|
|
download & go
|
Will OSS Consolidation Benefit Carriers? (cont'd)
Time to Play Pipeline's “Acquirer or Acquired?”
Shira Levine, Senior Analyst, Stratecast
Brett Azuma, Executive Vice President Research and Strategy, RHK
Pipeline challenged two experienced OSS analysts to name each of five companies among the acquirers, the acquired or neither and to give us their reasons why. Pipeline picked the five companies based on questions we had about each company's exact role the OSS sector's future. Here's what our experts had to say. You can let us know if you agree by emailing Ed Finegold, Editor-in-Chief, at efinegold@pipelinepub.com . |
| Shira Levine, Stratecast |
Company |
Brett Azuma, RHK |
| Acquirer. Amdocs is definitely an acquirer. It's sitting on a lot of money, and has attempted OSS acquisitions before. Getting into new areas means bringing in a skill set that they don't have right now. The question is whether what they acquire will really help their business. |
Amdocs |
Acquirer . They've shown a propensity to be an acquirer. But what can they do to broaden beyond their core as a billing company that will be financially attractive? They've got a nice market now, and the OSS business isn't all that healthy. |
| Acquired ...but I answer cautiously. I don't see them being appealing for another ISV because they've had so much trouble with integration. Their product line is not well rationalized…and it can make them less appealing as an acquisition target. |
MetaSolv Software |
Acquired. MetaSolv is not an obvious company to be acquired, but it has some very attractive assets. It's not only a software company, but an SI also. They have footprint outside the US market, a market cap just shy of $100 million... when I look at Telcordia, I they could be a decent fit. MetaSolv could also continue to be an acquirer because they've got a lot of money. |
| Acquired. I would not be surprised to see them acquired by a network equipment firm. I think that service management capability will be appealing for them. Service management and assurance will be increasingly important to network offerings - consider the OEM relationships Micromuse has with equipment vendors already. |
Micromuse |
Neither. I agree that service assurance requirements for network equipment will continue to increase. But Micromuse has done a good job of diversifying outside of telecom and into enterprise customers. I can see how (equipment vendors) might gain by this, but it's not clear which of their organizations would be able to leverage both Micromuse's telco and enterprise business. |
| Neither . I don't see Syndesis being acquired by another ISV. For the near term I seem them succeeding as a stand-alone niche player. They don't need to do anything in the near future like being acquired. |
Syndesis |
Acquired. Syndesis is still private and their investors will want a return, something over $100 million . The market is horrible for going public and it looks tough in the financial markets for anyone to go public in the next couple of years, particularly a company of this size. They have good relationships with equipment vendors for channel purposes and at face value, they look attractive. |
| Acquired . But my question is who's going to buy them? There was some talk that HP would be interested in buying Cramer and I still think that could be an interesting acquisition for them. |
Cramer Systems |
Acquired. They're prey. I see them being acquired. They've been able to get good press with some of what they've created. Not sure what revenue there is in the near term, but Cramer has good SI channels in Europe . They are just getting established in North America and are not big enough to be sustainable. Though they suggest otherwise, I don't see them being an active acquirer – they don't have the money. |
| It really depends on the SI. I don't think IBM will buy any application companies, for example, but HP might because they have their own applications and close partner relationships. |
Bonus Round:
Will SIs be a force for consolidation in the OSS sector? |
One or two of the potential targets might be attractive to SIs. But will SIs inherently be the ones to do all the roll-ups? I don't think so. I think they want channel relationships and assets, and you don't need to acquire a whole software company for that. Companies like HP and IBM still put a line between software and systems integration, so the leverage is not overly apparent to me. |
«Prev
Next » |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | Subscribe
Send Comment
© 2004, All information contained herein is the sole property of Pipeline Publishing, LLC. Pipeline Publishing LLC reserves all rights and privileges regarding the use of this information. Any unauthorized use, such as copying, modifying, or reprinting, will be prosecuted under the fullest extent under the governing law.
|
 |
