Zentive launches latest version of their 360Service Assurance product following close customer collaboration.

The addition of performance monitoring significantly enhances an already well-established capability in availability monitoring.

Fareham, UK – June 2011: Zentive, an innovative software company announced today the availability of a significantly enhanced version of its monitor and alert application, 360Service Assurance.

Users of a leading cable and satellite billing and subscriber management system have been asking for the ability to automatically and in real-time monitor the performance of its application programming interface, particularly with their increasing reliance on this facility.  Working closely with operations staff within the MSOs, Zentive is now able to provide the tool that scrutinises any number of operational systems and delivers a powerful and configurable browser based analysis of individual inter-system message count and response times.

“Operators struggle today with quantifying the impact of a significant increase in 24×7 reliance on the subscriber management system API, particularly where subscriber self service or self sales portals and IVR are involved” said Dr Philip Allman Head of Business Development at Zentive. “360Service Assurance provides visibility that is long overdue and allows operations staff to more better manage an increasingly crucial area of the business”.

Zentive’s ‘unified view’ solution provides the means to get:

• Management visibility to help monetise the impact of system outages and performance degradation.
• Increased end-user satisfaction for subscribers and internal staff.
• Assured quality and integrity of systems upgrades and changes.

Herr Heiko Lippert, Unitymedia, Germany, Director of Billing & Systems Integration, commented, “Unitymedia’s web sales and web self care channels are the face of our company so ensuring their availability and their effectiveness is paramount and business critical; this is why we have been using suretrak (now part of the 360Service Assurance family of products) since 2007. suretrak allows us to continuously check that our end-to-end IT infrastructure is functioning correctly. suretrak has helped reduce online sales losses due to web-site outages to virtually zero, in fact exceeding 99.5%, and contributed substantially to Unitymedia’s improved customer service and satisfaction. Most recently, the use of suretrak has been extended to monitor a critical browser-based CRM application used by our customer support function.”

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About Zentive

Zentive Limited is headquartered in the UK and has customers worldwide. For further information please visit www.zentive.com

Zentive, an innovative software company that provides 360™ service provisioning and assurance software across any device or network, announced today that Virgin Media, the UK’s leading entertainment and communications company, has deployed Zentive’s ™ solution in its next-generation advanced entertainment service powered by TiVo.

Virgin Media will use Zentive’s 360 open standard software solution, 360Provisioning™, to deploy and host connectivity between their subscriber management systems (SMS) and the new TiVo powered service, and will offer parallel support for linear video broadcast for provisioning and activation requests to Virgin Media’s digital TV conditional access system.

Using industry open standard software principles, the 360° solution handles all requirements between the SMS, which initiates the service request, and the downstream TiVo provisioning interface. The platform provides a secure guarantee of delivery of critical TiVo service requests, improves visibility of transaction history and, as the advanced entertainment service scales, allows Virgin Media to easily customize the operation of the software in order to accommodate changing business needs and applications.

Zentive’s ‘zero touch’ solution also allows Virgin Media to:

• Simplify deployments. Enabling Virgin Media to automate access requests for the TiVo platform and provisioning processes without extensive workflow and custom coding.
• Lower deployment costs. By adopting Zentive’s open and flexible standards already built into its 360Provisioning™ platform, Virgin Media can eliminate the costs that many organizations typically spend on “last mile” deployments. This also allows Virgin Media to immediately focus effort into the highest value areas such as new product initiatives and service delivery, which saves time and money.
• Business and IT alignment. Zentive provides Virgin Media with a best in class browser-based interface designed specifically for leading edge set-top box provisioning. This enables faster request access and the ability to manage changes more efficiently while making it easier to involve business users in all parts of the provisioning processes including service definition, change approvals, access rights and customer data lifecycle management.

“Companies struggle today with service activation and provisioning because the technology is expensive, complex and difficult to implement,” said Dr Philip Allman Co-founder and Head of Business Development at Zentive. “The expense and complexity of implementing modern day provisioning has limited next-generation service providers to a small number of suppliers. By implementing our 360° provisioning and assurance solution, Virgin Media can benefit from shorter implementation times and broader application coverage for its next-generation of TiVo powered service, all at reduced costs whilst accelerating time to market”.

