Motive, Inc. introduced two new additions to its Digital Home Management Platform, an integrated suite of software products that enables broadband providers to effectively deliver, manage and support next-generation broadband services. The Fully Automated Service Technology (FAST) modules for IPTV and Security give broadband providers packaged offerings that help them accelerate the rollout of new services. The modules include service specific functionality that helps them manage all aspects of a broadband service, while delivering an integrated and simple user experience for subscribers.

The Digital Home offers consumers a wide array of exciting new entertainment and communication choices, and represents tremendous revenue potential for providers. To fully reap the benefits and stay ahead of the competition, providers must deliver new services quickly, and at the same time ensure these services meet the already high expectations of consumers. However, the technical complexity makes creating a compelling and efficient experience difficult, resulting in delays rolling out services and slow consumer adoption.

Motive's FAST modules tailor the company's products to help providers accelerate the delivery of new services by providing out-of-the-box capabilities that are unique to each service, such as user interfaces, device configurations and work flows. By leveraging Motive's Digital Home Management Platform, the FAST modules also offer users a simple, cohesive experience across services, while minimizing service delivery costs for providers.

"The widespread adoption of advanced, integrated home services is going to hinge on broadband providers' ability to offer a consistent customer experience," said Boyd Peterson senior vice president at Yankee Group. "Digital home subscribers will not stand for multiple user interfaces or confusing and disparate setup and troubleshooting processes. The providers that win in this market will find ways to weave a common customer service thread through all their services, whether subscribers choose to access it on the phone, Web, television, or other channels."

Motive Digital Home Management Platform
Motive's Digital Home Management Platform, which was announced in April, includes a core set of products and a series of FAST modules, which give providers automated management capabilities for a variety of digital home services. Unlike other approaches that offer different tools to handle individual management functions, such as activation, verification and support, Motive FAST modules package together the full spectrum of management capabilities necessary to handle all aspects of specific services. This greatly diminishes the time-consuming integration work normally required by providers to build management automation into new services. The current High-Speed Data and Home Networking FAST modules automate and simplify broadband setup, diagnosis and repair processes for consumers and customer service representatives (CSRs) for these services. Capabilities of the new IPTV FAST and Security FAST modules include:

IPTV FAST Module -- Gives broadband providers the ability to deliver automated IPTV service management, eliminating the need for costly onsite support for simple install verification, repairs and problem resolution. Motive's IPTV FAST module also enables providers to design an IPTV management infrastructure that will work across multiple customer premises equipment (CPE) types, vendors, and digital services such as personal video recorders (PVRs), interactive gaming, and TV commerce -- maximizing the flexibility that providers have from a functionality and cost perspective.

Security FAST Module -- Allows providers to build intuitive security threat assessment and automated remediation into broadband services, taking the burden of adopting proper online security standards away from subscribers and greatly reducing security-related problems and resulting support calls, which cost providers an estimated $400 million in 2004. Motive's Security FAST module can also help providers increase revenue per subscriber by enabling fee-based security services.

Additional components of the Motive Digital Home Management Platform include the following products:

• Home Device Manager: Allows providers to automate the management of home devices such as residential gateways that are critical in delivering triple play services. Home Device Manager operates across devices from multiple vendors, integrates seamlessly into the end user and call center processes and allows providers to define automation policies that reduce or eliminate the manual interaction needed to keep devices and services working properly.
• Service Activation Manager: Guides the end-user through the activation and installation process for digital home services over the Web, phone or television.
• Self-Service Manager: Guides the end-user through the use, support, and maintenance of their service, enabling self-repair and proactively advising consumers as needed.
• Customer Service Manager: Automates the CSR process for resolving customer problems and solving them quickly and correctly the first time. The product enables service providers to use one troubleshooting application in their call centers across any service they deliver.

"Working with broadband providers has helped us understand the key role Motive management software plays in accelerating the rollout of new services in this dynamic market," said Kenny Van Zant, Motive's executive vice president of Marketing. "Our Digital Home Management Platform with the new FAST modules gives us the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with providers to ensure that all new services are equipped with consistent management capabilities that increase service adoption and, ultimately, profitability."

Availability
The new FAST Modules for IPTV and Security are scheduled to ship in Q2 and Q3, respectively. FAST modules for High-Speed Data and Home Networking and the core communication products of the Motive Digital Home Management Platform are currently available.