It is no longer enough to manage a simple network. Service providers throughout the world are now looking to application and content providers – known as ACPs – to deliver a complete integrated experience. To accomplish this within the enterprise, IT professionals must determine whether they have the necessary internal tools to achieve the desired level of innovation or if external collaboration is the only way to go.

The drive toward mobility for both consumers and business professionals has outlined the reality that providers can no longer be the sole architect of their end users’ mobile data experience. To achieve ultimate innovation, they must instead look at reducing the costs of working with ACPs and potentially even giving up some control. In the end, those network providers that choose to partner with other industry players help to create a win-win scenario.

Network providers are eagerly seeking ways to increase their time-to-market and spur innovation. When these initiatives are critical to their strategy, these providers can help bring new applications to consumer and enterprise customers more rapidly. New business models are demonstrating that both collaboration and competitive relationships with developers and ACPs can potentially co-exist in a very competitive environment.

Even with these potentials in the market, network providers still face a number of challenges. The threat of disintermediation has been a constant threat for network providers, even since the beginning of the Internet. Network providers are also concerned about working with external developers and the risks of negative impacts on a network provider’s network, systems and brand name.

According to Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) research, one-third of network providers believe that a legacy mindset within the organization is a major obstacle to launching more open application initiatives.

If specific obstacles associated with partnerships and developing new business models can be overcome, network providers can achieve specific goals, such as offering greater efficiencies in serving the demand for long tail applications; allowing network providers to tap new sources of innovation spawned by broader development communities; providing improved scale and speed in application delivery; and establish new revenue opportunities both directly and indirectly associated with greater application adoption.

For those service providers still wading through the abundance of information to determine the specifics of the best business model between themselves and ACPs, Alcatel-Lucent developed a set of common questions:

 

By accurately addressing and answering these questions, service providers can consider which business models are most applicable and most relevant to their market in order to turn the vision for application enablement into a reality.