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On one hand, you have mega-companies who have a broad functional OSS/BSS product footprint with a strong telecom focus – but making a deal with them is a little like making a deal with the devil: it might feel good at the time, but you will probably regret it later. There’s nothing wrong with their products. In fact, their solutions are best-of-suite products that have been tailor-made for CSPs. Companies like Huawei not only try to encompass OSS/BSS solutions, but hardware too. Entrusting so many fundamental pieces of the OSS/BSS architecture and CSP operations to a single solution provider (and their roadmap) can cause a cold-sweat to form on the back of even the most battle-worn CSPs.

On the other hand, you have a group of CRM applications that are primarily frameworks. Again, rugged, top-tier solutions that are world-class, and carrier-grade products, but the degree of customization required, the implementation costs, implementation process, timeframe, and total cost of ownership (TCO) are daunting to say the least. Often analogized as the Rolls Royce of OSS/BSS solutions, these tend to come with an equitable price tag.



Both the mega-company providers and mega-framework providers require a significant IT transformation project for CSPs to optimize the return on their investment (ROI) for their solutions. And, while both types of companies embrace interoperability standards, it seems to be so that acquired products can be easily integrated with their portfolio of products; or at least that’s where the ROI is optimized.