Neustar launches new intelligent cloud service

Neustar has introduced a new intelligent cloud service intended to provide a single, cloud-based meeting place for content providers, application developers and mobile operators seeking to collaborate.

The hosted service, aimed primarily at the mobile developer community, is designed to streamline communications, network features and billing across operators. Participating mobile operators are able to securely publish standard application programming interfaces (APIs) and other information to the mobile cloud.

“We’ve identified a gap in the market for mobile application development,” said Jean Foster, VP of marketing for the carrier services division of Neustar. “If you’re a developer bringing a new application to market, it’s a complex environment.

We saw a play for us to develop a solution that gives developers a platform and access to all the operators’ data in one location.”

Neustar started with the mobile marketplace, Foster said, because of the number of customers the company already had in that space. “Our value proposition for them is to simplify their lives,” she said.

The Neustar Intelligent Cloud will offer a range of services for developers, including mobile intelligence services to help with the integration of location, presence and other network information; cross-operator services to enable delivery of SMS and MMS messaging and billing; and privacy management tools for enabling customer opt-in, location privacy notice and other regulatory requirements.

An environment like Neustar’s should be especially beneficial to smaller content providers and app developers that may not have the resources to develop one-on-one relationships and agreements with multiple operators. Ten companies are currently trialing the service, Foster said.