REGARD / Cingular DSC Summit Meeting (6/28/2006)

The goal of the REGARD / DSC Summit Meeting was to have a "round-table" discussion of wireless industry trends and customer needs. The Cingular DSCs speak with a broad spectrum of customers about their pains. REGARD was seeking validation and some strategic guidance from the collective experiences of the participants. REGARD would take into consideration these discussions in the architecture and design of current and future mobile products.

The Meeting Agenda was as follows:
1. Comparative technology/platform discussion
2. General discussion of customer readiness & budgets to adopt solutions (Custom vs. Packaged)
3. What solutions really generate a lot of interest and why?
4. Have customers moved beyond "Low Hanging Fruit" to address real operational challenges?
5. Are current wireless solution meeting the needs of customers?
6. Discussion of products that raise ARPU vs. those that add data lines.
7. Brainstorming session - Common customer pains (vertical vs. Horizontal)
REGARD Development Capabilities and Product Roadmap. Feedback from the field.

REGARD attendees included
Manish - Director of Solutions (REGARD India partner)
Cariel - Senior Solutions Architect
Dave - REGARD Advisory Board and published wireless expert
Steve - President & CTO
Lee - CEO & Marketing Executive

Cingular Attendee (shall remain nameless to protect them)
3 Members of the Global DSC Team
4 Members of the Corporate Markets DSC Team

The meeting started with each person providing their professional background. This was important to establish the technical, business and sales knowledge of the summit participants.

In the comparative technology discussion, BlackBerry remains the category killer for mobile data. All agreed that Microsoft Windows Mobile will take a considerable bite of the market going forward, however, no one believes that BlackBerry will be replaced in mass any time soon.

The mobile solutions market is still mostly highly customized to meet customer requirements. Many early solutions really only addressed a feature gap that was ultimately incorporated into the BlackBerry product.

Few solutions are driven from the top levels of the corporation as was the case with mobile email. Line of business solutions appear to be of highest interest especially for field forces, sales force/ CRM and service industry technicians. Many executives seem to lack the imagination of how a mobile application can help them. They need to see diagrams and real life examples before the light bulb finally comes on.

REGARD provided the DSC with the future vision for the R-Approval & R-Survey products. We were met with very lively discussion which validated some of our thought regarding barriers to entry. The feedback from the DSC was to improve the interfaces to and from outside enterprise systems. The key to our success in the global accounts will be the ability to integrate and the key for corporate markets accounts will be ease of administration and ease of use.

5th Annual RIM Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES)

The annual RIM Wireless Enterprise Symposium (held May 14-18, 2006) has become quite predictable. Not that that is necessarily bad; The event remains a "who's who" of the BlackBerry carrier and partner elite (a high value wireless executive schmooze-fest.) The fact that it is highly attended by this profile alone makes it worth attending. Attendance was definitely up, especially among international attendees, and the Gaylord Palms facility and preparation were top-notch!


Keynote Speeches
The keynotes were a little less than awe inspiring. The highlight, by far, was Jim Balsillie's assertion that Microsoft has been "dicking around" trying to figure out how to do wireless solutions. His flippant remark was almost a "come-and-get-me" or “catch-me-if-you-can” style dare. The balances of the speeches were the standard “We’re #1” rhetoric.

Technical Information
For those that have attended any WES in the past, the quality of the information has been "dumbed down" presumably to not overtax the minds of all of the new international attendees with the flood of information. As always, the technical roadmap information remains at the 50,000 foot level and delivery dates are far on the horizon. To really get the low down, you need to corner one of the RIM techies and try to extract the real truth. Luckily the Canadians generally like to drink.

The Sponsors & Parties
Having attended all 5 WES shows, what has been most interesting is to watch the big companies come and go. Many of the bigger sponsors of past years were largely absent or reduced their presence.

REGARD’s Partner Party on Monday night was attended by a few hundred fellow sponsors and customers. The DJ was a nice touch and the drink coupons were in high demand. Some clever attendee found the color copier in the business center as a good way to bring along more colleagues for free drinks and desserts. The REGARD team didn’t mind the party crashers!







Sadly, the competing BIG carrier party spend levels were WAY down from past years. Verizon and Cingular both had nice small parties but strictly limited the number of attendees. T-Mobile typically was the big spender at WES with headline acts and big parties. Not this year…but being the bargain basement leader in the US must have takes its toll. Sprint/Nextel didn’t show up with a big party either. This must mean the fight for subscribers has now moved to a different battlefield.

