Volantis Mobile Content Storefront™

Volantis is the world’s leading supplier of Intelligent Content

Adaptation™ solutions for the Mobile Information Age, providing

applications, tools and platforms that solve the complexity

of delivering optimized data services to any mobile device.

Volantis’ extensive experience of serving content providers,

mobile network operators, and enterprises, along with

its standards leadership, enables it to create innovative

technology for the Mobile Information Age that is more

useful and more useable than the PC Internet of today.

Volantis is used around the world by organizations such

as 3, AAA, AdInfuse, Aspire, AT&T, CBS, Channel 4, eBay,

FT.com, GarantiBank, IBM, Lastminute.com, MobileOne,

MTN, Orange, Sports.comm, Telefonica Moviles,

Telecom Italia Mobile, Telenor, Telecom New Zealand,

Turkcell and World Wide Wrestling Entertainment.

Volantis global headquarters are in Seattle, USA, with international

offices in London, UK; Hong Kong, China; Madrid, Spain and

Krakow, Poland. Volantis is privately held with investors Accel

Partners, Kennet Partners and SOFTBANK Europe Ventures.

Our Customers

About Volantis

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Benefits to Subscribers /End-users:Simplifies navigation and discovery of content, whilst ensuring

best possible content for the subscriber’s handset

Optimized content for browsing and download

Dynamic, refreshed and engaging content

Easy buying experience with choice of payment methods

My Account for managing download and subscriber history

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Benefits to Content Providers/Carriers: Simplifies and lowers cost/time of managing multi-channel

storefronts whilst ensuring best possible coverage for growing

device diversification

Easily manage your digital assets via

intuitive web-based consoles

Merchandize your compelling content via multiple

mechanisms: PPE, subscription and promotions

Deliver highest quality user experience to broadest audience

Refresh your content automatically

Seamless integration with:

Existing Service Delivery Platforms (Carriers)

Carrier and 3rd party systems: billing, messaging etc

(Content Providers)

Coverage of the largest and most complete Device Database

Device independent rendering

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Product Guide

IntroductionMerchandising Compelling Content

Explosive growth of the Mobile Information Age

presents wireless carriers and content providers

with an excellent opportunity to use mobile data

services to create revenue, extend their brand

reach, deliver new products and services, and

reach new and existing customers in exciting and

innovative ways. Compelling content is the key

to generating these additional revenue streams

and promoting your brand across the mobile and

multi-channel Internet.

However, cost-effectively delivering compelling mobile services

whilst managing the underlying complexity of device diversity and

distribution channels can be a significant challenge and barrier to entry

for many organizations.

Volantis Mobile Content Storefront™

Volantis Mobile Content Storefront™ is a complete solution for

marketing and merchandizing rich media content across wireless,

PC and emerging channels, with pre-integrated support for 3rd party

advertising services.

It is a sophisticated menu and content management solution for

the manipulation, management and publishing of personalized and

optimized content for multi-channel services.

It enables wireless carriers and content providers to rapidly and

easily promote and sell a wide range of content, including wallpapers,

ringtones, audio, video, games, MMS and interactive content such

as quizzes, polls, and competitions through multiple channels whilst

automatically optimizing content for c.5,000 devices.

Storefront enables management and publication of multiple-branded,

multiple language services from a single content store and can

distribute these via multiple mobile and other channels including WAP,

I-mode, PC web and emerging channels. Content providers can

deliver direct-to-consumer and via carrier portals, whilst carriers can

optimize their own and partner portals.

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Summary of Key Features

Deliver Highest Quality User Experience to Broadest Audience

Uncompromised user experience with compelling rich media

sites and automatic content optimization exploiting full capabilities

of c.5,000 devices

Faster time to content with personalization of content and navigation

One-click downloads optimized for supported best device format

Easy buying experience with one-click purchases via subscriptions,

pay per event and loyalty schemes charged via the phone bill,

3rd party billing systems or Premium SMS

Fast and reliable with device-optimized performance and output

Seamless integration across fixed and wireless, browsing

and messaging

Remove Complexity: Save Time, Effort and Cost

Minimum effort required to ensure sites are optimized for handsets

Easy and direct high-precision control of brand and content

Reduce costs of content management using graphical non-technical

tools, pre-scheduling and business rules

Efficient integration with existing systems and content sources

Reduced costs of operations and maintenance with less

requirement for device knowledge, skills and tools

Rapid time to market

Instantly support c.5,000 existing devices and new devices as they

launch

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Efficient non-technical content management environment with

advanced productivity capabilities such as templates and content

carousel

Re-use templates for billing integrations

Low Risk

Implemented by leading wireless carriers, media and entertainment

brands, and wireless solutions providers

Serving over 250 million subscribers

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CBS selected Volantis as a partner

for CBS TV. CBS deploy Storefront

to mobilize WAP portals for CBS

News, CBS SportsLine, Entertainment

Tonight, CW TV, The Showbuzz and their smash hit show CSI.

