2008: Global Protocols enjoyed record growth and profits again in 2008. This was due in very large part to the U.S. military’s continued commitment to the Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS) the standard in tactical satellite programs. As a vendor of a standardized technology, the Company has always been at the mercy of our customers’ willingness to adhere to the standard.

The SkipWare line of SCPS acceleration products entered the market more than six years ago and Global Protocols gambled that the DoD would adopt and adhere to this standard and that it would become an integral component in large tactical satellite programs for years to come. Fortunately, the gamble paid off. Today, SCPS continues to thrive as a requirement across most DoD satellite systems. It is specified for programs that extend well into 2012 and beyond.

Global Protocols also functions as an ambassador and champion of the SCPS standard. Self-serving though it may be, Global Protocols’ business development activities provide a valuable service by educating and promoting the SCPS standard within the DoD satellite community — an objective shared by many DoD agencies and standards bodies. The SCPS promotion efforts often come in the form of working directly with military evaluation labs and test facilities, participating in major DoD communication exercises, working with program-level engineers, and on several occasions participating directly in the writing of the SCPS requirement for program RFPs. This activity helps to create an ongoing market for our SCPS products. At the same time, this creates unintended opportunities for the competitors, as well. Indeed, today’s SCPS market has grown to the point that it supports multiple vendors of the SCPS standard. This creates a challenge for Global Protocols to maintain their brand awareness and market identity.

Such market challenges are handled in two distinct ways. The first is to make certain the best-performing, most portable and versatile implementation of SCPS available for the DoD market is derived from the Company. The technology must be compatible with the latest in military satcom architectures and modem products.

Global Protocol engineers can usually be found seated in any number of military labs and integrator facilities around the country, consulting on a wide variety of military satellite technologies and advising on the appropriate SCPS integration strategies. Second, through traditional marketing efforts, and our close and continuing relationship with the DoD satellite community, the Company has managed to establish SkipWare as the most recognizable brand in this market segment. The nature of the business obliges Global Protocols to follow the SCPS standard to the letter, but there are clear and distinct differences in the various SCPS implementations available today. Educating the customers on how these differences set SkipWare apart from competing brands is a crucial part of the marketing drive — “It’s not just SCPS. It’s SkipWare®.”

2008 saw the continued success of SkipWare-based products in major DoD programs. Some of SkipWare’s premiere DoD accounts includes the DISA STEP and Teleport programs, the U.S. Army JNN/JNTC-S, and the USMC SWAN program. In the past year, SkipWare was also selected for the U.S. Army’s Trojan SPIRIT program and the USMC TDN-Gateway network — both multiyear programs with thousands of users and influence on many other program procurements.

Perhaps the most encouraging developments during 2008 came in the form of the partners and new licensees that Global Protocols was able to sign. Cisco, Inc. and Riverbed, Inc., the two of the most relevant vendors in the WAN optimization market, have partnered with Global Protocols to include SkipWare as the SCPS solution in their acceleration products. Licensing partnerships were also signed with Mission Mobility, LLC and DTECH Labs, Inc., two leading vendors in the man-portable satcom terminal industry.

2009: The award of the aforementioned key military programs, coupled with SkipWare’s continued presence in the DoD’s primary satellite services facilities, led to unprecedented growth for the Company in 2008 and has positioned Global Protocols extremely well for continued opportunities in 2009 and beyond. There are several new partnerships and licensees currently under negotiation that should come to fruition in early 2009.

The Company intends to ride the momentum of 2008 into 2009, as more products are introduced within the SkipWare line. Global Protocols will move into new and previously untouched satellite markets as well as debut new, expanded rosters of SkipWare licensees.

Global Protocols has been encouraged by the flurry of market activity around the Company’s technology in the past year, and the strong position assumed in this industry. Expect to see some exciting announcements from Global Protocols in 2009, as well as the continued expansion of the family of SkipWare-based products that power our military’s satellite networks.

About the author
Nick Yuran is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Global Protocols, Inc. As a founding member of the company, Nick has worked to promote SCPS and other standards through DoD. His focus is on interoperability in tactical systems. Prior to joining Global Protocols, Nick served as a telecommunication analyst for various U.S. intelligence agencies. He possesses a BA in Slavic Languages from the University of Arizona as well as a MS in Telecommunication from George Washington University.

About the company
Global Protocols, Inc. is a protocol engineering firm specializing in the development and integration of bandwidth efficient, error-tolerant protocol solutions based on the Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS). Comprising many of the industry's foremost experts in the fields of protocol engineering and wireless network architecture, Global Protocols has assembled an elite staff of experts in stressed wireless protocols and wireless network design. Through many years of research and development projects in wireless networking for federal and military customers, Global Protocols has become synonymous with military networking protocols, encompassing satellite, telemetry, WiFi/WiMAX, and hybridized DoD networks. Global Protocols owns many industry firsts with the SCPS-TP standard, including the first commercial software implementation of the standards (SkipWare v. 1.0), the first SCPS-based acceleration platform, and the first SCPS implementation to be specified as a standard for a DoD network (SkipWare v. 2.6). Today, Global Protocols' technology can be found throughout the U.S. military, civilian, and DoD agencies. SkipWare and SCPS-M have the highest install base of SCPS in the US DoD, and are specified for many of the US military's largest programs.