Genaker

Genaker has attended IMS World Fiorum 2010 participating in a round table about its experience in applications development. All participants were leading ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) in IMS applications sector. Genaker demoed its RCS clients running in Blackberry and Sony-Ericsson devices and also was able to contribute with its vision about the challenges that ISVs are facing to an audience of fixed and mobile operators.

If something can be highlighted of this year’s congress is, without any doubt, the LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution). Most of the discussions where focused in how LTE’s deployment, planned for 2011 in some countries, is going to influence IMS adoption since it’s the single option accepted by all the players for the voice public service over
LTE.

With this subject in the background of almost every  discussion, IMS-based complementary services (such as RCS) were also commented, as well as new opportunities for services that leverage IMS enablers to offer a better user experience, such as games.

A lot of attention was paid to the availability, in volume, of 4G devices. Most of the manufacturers bet for 2011 summer, although Sprint mentioned they will have a huge volume of devices this year. Sprint’s fresh announce of HTC’s EVO 4G confirms previous comment, but this is a WIMAX handset while discussion was focused in LTE devices.

Finally, the recurring discussion about IMS business case viability, how it is compared to EPC (Enhanced Packet Core) and which should be operator’s role (service or bandwidth provider) took also place. This year’s distinction is that, due to the LTE’s IMS dependence for voice services, majority of participants believe that IMS adoption will
become widespread.