Volantis Storefront also enables support for events-driven

marketing such as the NBA finals and March Madness.

The Solution: Storefront

DisplayProvide the best/optimized

end-user experience

IntegrationIntegrate with wireless

carriers & 3rd party system

ManagementEasily manage

your content & customers

DeliveryDeliver to any IP-enabled device (PC, mobile, etc…)

CommerceMonetize your digital

assets & brand

Compelling Content

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Storefront ArchitectureOverview

Storefront is a flexible platform for multi-channel rendering and

delivery of optimized content and can be easily integrated with

existing customer systems, such as subscriber databases and

dynamic and static content repositories. To ensure a complete

multi-channel content delivery system, Storefront can be

seamlessly integrated or function as an integral part of a wireless

carrier’s service delivery platform (SDP). Alternatively, for content

producers, such as media and entertainment companies,

Storefront can function as the key integration point for any/all 3rd

party value added solutions, such as billing/charging providers,

advertising servers, existing content management systems,

subscriber databases and business rules engines.

Storefront consists of a number of main functional areas, as

highlighted in the diagram below representing the interaction

between the customer, Storefront, external parties and the mobile

subscriber/visitor to the multi-channel Storefront.

Customer – The wireless carrier or content provider would be

responsible for creating their brand and service guidelines:

the look and feel of the service that reflects their corporate

identity. They would interact with Storefront through intuitive

web consoles to manage their content and the service.

External Parties – Storefront has a flexible, modular,

web-services based architecture, enabling seamless integration

with 3rd party solution providers, where required. These could

either be systems within a wireless carrier’s SDP or with

external parties, such as Bango for a direct-to-consumer

billing/charging solution or with “best of breed” solution

providers for advanced audio/video transcoding requirements.

Storefront utilizes the core

services and capabilities

of the Volantis Mobile

Content Framework™,

which provides device

detection and optimized

device-aware rendering

to any device – using

the industry’s most

comprehensive Device

Database containing over

650 attributes for c.5,000

devices and growing.

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Mobile Subscribers

Volantis MobileContent

Framework™(with

Device Database)

Content &Service

Management

MessagingInterface

SubscriberManagement& Interface

MessagingInterface

Billing /ChargingInterface

Asset DeliveryManagement &

Interface

Volantis Mobile Content Storefront™ External Parties

Messaging GatewayProvider

Subscriber databases(Customer / MNO)

Payment GatewayProviders

Rich MediaTranscoder Providers

DRM Providers

Advertising ServiceProviders

Customer

Branding,Site Design,Editorial &BusinessReview A

uthe

ntic

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Mobile HTML Browser

i-modeBrowser

WAP 2Browser

PCBrowser

IPTVBrowser

Page weight: 11k

Page weight: 26k

Page weight: 32.5k

Create once, render many dynamic mobile websites

WML XHTMLBlack & White

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Functional OverviewPublishing with Storefront

The publishing flow for creating a

multi-channel Storefront, from design

through to publishing is comprised of

three steps as shown in the following

diagram.

Volantis refers to the published site, all

of its associated rendering templates,

layouts, themes and integrations

with Wireless Carriers, or other 3rd

parties as the “service”. This term

encompasses everything required to

deliver a device-optimized experience to the subscriber.

Service Design (Step 1) – A designer creates mock-ups of the

site storyboard and design guide, and creates the site ‘furniture’ –

branded icons and logos – that will be used to decorate the site.

Service Development (Step 2) – The design guide mock-ups

are translated into physical layouts, styles and templates using the

Eclipse-based Volantis device independent design tools and the

site ‘furniture’ is loaded into the Volantis Mobile Content Framework

platform. The content classes, associated business rules, sitemap

and navigation structures are defined using the Service Creator

GUI, ready for use by a Content Producer in the publishing stage.

