With solutions ranging from energy management to Internet auditing, innovative start-ups had the opportunity to connect with interested Retail Service Providers (RSPs) at the first RSPs/Start-ups Networking Session organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore on 13 November.

“We loved that we met loads of highly ambitious and young companies that were out to change the world,” said Mr Greg Mittman,Vice President, Corporate Development, MyRepublic Limited.

As an RSP, MyRepublic sees itself as an enabler of a vibrant layer of content developers and distributors as well as applications developers which are “independent from us, but which sit beside us within a disintermediated value chain”.

“Our job is to figure out how to make it easier for these players to thrive and sell their stuff.  Our main objective in going to the event was to get feedback from these players, as to how we can best help,” said Mr Mittman.

The IDA event brought together eight RSPs and 20 start-ups offering services in areas such as cloud computing, enterprise software, ecommerce, analytics and unified communications. The aim of the session was to help the RSPs and start-ups suss out opportunities for collaboration and forge partnerships.

“RSPs are actively exploring new service offerings in the competitive market and are willing to explore partnerships with start-ups,” observed Alex Tan, Director, Next Generation Broadband Network, IDA. “IDA, on our part, is helping to give the start-ups a helping hand by linking them up with more established industry players to give more visibility to their products and services, and reach a wider audience.”

“By leveraging on the collective strengths, for example, the RSPs’ marketing capability and the start-ups’ focused service development capability, a faster time-to-market may be achieved.  The partnership may also help to expand the RSPs’ repertoire of service offerings and customer reach or even result in the creation of new business models and revenue streams,” he added.

Another RSP that was present at the event was Certis CISCO Security. “We are looking to work with partners for co-development of services,” said Business Development Manager Ms Jazzel Soh. “As a Next Gen NBN RSP and leader of comprehensive security solutions, our focus at the event was on security and business operations, including surveillance, video analytic and forensics solutions.”

“We were pleasantly surprised by a number of disruptive technologies introduced by the start-up companies and they were equally enthusiastic in learning more about Certis CISCO,” she said. Since the networking event, there have been follow-ups for product demos, and Certis CISCO is also in further discussions with a few companies that have products in its focus areas.

Among the start-ups at the event was Intraix, whose energy management solutions provide real-time visibility into the energy consumption of households and offices.

“It was a great experience meeting up with so many different RSPs in one morning. It is just like speed-dating – just except it was on a corporate level,” said Intraix’s Co-founder Darrell Zhang.

Through energy data analytics and notifications and alerts on abnormal patterns of energy usage, the company aims to help users reduce their energy consumption by 5-10 per cent.

Intraix sees service providers as potential distribution partners of its home and office energy management solutions as “we pretty much serve the same target customer”. “RSPs can offer energy management solutions to home owners and office owners as value-added services which can potentially help them to reduce energy consumption,” said Mr Zhang.  Intraix is currently following up with two RSPs to explore possible means of collaboration in the distribution of its solution.

Another start-up present at the networking event was Expert Team, whose lawful interception  software solutions are already being used in cybercrime investigation and prevention. Developed in Singapore, the company’s content forensics solutions incorporate deep packet inspection as well as patent-pending Real-Time Packet Reconstruction technology.

Expert Team’s main objective in attending the networking session was to introduce its latest technology and explore collaborations with RSPs to deliver Internet auditing and monitoring tools to the enterprise and home markets, said its Chief Executive Officer Mr Vincent Tan.

While typical parameter security solutions are focused on external attacks, Expert Team’s products are aimed at preventing internal data leakage, explained Mr Tan. They help protect a company’s intellectual property by providing auditing tools to monitor the use of the network. For the home market, its solutions can also be used to monitor the use of the network.

The company is exploring opportunities to partner RSPs and offer its software solutions to the enterprise market on a profit-sharing or OEM (original equipment manufacturer) basis. It is also looking for technology partners and investors to help it reach out to the global market. Through the networking event, it linked up with five RSPs and is following up with them with production presentations and live demos.

“It was a very good session that allowed us to get together and introduce our solutions to the RSPs. We hope to have more such opportunities in the future,” he said.