Microsoft Pulls the Plug on Next-Gen SDP Effort

Another Strike for Telco 2.0

The telecom industry in the past few years has been high on the idea of leveraging Web services and IP technology to get new services to market more quickly. But, as it turns out, this whole Telco 2.0 thing is harder than most folks envisioned. One indicator of the challenges on this front is the news that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which has been among the IT companies leading the next-generation service delivery platform (SDP) charge, recently pulled the plug on its Connected Services Framework effort.

Connected Services Framework is software that allows telecommunications operators to aggregate, provision and manage converged communications services for their subscribers, regardless of network or device. The company in the past has said that the Connected Services Framework has been selected by more than two dozen operators around the world — including AT&T Inc. —  as the foundation for delivering a variety of Microsoft, operator-developed and third-party applications and services.

However, according to reports this week, Microsoft has told service providers it’s taking the Connected Services Framework off the market and will cease work on the effort. Why? Apparently, it required more customization and systems integration than initially expected.

Service providers already using Connected Services Framework will be able to continue delivering their services based on the platform, according to Microsoft, which added that its SI partners will continue support for those customers and their applications until they are ready to move to new platforms.

Should Connected Services Framework customers elect to get a next-generation SDP from another vendor, it appears they’ll still have plenty of choices. In addition to Microsoft, other IT companies, including BEA Systems Inc., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp., as well as traditional telecom equipment vendors, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, have been pushing next-generation SDPs as a way to enable service providers to more easily, and affordably, deliver innovative services by themselves, or in collaboration with third-party application developers.

In a study released last summer by Infonetics Research, the firm forecast that the SDP market, including software and integration services, would hit $3.5 billion in 2010.

The idea of SDP seems to go hand-in-hand with IMS, another widely hyped but murky and now much-maligned concept. As with the IMS camp, SDP proponents have talked about the need to abstract the services layer from the network layer. SDP solutions, however, tend to employ Web Services to avail service provider networks to the applications of third parties.

In a March 2007 study called “Service Delivery Platform Success Requires a Strategy Vision and Corporate Collaboration,” Michele Pelino, a senior analyst with Forrester Research Inc., says an SDP must include:

• A service creation environment that gives developers tools (like software, scripts and APIs to network services like presence, location and messaging) for quickly creating new applications
• A service execution environment (including gateway servers like Parlay to enable applications and service to be delivered to multiple devices based on specific requirements, and the ability to interface with BSSs and OSSs)
• Service management capabilities to ensure reliability and customer care

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines

Read Comments [1]