Unlike traditional PC web site development, which do not have

to cater for a vast myriad of potential devices, by splitting this into

two elements Volantis is able to create true device independence

and thereby deliver optimized content for each and every device

in the Volantis Device Database™.

Service Publishing (Step 3) – Content Producers can now

populate the service using the Content Editor GUI. This involves

uploading content, assigning it to the defined site structure,

editing where required and previewing the end-result. Finally,

the sitemap is published to the Operational/Live environment,

ready for access by the mobile subscriber/visitor.

Once a service has been published and has gone live, each time

a mobile device requests content, Storefront utilises the Volantis

Mobile Content Framework to evaluate the various rendering

templates, and delivers the service consistently over a comprehensive

range of devices, old and new.

The service UI, as presented to the subscriber/visitor, is adapted

to give the best possible experience on each and every device. The

final page delivered to the device is optimized such that assets are

selected or transcoded according to the devices requirements. Tables,

used to structure the pages are flattened whilst maintaining the original

design intent, and the final mark-up rendered to take account of the

devices specific browser capabilities.

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Optimized pages and graphics mean that page size is minimised,

network performance is improved and delivery is fast.

Eclipse-based Dev Tools Service Creator GUI Content Editor GUI

Volantis MobileContent Framework™

• Create device independent assets

• Layouts, themes etc

Volantis MobileContent Storefront™

Define:• Deployment

environments• Content Classes• Rendering templates

users & roles

Volantis MobileContent Storefront™

• Upload content• Edit content• Preview & publish• Review & analysis

Service DevelopmentService Design Service PublishingStep 1Step 1 Step 2Step 2 Step 3Step 3

Site Storyboard• Menu definition• Menu relationships• Location of content

Brand Assets• Screen designs• Graphics

Device-optimized Rendering & Download

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Content and Service ManagementOverview

Storefront has two intuitive and easy-to-use

interfaces/consoles (GUIs) accessible globally

on a PC via a web browser, such as Internet

Explorer™ or Mozilla Firefox:

Service Creator GUI – This is used to create

content classes, create rendering templates,

define the location/URL of a service/site,

define users and their roles, define default

Charge codes and Rights Owners for these

content classes. It is principally intended

for use by developers during the process of

creating a multi-channel/mobile site/service.

Content Editor GUI – This is intended for

the daily management of the service by

a content editor or producer. Here they can

manipulate digital assets (content) within the

boundaries defined by the developer within

the Service Creator GUI, to do such actions

as: upload, delete, edit, schedule, preview

and publish content.

Using the content classes and the rendering

templates defined by the developer and

conforming to the customer’s style guide,

the content editor can rapidly create

sitemaps, navigation and upload content.

A single content store and the ability to

cross-link any content item means that

any asset can be linked-to multiple times

from any part of the service, thereby

reducing costs of managing the content

and encouraging cross-promotion and up-

selling opportunities.

In addition to the interfaces provided within

the Storefront application, developers

would use the industry-standard Eclipse

-based development toolkit to create device

independent layouts and themes. The

Volantis Mobile Content Framework would

then automatically apply the appropriate

layout and theme to the requesting device.

Service Creator

Define the Service/Site(s)1. Deployment environments2. Content Classes3. Rendering Templates4. Users and roles

Content Editor

Manage Content & Services/Sites:1. Upload content2. Edit Content3. Preview & publish content4. Review & analysis of service

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Content CarouselAllows editors to easily refresh content regularly to provide

compelling and dynamic services for their subscribers/visitors.

Editors can pre-load bundles of content items that can be

scheduled for automated publishing and unpublishing and can

be re-used across multiple services, for example:

“Image of the day”

Regenerate interest in archived content, in

conjunction with current bestsellers

Synchronize with publicity/launch events

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The time zone of the live service can also be specified, ensuring that any

date and time related calculations are performed relative to the published

time zone for the service, if it is different from the production locale.

Filters and Business Rules

Powerful filters are used within Storefront to enable the display or

discarding of content based upon rules. In addition to differential

rendering and navigation based upon the device capabilities, the

subscriber or network context, flexible rules can be created, such as:

If the subscriber is roaming, then deliver smaller content

payloads to minimize network data charges

If the subscriber is over 1�, then allow adult rated content

If the subscriber’s device is not video-capable, then

do not display any video menus or content

Storefront has a flexible and powerful editing environment to define

highly complex business rules and scenarios.

