion: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
  Participant: NetCracker Technology

• Enabling Cloud Mobility and Workplace as a Service – This project features a working model that offers guidance and insight to enterprises, digital service providers and suppliers that want to overcome the current challenges and meet the needs of a mobile workforce.
  Champions: Bank of America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Deutsche Telekom, Portugal Telecom
  Participants: Ericsson, TOA Technologies

Security and Privacy Zone

• Sharing Threat Intelligence to Mitigate Cyber Attacks – This project demonstrates how, by sharing real-time threat information with trusted partners, communications service providers can serve as the early warning system for cyber threats and protect their enterprise customers from the spread of attacks.
  Champion: Dstl (U.K. Ministry of Defense)
  Participants: Birmingham City University, Cyber Squared, cVidya Networks, EMC, TOA Technologies
  Supporter: Bell Canada

Revenue Management Zone

• Revenue Assurance Maturity with the Inclusion of Digital Services – As service providers make strategic moves toward digital and multi-cloud services that involve partners, this project proposes enhancements to TM Forum’s Revenue Assurance Maturity Model, one of the most accepted tools communication service providers use to measure, assess and improve their revenue assurance operations.
  Champions: Telecom Italia, WANA Corporate S.A.
  Participants: AssuringBusiness, Atos, cVidya Networks, Ericsson, RRM Solutions, WeDo Technologies
  Supporter: MTN Group

To learn more about the Catalyst Program or get involved in future Catalyst activities, please contact Megan Lunde, Catalyst Program project manager, TM Forum, at [email protected].

Don’t miss TM Forum’s Catalyst program in action at Management World in May. TM Forum’s Management World conferences and expos stand apart by offering expert keynotes, sessions, unrivaled networking opportunities, and TM Forum’s renowned Training and Certification programs. 

About TM Forum

With over 900 member companies, TM Forum is the largest global trade association focused on bringing together the digital ecosystem, including communication service providers, digital service providers and enterprises with the goal of enabling an open digital world. The Forum delivers a wealth of knowledge and practical tools, including unique research, best practices and standards. Our members collaborate to rapidly solve business issues in critical areas, such as business process optimization, big data analytics, cloud management, customer experience management and security.

The Forum has four key roles—to Inform, Innovate, Accelerate and Optimize—and provides a neutral and open platform for collaboration between service providers, enterprises and their suppliers to overcome the barriers to an open digital economy.

Global TM Forum Media Contact
Elizabeth Coyne
Senior Director Marketing, Corporate Communications and PR
+1 973 641 3247
[email protected]