AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 12, 2003 - The leading provider of service
management software, Motive (Company
Profile, Past
Stories, Case
Studies) today announced the availability of Motive
Business Class Manager, the company's newest offering for broadband
service providers aimed at helping their small and medium business (SMB)
customers adopt high value applications and data services. This product
is the industry's first infrastructure to help service providers model,
automate and manage the entire technology ecosystem that defines the
connections and interdependencies between their network and the various
systems and devices in an SMB. The result is seamless service
configuration and problem resolution for the provider, and dramatic
reduction in the manual effort and IT expertise required by SMB
customers to utilize business-class services like VPNs and remote
storage.
Industry analyst firm IDC asserts that the average revenue per SMB
customer is nearly four times greater than that of residential
customers. Yet, various barriers continue to challenge providers from
successfully penetrating this lucrative market:
* SMB customers often lack in-house IT resources and expertise to
consume enhanced services, causing them to rely on providers for basic
broadband access only;
* Providers have difficulty differentiating high margin SMB
broadband offerings from less expensive residential services;
* Providers have little visibility into the network and systems
used by SMB customers, and as a result, often incur high labor and
operational support costs in offering and meeting service level demands
of business customers.
"As small businesses become more sophisticated in their broadband usage,
it is paramount that service providers provide easy-to-use and
easy-to-support VPNs and firewalls," said Michael Lauricella, program
manager for the Yankee Group's Small & Medium Business Strategies
service. "It is also important that service providers streamline their
service delivery to the market, making automated configuration and
management technology increasingly important. This ensures better
service to the customer and better profit margins for service
providers."
Motive Business Class Manager
Motive's Business Class Manager combines the company's proven broadband
software with Motive's best-in-class enterprise management technology to
automate configuration and problem management for devices like PCs and
customer premises equipment, as well as mission-critical IT for services
such as firewalls, Web hosting, IP VPNs, remote storage applications,
and video conferencing. Motive Business Class Manager enables providers
to cost effectively and reliably support SMB high-speed data
environments while providing tools that make it easier and more
convenient for SMBs to consume high value business services, leading to
greater adoption and higher margins for providers. In addition, because
Motive Business Class Manager provides an extensible infrastructure, it
can be leveraged to augment and enhance existing managed service
offerings rather than serve as a replacement technology.
"To win market share in the increasingly competitive SMB segment,
providers must offer convenient and reliable data services that small
businesses can manage with limited IT resources," said Kenny Van Zant,
Motive's executive vice president for Communications. "Motive Business
Class Manager leverages the technology and expertise we've gained
working with leading enterprise service providers at over 1,000 small
businesses worldwide. Increasingly complex SMB environments require a
different service approach than the high-volume approach used in
residential markets. We've designed Motive Business Class Manager so
that providers can deliver the right levels of service demanded by SMB
customers and maintain the high margins they desire."
Motive Business Class Manager leverages the company's ecosystem
blueprinting technology, which provides just-in-time modeling of
business services, such as the components of an SMB high-speed data
environment, and the specific configuration data required to manage them
effectively. This data includes individual elements, their management
parameters, current configurations and their interdependencies, among
other pertinent network, system and business process intelligence. The
ecosystem for SMB high-speed data services includes such things as the
business environment (PCs & devices), the access network and equipment
(modems, gateways), as well as IT applications (VPNs, Web hosting, video
conferencing).
Motive Business Class Manager is now available worldwide and is
currently being tested and deployed by leading broadband service
providers.
About Motive
Motive is the leading provider of service management software for Global
1000 businesses. The Motive Service Management Suite is the only
software solution that enables companies to manage process and
technology ecosystems in a business-relevant way. Motive's patented
technology and approach have been proven in more than 25 million
implementations worldwide by market leaders such as 3Com, Bell Canada,
BellSouth, British Telecommunications, cablecom, Charter Communications,
Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard,
Hyperion, Microsoft Business Solutions, NTL, SBC Communications,
Telewest, TELUS, Time Warner Cable, VERITAS Software, and Verizon.
Motive was founded in May 1997 and is backed by leading venture capital
firms and private investors. For more information, visit www.motive.com.
The Motive logo, Motive Communications, Inc., Motive Service Management
Suite, and MotiveSmart are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motive
Communications, Inc. All other products or services mentioned herein are
trademarks of their respective holders.
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