Our End-of-Year Buyers’ Guide, Wrap-Ups and Predictions

By Richard "Zippy" Grigonis          

It’s the end of the first year of IMS magazine, and we continue to be excited about our accomplishments and the support generated by readers and vendors everywhere. We pause at the brink of the coming year with equal excitement and look forward to once again bringing you the latest information on IMS products and services.

It’s customary at the end of the year to take stock of what has transpired and try to take a peek into the future. As it happens, IMS was steadily building steam in 2006 — indeed, as we went to press, IMS news was flying off the wire. For example, Huawei ( News - Alert) Technologies and E28 Limited, a mobile multi-mode smart device solution provider, launched the world’s first commercial IMS VCC (Voice Call Continuity) solution, bringing true fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) to network operators. (Their system enables seamless roaming and bidirectional handover between WiFi (News - Alert) /WiMAX and cellular GSM/CDMA/UMTS networks.)

On the heels of the Huawei-E28 announcement, Ericsson (News - Alert) customer Softbank Mobile Corp. in Japan announced the launch of the world’s first live IMS network over 3G, powered by Ericsson’s IMS solution. Indeed, the end-to-end IMS system has been supplied solely by Ericsson — including infrastructure, system integration and support services. The IMS-based services include Circle Talk (push-to-talk) and HotStatus (presence, group list management).

As for divining the mysterious future of IMS, you’ll find in this issue an article by our master of the occult, Yours Truly, consisting of interviews with major figures in the IMS universe, each of whom take turns reviewing how IMS fared in 2006, followed by speculation on where IMS is going in 2007 and beyond. This talkfest is complemented by some additional ruminations in the form of two articles, one by W. Stuart Jones of Apertio and the other by Rick Mace of Tekelec (News - Alert).

So as not to leave any “loose ends” for 2006, our December issue of IMS magazine contains all of those terrific things you’ve been hankering for all year long, here in one, easy-to-hold magazine.

Yes, I’m referring to our IMS Buyers’ Guide, the most definitive in the telecom industry. Like its big brother, the IP Communications Buyers’ Guide in Internet Telephony magazine, it lists IMS-related vendors and their categories. It’s the world’s largest and best IMS Buyers’ Guide — I can say that with absolute aplomb because (to my knowledge and Google’s (News - Alert) ) it’s the world’s only IMS Buyers’ Guide.

Like some organic entity, IMS continues to grow, expand and even occasionally mutate a bit. All of the world’s wireline and wireless network operators now realize that IMS will be a fact of life, and that they had better figure out how to manage their transition to the telecom infrastructure of the future with a minimum of stress. With proper preparation and planning — not to mention a healthy infusion of investor capital — the user experience in the telecom world will soon advance by light years.
And we’ll be there, not just reporting the news, but delivering to our loyal readers in-depth explorations on the premise, the promise, and the reality of IMS.