The Branded Service Portal Comes of Age - Web portals

Telecommunications, Dec, 2000 by Kurt Dobbins

Bellwether service providers are tapping into pioneering Web advances and assuming an active role in dynamic buying and selling opportunities that bind customers and partners.

Web sites that enable supply-chain management drive down distribution costs daily. Images, music and shareware are downloaded with a single click. Intranets and extranets tie partners, customers and suppliers more closely than ever before. Clearly, the Internet's flexibility and reach have sparked the most innovative union of technology and business since the success of the assembly line in the last century.

So it's a bit of an enigma why ISPs and carriers have profited so little, monetarily or technically, from the services they sell (see Figure 1). Why can't the same efficiency and customization that make business-to-business portals so successful be overlaid on the network by different types of service providers?

Innovative service providers offering Internet access and IP networking services are tapping into the advances pioneered by other Web businesses and have assumed a more active role in the Web's dynamic buying and selling opportunities with service platforms that bind customers and partners. These bellwether companies are moving beyond the concept of fast-pipe provisioning and are adapting their networks to scalable, innovative and highly personalized models. Unlike many incumbent carriers, innovators are looking at branded user service Internet portals to combine applications, databases and single portals to boost customer loyalty to new heights. Consider it a case of the Bellwethers vs. the Bells, but don't bet that established carriers will remain passive for long. Competition usually lights a fire under incumbents, to the customer's benefit.

Nonetheless, Web portals are no longer just for large content providers like MSN or CNN. Even the personalized look and feel of MyYahoo! is about to step up to the next level in network service delivery. Bellwether providers are poised to outdistance the capabilities of the average ASP (application service provider). By deploying user service portals, providers will make a new era of networked services and applications available and customized. Competition, broadband infrastructure and the browser's ubiquity will foster branded portal establishment. Benefits and cost efficiencies will cascade more easily from the service provider to the customer as competition, innovation and personalization perpetuate a circular dynamic.

Brand Awareness

At present, content providers like America Online are hosting all the data applications from their portals. How does any company but Time-Warner compete? Bellwether companies are responding with branded portals that bundle numerous applications, essentially creating an application desktop over the Web.

Although Web site operators are fond of touting "mywebsite.com," they offer only a basic level of customization that gives site visitors a static experience. Microsoft's Passport framework comes closer to the branded portal idea by allowing thin clients to go to MSN and run applications from there.

A branded user service portal operated by a carrier or service provider has two major differences. It can offer any network application that a customer can obtain from an ASP, but the customer doesn't have to access MSN to get it. Additionally, service providers own and manage the portal, so they create all the portal descriptions and elements, using directory technology as the basis for customization and scalability. The application, feature or capability is then integrated with any service bundle or service domain.

By using open APIs, branded portal operators can still work with an ASP and extend the functions from its cloud to the branded portal's customer base. That translates to all types of partnerships, affiliations and agent relationships (e.g., applications, all-optical networks, cellular systems) to connect providers and their customers to multiple service portals. That in turn positions service providers and carriers to move beyond simple content delivery and access services to applications and unique service bundles tailored to specific user segments, whether residential, manufacturing, financial or medical.

Network applications and services give carriers and providers a longer reach. The networked, or application, desktop creates advanced, customized, highly flexible services that include voice, video, wireless, conferencing and messaging. For example, an exchange carrier serving multiple tenants in a large office building can bundle applications through a service portal and sell programs for medium and small businesses: WebX, NetMeeting, a payroll and accounting package, productivity software, supply chain management and streaming video.

PDA users can download GPS (geographical positioning service) mapping, streaming text of stock market information from CNBC, or click to a Web cam interface that monitors children, work processes or secured areas. It would be prohibitively expensive for a small business to buy and support all these applications. The cumbersome process of going to 10 different portals for individual services is also circumvented.