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Article

Audio

Game

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Image

Quiz

Video

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Working with Content

Storefront is installed with a set of predefined content classes. Each

predefined content class can be modified and edited by users with

appropriate access rights from within the Content Editor GUI. These

content classes can be recognized as those most commonly used to

deliver digital assets to end-users/subscribers of mobile data services.

Storefront provides powerful tools for productive editing, including

a content carousel, content lifecycle/scheduling, previews, auto-

complete searching, bulk asset upload, version control and difference

tools.

Multi-Locale and Country Support

To support centralised management of sitemaps for deployment

across multiple regions, Storefront provides both multi-language and

multi-time zone support.

For each service, the default language can be defined which

determines which language content will be displayed.

Within Storefront, every content item, including content assets, menus

and navigation have associated meta-tags that provide a powerful

mechanism for multi-language deployments, pricing, filters and

business rules. Entirely new content classes can be easily created

from templates or from scratch, in the Service Creator GUI.

Merchandizing with PromotionsThis capability enables editors to create, analyse and amend

promotions thereby increasing potential revenue opportunities.

There are a number of predefined promotion types:

Price discount (% or $ off)

Buy ‘n’ get ‘x’ free

Accumulative volume discounts:

1-10 for ‘x’, 11-20 for ‘y’ 21-30 for ‘z’ etc..

Combination of promotion types:

buy ‘n’ get ‘x’ for ‘y’ % discount

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AuthenticationStorefront verifies the

users access rights prior to

presenting links to content,

delivering subscribed

messages or when

a subscriber has made a

download request.

This function is carried

out in conjunction with the

Mobile Subscriber Service

(MSS), the Billing/Charging

components, the Asset

Delivery management and

the Messaging components

of Storefront

Examples of where the authentication is used:

Restricting access of premium content to subscribers only

Determining the validity of a subscription in terms of available credit

Ensuring message delivery to subscribers only

Messaging InterfaceStorefront is capable of content delivery over channels other than

HTTP/browse. Examples are SMIL, over MMS or SMS messages

and WAP push messages. Storefront leverages the core functionality

of Framework to allow the optimization of message-based or WAP

push content. It provides the ability to write

applications to generate

and transmit messages

to subscribers’ devices.

This allows applications

to be created

that can support

mass distribution

of messages and

scheduling of content

items, for a given

subscriber or groups of

subscribers.

Storefront supports

event-based messaging

alerts, such as a sports

score updates as well

as periodic-based alerts/

subscriptions set against

absolute or relative dates,

such as every Monday or

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weekly from the start of a subscription.

The messaging component of Storefront provides the interface

for direct integration to SMSC, and MMSC, either within a wireless

carrier’s infrastructure or to a 3rd party messaging solution provider.

Subscriber Management and InterfaceThe Volantis Mobile Subscriber Services component is both

a repository and application that delivers services associated

with subscribers. The repository stores all information related

to a subscriber including:

User profile

Subscription data

Interactive response data (e.g. polls, quizzes and competitions)

User preferences

All transaction records

This data is available for detailed reporting and is the power behind

providing dynamically generated personalization features, such

as “welcome back to the site <subscriber>, you have <credits>

remaining”.

The Volantis Mobile Subscriber Service performs interface functions

to 3rd party subscriber databases as well as billing systems, creating

charging events, in carrier specific formats, where required, including

SOAP and URL, XML/RPC, CDR files, URL redirection and Premium

SMS.

Billing/Charging InterfaceCharging and payments are handled by 3rd party payment solution

providers, such as Bango, PayPal or the wireless carriers themselves.

Storefront provides an interface, which can be customised per

provider and this interface is referred to as the Storefront Buying

Application. This will work in conjunction with the Mobile Subscriber

Service, which tracks user data such as subscription and credit status

and with the Promotion Engine, which enables editors to create,

analyze and amend promotions/charge codes.

The Payment Provider will often dictate the buying models that

are available, however many are supported or can be configured,

for example,

Free

Ad-supported

Pay Per Event

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Message & Billing Integration

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promotional campaigns and the ability for a customer care agent to

respond to support calls by interrogating recent event records and

logs.