As always RIM threw a great blowout party on Tuesday night with the Stray Cat’s Brian Setzer backed up by his 18 piece orchestra. The free food and bottom-shelf booze were all flowing nicely!



Platform Vendors
Antenna, AppForge, Dexterra, Flowfinity, METAmessge, Vaultus, Vettro, Donner and Blitzen (last two of course are Santa’s reindeer) are all slugging it out to be the middleware platform vendors of choice. Most have chosen a tight vertical focus, some remain horizontal and ALL promise a cross platform play to Microsoft. Everyone has their success story to tell with a particular software vendor or five. What is clear is there IS NO CLEAR Rudolph in this crowded space. Our hunch is a big player will end up owning all of them or pushing them out. Don't count Sybase, SAP or even RIM out of this race! We believe most of these companies will end up with a reasonably attractive Sendia Play, but it is doubtful any will be crowned the winner without someone big stepping in to the game.


Point Solutions
Steve Beauregard, President and Founder of REGARD Solutions Corporation presented R-Approval Case Studies. In addition to R-Approval and R-Survey products which were both received nicely, there were a number of noteworthy solutions that should gain traction.

Newcomer QuickPlay showed a PODCasting solutions and ScoreMobile. The latter being a push sports score board with a very clean navigation interface and the Berry Casting solution, with broand consumer appeal, gained a lot of attention from the RIM. Telenav spent and extraordinary amount on the show. There navigation system for the 75xx series BlackBerry is very nice, but this space is crowded as well.

Summary
We still believe the opportunities are very significant with BlackBerry even in spite of the 4.1 scalability issues they are desperately trying to keep quiet. The vibe on the street is that NOBODY thinks Microsoft has it figured out how to do wireless right. They have afterall...been “dicking around” for the past several years. As for where the opportunities lie … we will reserve those thoughts for the REGARD Advisory Board and internal strategy discussions.

Op Ed on Visto Patent Complaint Against RIM

The US patent system was developed to protect true innovators from dubious thieves who attempt to steal inventions and make fortunes without paying the creator.

I believe it is a flagrant abuse of the system, to scour through a failed company's portfolio of patents and initiate a lawsuit against a firm succeeding and adding value in their space. The latest tangle of legal battles over wireless messaging, offers a poor reflection of NTP and Visto -- two companies that appear to be using their patents as lottery tickets or a final "Hail Mary" exit strategy to collect an unearned payday.

Having watched the NTP v. RIM case from the front row, my impression is that the case had nothing to do with actual patent infringement, and everything to do with exploit and greed. There should be more at stake for both for the companies and lawyers attempting to extort money from an inadequate patent system.

If you look at Visto’s recent history, they have been suing Microsoft Corporation and Good Technology for violating some of the same patents. And Visto took their turn in line, right behind NTP and Seven Network, before initiating this next suit against RIM. Isn’t it clear to everyone that the US Patents system and is in desperate need of an overhaul?

Let’s look at restoring innovation in industries across the board with tort reform. It’s high time the scales of justice tipped in favor of companies actually making a difference to corporations and to society as a whole.

REGARD Advisory Board Meeting

On Thursday, April 27, 2006, the REGARD Advisory Board (RAB) met for the first time. Attendees included, Steve Beauregard (REGARD President & founder), Lee Fox (REGARD CEO), Tom Taulli (www.taulli.com), Dave Mock (www.davemock.com) and guest Bob Newkirk (standing in for a very pregnant Jeannie Ponich).

The meeting agenda was as follows:

1. REGARD Advisory Board Charter

2. REGARD Recent History

REGARD Mantra

DECIDE / DEVELOP / DEPLOY / SUPPORT

R-Solutions (R-Approval™ / R-Survey™ / Others)

Creation of REGARD Labs

ORGANIZATION & ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

New Internal Systems

3. SWOT Analysis

4. REGARD Roadmap

Business Plan

Exit Strategy

All agreed the charter of the REGARD Advisory Board would be as follows:

1. Actively assist in shaping and validating the REGARD business model and direction.
2. Based on industry trends, advise on blend and timing of future REGARD products and services.
3. Contribute to business planning, fundraising, Go-to-market strategy and exit strategy

We reviewed the product and service offerings of the Corporation and decided that no enough emphasis has been placed on bring products to market. This will be an increase emphasis going forward!

There was a very lively discussion about product and service direction that will be reserved for non-public discussions.

In conclusion, the RAB with meet again next month then quarterly there after.

-Steve Beauregard
Email: sbeau@regard.com
Phone: 310-883-2205
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Web http://www.regard.com
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