Boston, MA - September 26, 2005 -- The latest Wireless Enterprise Strategies report from Strategy Analytics, "Benchmarking Enterprise Solutions in Western Europe," scores mobile operators in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, across six critical benchmarks for success in the wireless solutions space. This report concludes that while the mature IT capabilities and fixed network assets of incumbent PTT's make their mobile arms the preferred providers of complex wireless solutions, these advantages can seldom be replicated outside of their home markets - effectively relegating them to mobile-only status. However, the study also finds that with scale and proper execution, international, mobile-only operators, best exemplified by Vodafone, frequently deliver greater overall value to enterprises than national incumbents, when IT credentials are offset by price, CRM, network quality and the breadth of devices and applications offered.

While the relatively poor benchmark performance of many smaller operators leads to questions about the competitiveness of their wireless solutions, this study underscores opportunities that they may enjoy as MVNO hosts, should they open up their networks to a broad field of IT and telecom players now eyeing a wireless play.

"Representing 18 percent of mobile subscribers, but 43 percent of service revenues, the enterprise segment definitely punches above its weight," notes Antoine Mathiaud, Senior Analyst and author of the report. "Success with enterprises in both voice and data will increasingly be coupled with the ability to offer a total solutions approach. Our recommendation to smaller 3rd and 4th tier participants in this space, is to evade the profit drain zone by aggressively courting `wireless-less' telco's and IT providers via partnering or MVNO linkages."

"While T-Mobile has an unsurpassed device lineup in Germany and is poised to be the convergence leader across Europe with its extensive footprint of WLAN hotspots, Orange gets top marks in terms of the sheer range of application choices it offers in the UK," added Cliff Raskind, Director, Wireless Enterprise Strategies. "Internationally, however, both have been unable to mimic their original domestic strengths abroad to match Vodafone. Vodafone's consistently above-par, though often not top-ranked, performance across multiple domains makes for a well balanced overall value proposition."