Examples of the types of reporting available are:

Downloads per subscriber

Downloads per device type

Downloads per asset type

Download amount per subscriber

Download amount per device type

Download amount per asset type

Download amount (grouped by subscriber)

Download amount (grouped by device type)

Download amount (grouped by asset type)

Purchases per subscriber

Purchases per device type

Purchases per asset type

Subscriptions by subscriber

Subscriptions / Unsubscriptions

Subscription statistics

Page access by MSISDN

Page access by subscriber

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Subscriptions

Timed or credit based

Promotions

Volume/price discount

Loyalty points

Before a subscriber/visitor receives an advice of charge for content,

charge codes are combined with other data, such as carrier rating

systems, subscriber information and device information, to calculate

the actual price for the user. This allows highly flexible rules that

support differential pricing, offers and promotions.

Asset Delivery and InterfaceStorefront not only optimizes rendering to the browser but also

optimizes asset downloads, ensuring the best quality user experience.

Using device detection, Storefront automatically delivers the highest

quality that the device is capable of supporting. Advanced algorithms

match up to 650 device attributes against the asset being requested

and thereby selects and delivers the best asset. This selection is

based upon attributes such as the devices’ ability to support DRM,

multi-media capabilities, usable screen size and resolution.

The Asset delivery component of Storefront provides a robust, secure

mechanism for delivering download, and push media over the air,

such as articles, wallpapers, ringtones, audio, video and games

as well as acting as a security buffer between users and premium

content. The asset resolution capability ensures that subscribers/

visitors receive a fast, high quality user experience whilst providers

are assured of high levels of security. The delivery server supports

industry-standard download techniques including J2ME MIDP OTA

download and OMA Generic Content Download Direct HTTP link.

Storefront provides a range of mechanisms to protect mobile

content from unauthorized use, theft and piracy: access to content

is protected by authentication and authorization; masking of asset

locations; and providing one-time-use or time-limited asset locations;

Digital Rights Management support for OMA Forward Lock and

integration to 3rd party systems, for additional functionality such as

DRM-CD (Combined Delivery), DRM-SD (Separate Delivery) for super

distribution, OMA2 and Microsoft DRM.

Reporting and Customer Care

Storefront provides a user interface for real-time in-line reporting

functions to collect, analyze and display data extracted from the

Mobile Subscriber Service, for example: user id, content id, date/time

range, purchase or download events.

These reporting capabilities enable users to interrogate various key

performance indicators, such as the financial performance of the

content and services on offer, the effectiveness of marketing and

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◦The Financial Times chose

Volantis to extend their existing

WAP site to UK operator portals

so as to provide a mobile solu-

tion for FT.com subscribers, and

to extend the FT.com brand to a

new audience. Volantis provide

the FT with a single mobile con-

tent delivery platform that serves FT.com content to multiple

UK operators in their native markup and format. FT.com uti-

lizes the Volantis platform to provide integration in to various

operator billing systems, operator-specific content delivery and

device-optimization for thousands of different mobile devices.

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Deployment OptionsFor deployment purposes Storefront should be considered as two

Java web applications (webapps), which would be deployed into

standard web application servers:

Design-time – This equates to the Content and Service

Management functions, i.e. the Storefront GUIs.

Run-time – This equates to all other functional areas involved in the

presentation and delivery of content to the subscriber.

There are two possible deployment options:

Single server installation – Both the Design-time and Run-time

webapps are deployed on the same web application server platform.

Standard (distributed) installation – The Design-time webapp

is deployed on a separate web application server to the Run-time

webapp.

Single Server Installation

Typically used for small scale installations.

Both the Design-time and Run-time webapps are deployed in the

same web application server on a single server as shown in the

following diagram:

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Standard Installation

The standard (distributed) deployment model is recommended for

all live, subscriber facing deployments as it supports scaling and has

higher resilience capabilities.

The Design-time environment is installed on its own dedicated server,

with the run-time environments also deployed on their own dedicated

servers.

The central Design-time GUI can be configured to publish to multiple

run-time environments to support distributed server farms.

A Network Load Balancer should be used to distribute the load across

multiple servers and should be configured with ‘sticky sessions’

enabled.

WebBrowser

Storefront GUIswebapp

Framework Webapp

ContentRepository

StorefrontRun-Time webapp Service

Java Application Server

HTTP(wap)

Hardware Platform

Publish

Java Application Server

Hardware Platform: Server 2

WebBrowser

Storefront GUIswebapp

ContentRepository

Java Application Server

Framework Webapp

StorefrontRun-Time webappService

HTTP(wap)

Hardware Platform: Server 1

Publish

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