TMCnet recently asked some of the leading lights in the industry for their thoughts about 2011 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what John A. Dwyer, president and CEO of Interop Technologies, had to say:

What was your company’s greatest achievement in 2011?

Dwyer: Interop (News - Alert) accomplished a great deal in 2011, including the continued expansion of our business in both CALA and Asia and the release of new technologies including our Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) and Message Personalization and Control (MPAC) solutions. Our greatest accomplishment is that we continued to respect and understand our customers and satisfy them by exceeding their expectations. This is truly the core principle of our business and our number one priority. We are very excited to have solved two key problems for network operators. First, for those who need to launch rich communication suite services but who don't have IMS cores, we announced on Oct. 11 a patent-pending, IMS-less RCS solution. This news was very well received, and we are in discussions with numerous operators. Second, for operators who need to meet the federal CMAS requirement, we have developed an affordable, superior quality technology and are signing numerous customers to this hosted solution.

What are your business’s goals for 2012?

Dwyer: Our goals for 2012 start with providing our customers the most incredible vendor-to-customer experience in the wireless industry. Beyond that foundational element, we expect continued expansion in CALA and Asia by way of direct and indirect distribution with existing technologies and solutions under development. We will aggressively help to arm our customers, the wireless operators, in their move to fend off the over-the-top messaging providers who are attacking their core messaging business. We will work to deploy our RCS solution for operators desiring to eliminate the feature differential that exists between them and their OTT competitors – and can do so for operators with and without IMS cores (an exclusive Interop capability). We are also working in cooperation with operators in Asia to solve problems they face within their region and hope to announce success on one of those significant initiatives in 2012. Finally, we will continue to expand the list of operators who choose to meet federal CMAS requirements with our affordable hosted solution.

How would you describe your outlook for business and the economy at large heading into 2012?

Dwyer: I believe the economy is going to remain tough and possibly worsen due to inflation and pressure on the dollar. This will obviously make the overall business climate increasingly difficult as we move into 2012 and possibly even into 2013. For those special companies that truly respect their customers and solve problems, however, opportunities will remain. That's what Interop does, and we expect to have a strong 2012.

If there’s one thing you’d like to see happen related to business in the year ahead, what is that one thing?

Dwyer: I would like to see a more prudent fiscal, tax, and regulatory framework emerge out of Washington. I believe that the current economic malaise is exacerbated by the uncertainty in both the markets and the business community related to these issues. Clear and prudent leadership is needed in order to reduce the fear and uncertainty that is causing all economic participants to delay or cancel investments and spending.

If 2011 was the year of cloud and/or the year of the tablet, 2012 will be the year of …

Dwyer: I believe 2012 will be the year of rich mobile communications. Although short message service will most certainly remain a primary means of communication, we’ll also begin to see enhanced methods of communication gaining mass market adoption. This will occur as standards mature and mobile operators deploy new technologies based on the rich communications suite, like RCS-e and RCSv4. New elements of the experience will include group messaging, presence, file sharing, and video, to name a few. While some of these features exist today in over-the-top solutions, these OTT environments are closed, so membership in the same environment is necessary for peer-to-peer communications to take place. Just as standardization and interoperability between mobile operators opened the flood gates for SMS usage, the deployment of interoperable, pre-installed RCS solutions by mobile operators will remove the barriers presented by current OTT solutions. The result will be a single, rich communication ecosystem that will consequently drive user adoption.