Leading Lights Finalists 2015: Best New Product (Mobile)

The Best New Mobile Product category is always a crowded one for Leading Lights.

This year is no different: Our finalists address some of the major trends shaping mobile networks, devices and users today, including everything from video optimization to early moves in mobile virtualization to device security.

AT&T Inc. -- UC Federation
A unified communications offering developed in AT&T Labs , the UC Federation lets employees, partners and suppliers work together across different networks and platforms. The system supports messaging platforms such as Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) Jabber and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Lync.

The platform lets companies set levels about who can communicate with who at the company, group or user level. The cloud-based system costs $4.99 a month per user.

• AT&T Federates UC Networks for Cross-Platform Collaboration

Brocade Communications Systems Inc. -- Virtual Core for Mobile
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD)'s virtual mobile networking product derives from its acquisition of Connectem this year. Brocade bought in LTE virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) technology.

The software already has telco customers like Telekom Austria AG (NYSE: TKA; Vienna: TKA) and gives Broacade the chops to take on vEPC vendors like Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC).

• Brocade to Acquire Connectem for Virtual Mobile Networking

Comverse -- RCS API Gateway
Comverse Inc. (Nasdaq: CNSI) is positioning this gateway as a carrier's answer to over-the-top (OTT) services that ride on the network circumventing the service provider. The gateway allows third parties to write applications that provide messaging, chat and other services through the Rich Communications Services (RCS) while actually making money for the service provider.

Mobolize -- Mobolize
Mobolize is software that resides on the end user's device and can be controlled via the cloud by the operator. It monitors all the HTTP traffic from mobile sites that arrives at the device. This means that it be used for content compression, caching and video optimization. Security applications are also enabled by the software -- the program can tell if a phone is connecting to an unsecured WiFi hotspot and encrypt the data that the user is transmitting to protect it.

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Tonight is our Leading Lights celebration where we will recognize the top companies and their executives for their outstanding achievements and have a generally fantastic time with hundreds of industry colleagues. Join us, and check back to find out the winners!

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Procera Networks Inc. -- RAN Perspectives
Procera Networks 's RAN Perspectives system attempts to do away with costly network probes while allowing operators more insights into how their radio networks work. RAN Perspectives allows the operator to update a phone's SIM card over the air so that it can act like a network probe. The SIM can send updates on radio coverage, signal quality and location to the operator.

Qwilt -- Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric
Qwilt Inc. is trying to address one of the major and growing pain points for mobile operators: Wirelessly delivering video well and in a reliable manner.

The Mobile Video Fabric is an SDN-based software platform that reduces network latency and helps to improves throughput, congestion and latency. The startup says that the software can support both video-on-demand (VOD) and live video content on mobile networks.

The Leading Lights 2015 winners and newest class of Hall of Fame inductees will be unveiled at the Leading Lights awards dinner, which will be held tonight, Monday, June 8, at Chicago's Field Museum, ahead of Light Reading's Big Telecom Event (BTE), which this year is being held at the McCormick Place Convention Center on June 9 and 10. Details and the agenda are on our show site, Big Telecom Event.

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading