London, 30th July 2010 - SIMalliance, the global association of SIM card manufacturers, announces that the fourth edition of its SIMposium conference gathered more than 250 participants in Rome from 33 countries over the two days. Participants represented the whole mobile services ecosystem, of which 27% were operator companies.

Caught somewhere between evolution and revolution, the upbeat mood in Rome reflected the opportunities on offer for the SIM* ecosystem. On the one hand, delegates were encouraged by the continued operator support for the SIM, while on the other the emergence of cloud services and the competing development platforms of Apple and Android was causing executives to rethink strategies, technologies and most of all, business models.

A buoyant market for mobile transactions and the growth of machine-to-machine (M2M/ Internet Of Things) communications - with the SIM at the very heart - were reasons for optimism.

As were new consumer trends, most notably the popularity of the netbook and, thanks in no small part to the Apple's iPad, the (re)emergence of the tablet. These 'always-on' devices help bridge the gap between the traditionally mobile 3G/HSDPA and more 'fixed' WiFi worlds. Again the (U)SIM* is playing a key enabling role - both in crossing the connectivity divide for the consumer and offering ease of set-up (and faster time-to-market) for the operator.

But the one overarching theme in the halls and breakout rooms was a belief that the industry must continue to champion its relevancy in today's converged world. Here the cloud was key, and the SIM's pivotal role in locking and unlocking access. Major Deal Team founder Bob Pike and Co-Chairman of the Conference was certainly taken with the opportunities here and felt extending the alliance's, and the industry's, influence outside of the traditional Telco sphere would be critical.

"With the likes of Apple and Google in the apps development market we need to think about the whole network, not simply the mobile one," he said. Pike believes the SIM, and smart cards in general, have massive roles to play in enabling and securing access to cloud services; a role he believes could be undertaken by thin client software from players in the IT world "but not without significant cost and complexity".

The SIM and smart cards already provide proven levels of user authentication and offer a logical next step for mobile and 'over the top' internet players alike - steps already being taken by the Smart Card Web Server technology.

SIMposium Chairman, Informa's Mark Newman offers a similarly thought provoking view of future opportunities; this time routed in the mobile telecoms space. "The SIM's potential as a platform for innovation extends beyond the converged world. With Europe and North America so 'smart phone centric', competition between the platforms is intense. Emerging markets, while not as internet-led are no less hungry for new applications and services."

Newman believes the SIM is ideally placed to become the innovation platform of choice here, helping operators deliver service differentiation, and revenues. And follow that logic through, innovating on the SIM in these regions positions the platform well for the day when mobile broadband reaches outside of the developed world.

One thing that Pike, Newman and many of the delegates agreed on was the need for the card industry, and its representative, to continue to highlight the SIM as a truly capable environment for service innovation and delivery in the face of stiff competition from a new generation of platforms.

Should it be successful, and there is ample evidence from SIMposium that it will be, the SIM card's future is not simply assured, but absolutely critical to the mobility strategies of traditional and new generation service providers.

SIMalliance is now taking registrations for its regional stop: SIMposium Asia on 28th & 29th September 2009 at the Intercontinental Grand Stanford Hong Kong, co-located with Mobile VAS Asia & produced in partnership with Informa Telecoms & Media .

www.simalliance.org/simposiumasia

— ends —

Note to Editors:

*The UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Card) most commonly called SIM Card, is a standardized physical and logical platform for smart card multi applications. The SIM or USIM (Universal Subscriber Identification Module) is the application which sits on the UICC card and which is used typically by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to authenticate the user in a network.

About SIMalliance: Putting the SIM at the heart of the new mobile eco-system
By operating outside the singular commercial interests of any individual SIM card player, SIMalliance is able to pinpoint the mission critical services on the horizon and help steer their development to meet the practical needs of the mobile market.

With SIMalliance members responsible for nine in every ten SIM cards sold worldwide, the collective vision of the association is uniquely placed to shape SIM developments and the impact they will have on the new generation of mobile services. From their standpoint, the challenge couldn't be clearer for the protagonists in the mobile eco-system.

SIMalliance Members are: Datang, Eastcompeace, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Incard, Inkript, Microelectronica, Oberthur Technologies, Prism, Morpho, Watchdata and Wuhan Tianyu

SIMalliance Strategic Partners are: COMPRION, FCI and Movenda

Press Contact:
Stephanie de Labriolle
Marketing Consultant
+33 6 85 91 19 94
stephanie.delabriolle@simalliance.org
www.simalliance.org

BT Group has posted its results for the first quarter to 30 June 2010, reporting revenue of £5,006m, down 4%, operating costs reduced by £291m, adjusted EBITDA2 of £1,399m, up 6%, adjusted profit before tax2 of £446m, up 17%.

Ian Livingston, Chief Executive, said: "We have made an acceptable start to the year, delivering improved financial results while investing in the future of the business. In TV we are offering great value premium sports packages and can now compete on a more even playing field.

"We hit the first major milestone in our fibre roll out, passing over 1.5m premises, and we are now running at an average rate of around 100,000 premises passed every week. In BT Global Services we continue to win significant contracts due to our ability to deliver a world class service to our customers.

"Despite the challenging environment, these financial results underpin our outlook for the full year."

With just days to go until the Comms National Awards deadline the judges have put out a final call for entries.

"The deadline of August 12th is fast approaching but there is still time to get an entry in," said Awards co-ordinator Nigel Sergent.

"We have already had a record entry and the quality of submissions is suburb. The CN Awards are without question the most highly coveted awards in our industry and I sincerely hope channel players will not miss the opportunity to get involved. To enter visit www.cnawards.com

In a survey carried out by call centre software provider Rostrvm Solutions, over 70% of contact centres relied on back office teams to complete customer transactions, yet nearly half were not measuring operational performance in the back office. Another key finding was that whilst the use of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is increasing, over half of respondents still did not use CTI in their call operations, despite the benefits it offers such as intelligent call routing and improved call handling.

Ken Reid of Rostrvm Solutions said, "We asked 50 call centres in both the public and private sectors to complete a questionnaire to gain a 'real world' insight into IT complexity in the call centre and the supporting back office operations and our findings suggest that most organisations struggled in both areas."

Firstly, measuring back office performance as well as that of the front office is crucial because, from the customer's perspective, a call centre agent can perform superbly but it counts for nothing if the back office then fails to complete the transaction efficiently.

Call centres are used to recording and analysing data to assess performance: it helps managers to assess how long it takes to complete tasks, how efficiently staff are working, and how many staff are required to handle the workload, whilst delivering high-quality customer service. It makes sound business sense that the back office team should be included in that assessment.

rostrvm BackOffice supports back office staff through the task-handling process by delivering guides, prompts and data to the user in easy-to-follow steps, as well as monitoring activity. All information gathered is stored in a management information database allowing real-time management information to be accessed and historical reports to be run quickly and easily.

Another area where cost savings can be made is by improving call handling through use of Computer Telephony Integration.

Two out of three call centres surveyed by Rostrvm still use three or more applications at the agent desktop to process transactions. Desktop optimisation technology offers many advantages in call handling and back office environments; it integrates many of the applications which teams typically use to process a transaction providing a single interface, removing repetitive data handling, reducing errors and supporting business processes. By adopting this technology, organisations can reduce avoidable contact, workload and ultimately costs.

To learn more about the specific benefits that rostrvm can bring to your contact centre and back office operation please call Rostrvm Solutions on 0800 6122 192 or visit www.rostrvm.com

Full survey details are available at http://www.rostrvm.com/desktop_survey.php

Notes to Editors

About Rostrvm Solutions www.rostrvm.com
Rostrvm Solutions is a leading provider of contact centre software applications that make call centres and contact centres work efficiently and effectively.

Based in Woking, Surrey it was established in 1986, and was previously a division of royalblue, the financial trading applications company. Rostrvm Solutions is now privately owned.

The company has built a solid reputation as a leading software developer of a suite of applications that help organisations to achieve and exceed business objectives whilst delivering personalised customer service.

The rostrvm call centre application is established across a broad spectrum of industry sectors with customers including Brookson, EDF Energy, London Borough of Wandsworth, Nottinghamshire County Council, Insurance Dialogue Limited, Asia Risk Technologies and Aviva.