MIAMI-As part of its ongoing strategy to move beyond its legacy heritage in providing operation support systems solutions, Telcordia Technologies Inc. announced two partnerships and spelled out its business plans going forward.
Telcordia and Accenture last week announced a strategic alliance where systems integrator Accenture plans to incorporate Telcordia’s OSS applications into Accenture Communications Solutions, the largest segment of Accenture’s business. In addition, the two companies plan to offer their solutions as preferred products when possible.
Telcordia also said it is teaming with a little-known enhanced location-based services company called NorBelle, which is a GPS engineering firm offering a service called Cearch. In a nutshell, the service makes GPS and other location technologies more accurate, said Pat Mulhearn, president and chief executive officer of NorBelle. The company’s application can pinpoint a GPS offering down to between 20 and 30 feet, said Telcordia’s Mike Henderson, president of Global Solutions.
As mobile virtual network operators come to market, Telcordia aims to offer them opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competition with enabling applications like location-based services, said Telcordia CEO Dan Carroll. While the MVNOs will likely focus on how they plan to use location-based services, Telcordia said it will provide the piece that enables them to offer the service.
The company has been successful in the fledgling MVNO space, counting 11 MVNO contracts. Most recently, Telcordia announced it would host MVNO services for Disney Mobile and Flying J Communications.
These contracts underscore how Telcordia is moving beyond its traditional role as a legacy OSS provider to the regional Bell operating companies into other areas, Carroll said. Indeed, for the first time, the privately held company in 2005 counted more than 50 percent of its sales from non-RBOCs.
Telcordia, once a part of Science Applications International Corp., was sold to two private-equity firms in 2005 for $1.3 billion. Carroll came on board in September to run the company, replacing former CEO Matt Desch. The company announced a new management team in January. Key objectives for Telcordia include being No. 1 or No. 2 in the areas where it competes, continuing to invest in its hosted solutions business and Maestro products and partner with third-party providers like Accenture when it makes sense to do so, Carroll said. “We can provide our rich technical piece and they provide how the business processes come together.”
As part of the Accenture partnership, Accenture was awarded a multi-year application outsourcing contract to provide Telcordia with applications development support service. As such, Accenture plans to spend several million dollars during the next five years to integrate Telcordia architectures into Accenture’s business suites, said Andy Zimmerman, a partner in the Communications Client Group at Accenture.
