CES 2008

Airvana Turns to Motive to Manage Femtocells, Motive Shows Restrained Support

| Jan 10, 2008 | Wireless Infrastructure | Show Update

| Analyst: Peter Jarich

Current Perspective: Negative/Neutral Vendor Importance: Moderate Market Impact: Low

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Event Summary

January 8, 2008 -- Motive announced that it had signed an agreement to supply Airvana with its Home Device Manager (HDM) solution for allowing wireless operators to manage large-scale networks of femtocell devices. In particular, Motive’s HDM provides device management, device diagnostics, and problem resolution functionality. Following a similar partnership with Ubiquisys, Airvana marks Motive’s second public femtocell reference.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Slightly negative on Airvana’s supplier agreement with Motive Inc., providing the company with access to Motive’s Home Device Manager solution. Successful femtocell services will involve the deployment of millions of operator-owned devices. Operators, in turn, will want some solution for managing and rolling out these devices: remote activation and upgrades, device diagnostics, device management, etc. Motive supports Airvana in this respect. Yet, the deal does not provide any real differentiation in the market since it is not exclusive and every other vendor will need to be able to deliver the same functionality. What’s more, though femtocells are a consumer product, a network-related announcement is bound to get lost in the buzz of CES and Motive’s value as a partner is compromised by the fact that its financials are weak and it is openly seeking strategic alternatives, suggesting an uncertain future.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to Airvana, because the vendor – just like every other femtocell vendor – will need to provide its operator customers with a solution for remote device management. Again, femtocell operators will want insight into the operations of their customers’ home base stations, if only to support stable services and zero-touch installs. To this end, Airvana needed to embrace the help of a vendor such as Motive. Yet, to the extent that every femtocell vendor needs these assets, it was inevitable that Airvana would recruit just such a partner; it does not represent a major new strategic or differentiating initiative.

• Market Impact: Low on the femtocell market, because following Ubiquisys’ announced work with Motive, Airvana’s move could bring the topic of femtocell device management, activation, and diagnostics to the fore, forcing other vendors to talk up and explain their own strategies. However, to the degree that these capabilities are a requisite component of any complete femtocell solution, most competitors should be in a position to deliver a story.

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