Vodafone puts recent acquisitions into context by detailing 2007 action plan

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Following on from this week's news that Vodafone has acquired two companies and struck a key partnership, the mobile giant today outlined how it plans to execute its new strategy, which places great emphasis on fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), in the UK in 2007.

But a leading analyst has warned the business community against jumping on the convergence bandwagon too quickly, suggesting they should wait two years before getting too deeply involved.

Vodafone says its broad strategy will remain consistent with its Mobile Plus vision, which was outlined in May, but will be executed differently in individual markets or segments.

In early 2007, the company plans to commercially launch a service to mobilise business critical applications, such as Oracle, SAP and Siebel.

That launch will be followed up by the full launch of its secure remote access solution, based on Fiberlink's Extend360 Mobility Platform, by summer next year. This solution is already being used by a UK-based financial institution with a 30,000-strong user base.

It is also currently mulling over which partners to work with for its integrated communications and managed services layer and hopes to make a decision after Christmas to enable roll out next year.

Within the next four years, Vodafone hopes to generate 10 per cent of its revenue from integrated PC and mobile offerings, advertising and fixed line revenue opportunities, a figure its corporate strategy director Bobby Rao says would equal the fastest-growing European company if operated separately.

Outlining the company's 2007/2008 strategy for UK businesses, David Hughes, who heads up Vodafone UK's enterprise mobility solutions division, was clear that although the task at hand is fraught with challenges, it will also bear fruits.

"Does it create challenges? Absolutely. But those challenges can also be opportunities," he said.

"Our new strategy creates a great opportunity as mobile becomes something bigger. We don't necessarily have to do this all ourselves. We can bundle it and wrap it. When I joined Vodafone two-and-a-half years ago I definitely think the partnership approach was quite difficult. We've now come full circle."

But Vodafone's efforts, and those of other industry players in this space, may have overlooked how quickly users are willing to adopt.

Lars Vestergaard, research director for analyst IDC's European telecommunications arm, wasn't directly critical about Vodafone's intentions, however, he did advise businesses to wait before fully embracing convergence offerings.

He said: "The message is don't do convergence now if you want to do smart things in your business. Stick to the basics for two years as the risk is extremely large as convergence is not ready for you as an enterprise. You might save some cost but are you willing to compromise on usability?"

Lars likened the current maturity of FMC for large enterprises to be similar to early dalliances with VoIP.

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