Amdocs

Peace on Earth

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…and mercy mild, all God’s service providers and enterprise IT shops reconciled.

To be sure, there is plenty of disharmony and cutthroat competition in the networking, software and telecommunications industries–and in all industries–and unless our Creator were to suddenly begin to endow us all with a quite different set of characteristics, it will always be thus. Yet especially during this holiday season it is encouraging to see groups that have previously been best characterized as “warring factions” learning from each other and (dare I say it) working together. Continue reading

The Sigma question in Ceon lights

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While some of the largest players such as IBM and Accenture have provided a service delivery platform or two (IBM for Sprint and India’s Bharti Airtel, Accenture for Turkcell), a strike force of small independent software vendors (ISVs) has been crafting and deploying SDPs for broadband operators. And some of IBM and Accenture’s fellow heavyweights not only have taken notice but have taken out their checkbooks to bring some of that upstart-developed goodness home for the holidays. Continue reading

“All Play”: Sigma’s got it, service providers need it…and Amdocs wants to come out to play

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Cable MSOs and other broadband providers need to continue growing revenues and boosting profitability to keep investors and other stakeholders happy as they sink resources into new service offerings and try to become everyone’s “friend in the digital age.” Meanwhile, Verizon is working to transform itself from a ‘telco’ into a communications and entertainment company-a model being replicated across the telecom landscape.

So in what is still thankfully a competitive market, it is counterintuitive that so many continue to manage their service offerings in the least efficient, highest-cost ways and place themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Continue reading

NEC looks to crack the B/OSS code

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As reported in Billing & OSS World by Editor in Chief Tim McElligott, NEC is acquiring NetCracker for about $300 million. And as Tim said, “Given the fate of mid-tier independent software vendors over the last three years – those at the $100 million mark or more – it was a matter of when, not if” Waltham, Mass.-based NetCracker would be acquired. Another great friend and colleague in this business, Elisabeth Rainge, program director of network software at IDC, accurately assessed the deal as having far more to do with the alliance between Alcatel-Lucent and the Cramer division of Amdocs or ALU’s acquisition of Motive than it does the acquisitions of similarly sized competitors such as Granite Systems by Telcordia, MetaSolv by Oracle or Syndesis by Subex.

Absolutely. This deal is another example of a company that has made its mark mainly through equipment and services acquiring a B/OSS leader to stop missing out on major network equipment contracts because it brings no OSS to the table. Continue reading

An OSS Observation

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When industry observers compile listings of the most influential people in the technology markets, when organizers seek out the captains of computing, the titans of telecom, the biggest of the kahunas to give keynote addresses at industry events, some familiar names often adorn the dais. Bill Gates (alone and sometimes featured with the world’s best-known investor, Warren Buffett). Scott McNealy. John Chambers. The seemingly always-acquisition-minded and occasionally combative Larry Ellison. Pat Russo, longtime top executive at Lucent Technologies who now sits atop global hardware, software and services colossus Alcatel-Lucent. Ed Whitacre, long-standing head of SBC Communications and then at the helm of the reinvigorated AT&T before turning over the keys in mid-2007 to Randall L. Stephenson. Continue reading