Mariya Chip
Today the efficiency of any business depends heavily on data exchange between business partners and among employees within a company. Business globalisation has become a kind of catalyst for the development of telecommunications, increasing the interest of the major IT market players in this field. Microsoft had extensive experience in "general communications", but this conference was the first one organised by the Redmond giant's representative office in Ukraine that was entirely dedicated to telecommunications.
The Ukraine Connections Day 2008 event was attended by executives of companies working in the telecommunications sector and in the hosting and mass media markets.
Telco 2.0 is the name of Microsoft's vision for the development of the telecommunications sector, and it is closely linked to the American corporation's new "Software + Services" concept. This principle is a model of software distribution through online services. Its development is driven by growing data transmission speeds and the expansion of broadband networks. Customers can use software via the Web at a much lower price than packaged versions. Moreover, acquiring an application as a service means that the user always gets its latest version.
The new Telco 2.0 strategy involves encouraging the integration of Microsoft products and solutions with the services of telecommunications companies. This approach expands the range of services an operator can provide, reduces their time to market and helps increase profits. Moreover, telecom companies can give users unified access to all possible communication channels. The most promising of them are e-mail and voicemail, instant messaging combined with unified communications tools, VoIP and others.
The Telco 2.0 approach has already been applied successfully in global practice.
Ukraine is not lagging behind: at the beginning of 2008 the mobile operator Astelit (trade name life:)) launched a "Virtual Office" service that hosts a remote Microsoft Exchange server, giving mobile users access to corporate mail at any time.
Telecom projects created by partner companies on the basis of Microsoft products were presented at the conference. Special attention was paid to Modern Software Telecom Suite (MSTS), a solution for telecommunications operators developed by the Ukrainian company Softline. As Oleksandr Kysylevskyi, Vice President and partner of Softline JSC, noted, significant changes in the communication technologies market have confronted software companies with the task of creating systems on which network management services can be built, and OSS-class solutions are among such systems.
MSTS is a fully functional set of OSS/BSS components created and integrated in accordance with the TeleManagement Forum NGOSS standards. The product is based on .NET Framework 3.x, ASP.NET and Microsoft Enterprise Library technologies and can be easily integrated with third-party applications. Its modular structure ensures flexibility and scalability. According to Anton Marrero, Chairman of the Board, the software can be easily integrated into an existing IT infrastructure, which helps plan the implementation timeline and budget effectively.
The development and practical implementation of the system took two years. Almost USD 1 million was invested in the development, and the same amount was planned to be invested in promoting MSTS in the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Anton Marrero stressed that thanks to cooperation with Microsoft, Softline's developers gained access to new technologies and knowledge that helped them create a competitive, up-to-date solution. "We hope for successful promotion of MSTS and are doing everything possible for our product to enter the global market," Mr. Marrero said.
One of the first steps towards the "globalisation" of the system is careful attention to creating localised versions. English and Russian versions are currently available, and French and Ukrainian versions are expected soon.
MSTS is already in operation in Ukraine: the Resource Management module has been deployed in the infrastructure of the telecommunications operator Atracom. The implementation enables the IT department to build a unified resource database, which makes it possible to analyse key indicators and reduces network downtime.
Dmytro Shymkiv, corporate accounts manager at Microsoft Ukraine, said that the MSTS solution is a good example of the fact that Ukrainian developers can create complex products that meet world standards and software quality requirements.
Thanks to the integration of MSTS, clients can obtain information about the state of their communication channels on their own. According to the developers, this improved manageability of fibre-optic lines enhances communication quality and data transfer speed.