BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH New Product Innovation Award, Mobile Traffic Optimization North America, 2011 Frost & Sullivan’s Global Research Platform Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800 analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies. The company‟s research philosophy originates with the CEO‟s 360-Degree Perspective™, which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research™ methodology. This unique approach enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth, innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present the 2011 North American New Product Innovation Award in Mobile Traffic Optimization solutions to SEVEN Networks. Significance of the New Product Innovation Award Key Industry Challenges The mass adoption of smartphones has placed a significant burden on wireless networks. As a result, heavy data traffic and signaling has overwhelmed these networks, challenging the traditional data management strategies adopted by mobile carriers. This situation will continue to worsen as smartphone adoption continues, more applications are developed, and mobile devices find wider application ranging from location-based services to mobile video. The proliferation of mobile gadgets and unprecedented growth in networking requirements for a mobile ecosystem has introduced certain limitations from an implementation and adoption standpoint. Network Congestion The combination of intelligent, data hungry smartphones, end-user behavior, and overloaded networks leads to congestion, which directly affects a subscriber‟s experience. One significant part of network congestion is the result of smartphones making frequent and often unnecessary connections to the network for applications like Facebook, email, Twitter, IM, weather, location-based services, etc. These applications can send hundreds of these requests daily, consuming significant network bandwidth and signaling resources, thus resulting in network congestion. Moreover, every time a device polls the network with no response, it has to turn on its radio drawing power and contributing to network congestion for nothing. Wireless carriers are discovering that congestion issues from all of these polling requests can have a bigger impact on their networks than high data throughput levels. It disrupts the end-user experience by decreasing the speed and consistency of connections and can even lead to a network „brown out‟, where no access to resources are available, crippling the network, operator, and users. © 2011 Frost & Sullivan 1 “We Accelerate Growth” BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH Consumer Expectation is Set Users expect the same experience on their mobile device as they are used to on their computer. Most consumers will not differentiate between the various networks they might need to connect to in the background to get to the information that they want to access. User expectation for real-time experience is inevitable, irrespective of the nature and capability of the communication network. This creates an incredible challenge for operators as any stakeholder in the mobile ecosystem, content providers, application developers, and device manufacturers can tap into the networks‟ limited bandwidth and signaling resources without any oversight from operators. Smartphone and Mobile Device Proliferation The accelerated growth in mobile data traffic is driven by a rapid transition from traditional feature phones to increasingly advanced smartphones. Faster networks and more elaborate applications targeting smartphones and mobile devices drive network demands. The resulting explosion of mobile data traffic forces mobile operators and device manufacturers to rethink the way they manage data services. Operators face growing pressures as network upgrades and related investments grow faster than related subscribers‟ data revenue, which affects their future margins. Key Benchmarking Criteria for the New Product Innovation Award For the New Product Innovation Award, the following criteria were used to benchmark SEVEN Networks‟ performance against key competitors: • Innovative Element of the Product • Leverage of Leading Edge Technologies • Value Added Features/Benefits • Increased Customer ROI • Customer Acquisition/Penetration Potential Decision Support Matrix and Measurement Criteria To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Matrix (DSM). The DSM is an analytical tool that compares companies‟ performance relative to each other with an integration of quantitative and qualitative metrics. The DSM features criteria unique to each Award category and ranks importance by assigning weights to each criterion. The relative weighting reflects current market conditions and illustrates the associated importance of each criterion according to Frost & Sullivan. Fundamentally, each DSM is distinct for each market and Award category. The DSM allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze each company's performance on each criterion relative to its top © 2011 Frost & Sullivan 2 “We Accelerate Growth” BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH competitors and assign performance ratings on that basis. The DSM follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation; ratings guidelines are shown in Chart 2. Chart 2: Performance-Based Ratings for Decision Support Matrix This exercise encompasses all criteria, leading to a weighted average ranking of each company. Researchers can then easily identify the company with the highest ranking. As a final step, the research team confirms the veracity of the model by ensuring that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies. Chart 3: Frost & Sullivan’s 10-Step Process for Identifying Award Recipients © 2011 Frost & Sullivan 3 “We Accelerate Growth” BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH Best Practice Award Analysis for SEVEN Networks The Decision Support Matrix, shown in Chart 4, illustrates the relative importance of each criterion for the New Product Innovation Award and the ratings for each company under evaluation. To remain unbiased while also protecting the interests of the other organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players as Competitor 1 and Competitor 2. Chart 4: Decision Support Matrix for New Product Innovation Award Measurement of 1–10 (1 = lowest; 10 = highest) Award Criteria Leading Edge Edge Leading nefits of of of the Element Innovative Product Leverage Technologies Added Value Features/Be ROI Customer Increased Customer Acquisition/Penetration Potential Rating Weighted Relative Weight (%) 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 100% SEVEN Networks 9 9 9 9 9 9.0 Competitor 1 7 8 7 7 8 7.4 Competitor 2 6 7 6 6 7 6.4 Criterion 1: Innovative Element of the Product Optimization within the mobile ecosystem has seen a siloed approach with solutions optimizing end user behavior, application or device performance, and increase of bandwidth. California-based SEVEN Networks has devised an innovative approach that tackles the optimization problem from end to end, from the user and device to the network and the application. By utilizing software components on the mobile device and a cloud-based server, SEVEN Open Channel™ can optimize the way devices interact with the network and minimize their consumption of resources such as battery, signaling, and bandwidth that are in high demand within today‟s wireless networks. The truly innovative element of this solution can be seen in its intelligence to connect to the network only when new updates are available. However, no connection requests are missed as the mobile radio is optimized for the constant monitoring of requests. While peer solutions demand significant alteration in the existing infrastructure, the transparency of Open Channel alleviates the need for any special integration. © 2011 Frost & Sullivan 4 “We Accelerate Growth” BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH Open Channel positions itself uniquely by identifying and addressing challenges related to the operator network and mobile application access without consuming additional bandwidth. By optimizing performance and minimizing network requirements, Open Channel successfully boosts network performance while maximizing the operator‟s available network resources. The company‟s excellence and capabilities are reflected in how it delivers this solution, which allows the mobile application to take advantage of the optimization, driving a reduction in signaling and data traffic in a world where operators have little or no control over the applications a user chooses. Criterion 2: Leverage of Leading Edge Technologies Leveraging on their technical expertise, the SEVEN Networks team addresses the network limitations in the mobile ecosystem in a flexible way. Using virtualized proxy and caching technology, Open Channel mediates the exchange of control information and content between the device and the network and it eliminates unnecessary mobile app chatter. Open Channel relies on both a device and server component, and it remains transparent to the transport protocol and the application optimization solution to work with all applications on a device. Thus, it requires no application rewriting, nor does it have to be built into new applications. The software resides on the handset and in the cloud acting as a