Motive Marks Strategic Triple-Play Interoperability Milestone

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 12, 2006 -

As the broadband industry’s leading advocate of device agnostic software, Motive Inc. today announced its Home Device Manager (HDM) product is now interoperable with 33 customer premises equipment (CPE) vendors, including IP set-tops from Motorola, Inc. The support for these additional CPE devices demonstrates how Motive can help service providers deliver seamless triple-play services including voice, high-speed Internet and television services.

Advancing its digital home strategy, Motive announced that ten additional industry leaders are now interoperable with the HDM solution. The new partners are: Askey, BeWAN, Billion Electric, Kenati Technologies, LAKE Communications, Tilgin, Ubicom, UTStarcom, XAVI and Motorola.

Adding IPTV set-tops to the MotiveSmart Verification Program underscores Motive’s larger role in helping its vendor partners deliver the triple-play bundle to consumers. According to research by The Diffusion Group, by 2010 close to 40 million households globally will subscribe to IPTV services, each requiring CPE capable of supporting a variety of digital services.

“With traditional video and voice operators migrating to multiple-service platforms, the need for robust, interoperable multi-service device management software is paramount,” noted Michael Greeson, founding partner and principal analyst with The Diffusion Group. “Operators are looking for multi-service CPE that is interoperable with other aspects of their network. The Motive HDM solution, combined with verified CPE from Motive’s partners, collectively provides operators with a future-proofed environment without adding complexities to service management.”

Motive HDM is the company’s remote device management solution, based on the DSL Forum’s TR-069 standard. Since it became available in 2005, 14 service providers worldwide, including BT, have selected Motive HDM to manage their next-generation broadband services.

Today, many of the world’s top CPE vendors and technology manufacturers participate in the MotiveSmart™ Verification Program, an initiative that ensures Motive and its partners work together to build the standards-based functionality into devices that support the remote management of digital home services. Once vendors are interoperable with Motive’s software, service providers can use this equipment to more quickly and cost-effectively deploy triple-play services. These vendors now total 33, including previously-announced partners such as: 2Wire, 3Com, Actiontec, Broadcom, Centillium, Conexant, D-Link, Gatespace, Huawei, Jungo, Linksys, NETGEAR, Netopia, Philips, Siemens, SMC Networks, Telsey, Texas Instruments, Thomson, Westell, Zhone Technologies, ZTE and ZyXel Communications.

“Westell has been a Motive partner for more than five years, and we have found interoperability with Motive to be a competitive differentiator,” said Scott Voegele, Westell’s director of product management. “Motive understands the key role that management technology plays in accelerating the roll out of new services in this dynamic market. The MotiveSmart Verification Program advances our ability to close deals with leading broadband service providers.”

The breadth of Motive’s CPE program is a core selling strength for the company among global providers. “Often, when broadband service providers see the literal ‘who’s who’ of technology giants that we’re partnering with, they select Motive,” says Bruno Tueber, Motive’s vice president of sales, EMEA, APAC, and worldwide channels. “Interoperability with Motive Home Device Manager ensures that service providers that select any of Motive’s CPE partners can enable the seamless roll out of new triple-play services.”