Ian Mecklenburgh, Virgin Media’s director of consumer platforms, commented, “We have a strong business relationship with Zentive, who are a key partner in delivering the integration for our advanced TV platform. The software they provide Virgin Media was selected because it could be easily integrated into our existing business systems and processes, whilst also providing flexibility over the lifetime of the product”.

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About Virgin Media

Virgin Media is the first provider of all four broadband, TV, mobile phone and home phone services in the UK. The company has developed the most advanced interactive television service, bringing together broadcast TV, thousands of hours of on demand programming and the best of the web in a single set-top box powered by TiVo. The company was the first to offer HD TV and 3D on demand to millions of UK households. Virgin Media Inc. is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market and the London Stock Exchange (VMED).

Zentive’s 360Provisioning suite is a key enabler for the UK’s premier quad play provider of broadband, TV, phone and mobile services to perform service activation requests from millions of subscribers on its recently launched next generation TV entertainment platform.

Zentive, an innovative company who provide Multiple Service Operators (MSOs) and Next Generation Operators ( NGOs) with 360Provisioning and service assurance software deployable across any device or network, announced today that the UK’s leading entertainment and communications company provider has successfully enhanced and deployed its next generation of advanced TV services by relying upon Zentive’s 360Provisioning activation platform.

 Using open industry standards the application orchestrates all requirements between the subscriber management system (SMS), which initiates the service request, the various new third party applications & services invoked, and the new downstream advanced TV platform web-based provisioning interface. In parallel, the 360Provisioning suite will also continue to service linear video broadcast provisioning and activation requests direct to the DTV conditional access system.

360Provisioning provides a secure guaranteed delivery of business critical activation requests, allows the Operator full visibility of real time and historical transactions and, as the advanced TV service scales, allows the company to readily customise operations to accommodate changing business needs and applications.

Zentive’s secure, zero touch, 360Provisioning solution enables MSOs to:

•        Simplify deployments. Significantly reducing time to market and expenditure integrating third party elements and to encapsulate business processes and information models requisite to provisioning new subscriber services.
•        Assure delivery. Guaranteed delivery to ensure execution of valued service activation requests and apply business policies, thereby reducing operational overheads and increasing customer satisfaction.
•        Increase Revenue. Service provider’s can focus on rapid roll-out of high worth products and over-the-top (OTT) services instead of technological and infrastructure constraints on the business.
•        Enhance visibility.  Full end-end visibility of all real time and historical transactions and customer experience-centric performance monitoring with 360Provisioning’s state-of-the-art browser management tools.
•        Bridge the gap.  Closely align and synchronise the business and the technical infrastructure using the application’s powerful work flow and rules engine capabilities for more effective and faster service roll-outs and to address subscriber demand for seamless convergence of OTT Internet-based products and services
•        Comply with industry standards. Adherence to TM Forum’s Frameworx Information Framework and other emerging standards.

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About 360Provisioning and Assurance.

With Zentive’s 360Provisioning solution MSOs can speed up integration and service creation on advanced modern STBs. This enables simplified automation for provisioning across any device type, decreases operational costs and drives an increase of ARPU.

Stephen Featham, Director of TV & Entertainment Development at Virgin Media said ‘Virgin Media is a pioneer in providing innovative digital TV services and we will benefit from Zentive’s state-of-the-art design as our TV service continues to grow and develop. Zentive has the right experience and expertise to deliver a complete solution and help support our next generation of entertainment.”

In architecting the solution Zentive has ensured that it can handle the connectivity requirements of one or more subscriber management systems and one or more conditional access systems.  The built-in rules engine allows Virgin Media to customize how the activation is handled from a business perspective with the added advantage that as part of its fault tolerant design it supports transaction roll-back

With the demand accelerating for ever more digital service and content delivery, Zentive’s trugateway provides the perfect platform for Operators planning on exploiting the huge business opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.