UPDATED: Oracle today said it has created a service delivery platform
(SDP) to make
it easier for vendors in the telecommunications space to offer Voice over IP
(VoIP), mobile and multimedia applications.
The Oracle SDP was designed to help service providers, network operators and
systems integrators move from inflexible, “silo-based networks” to a more
modern service-oriented architecture (SOA)
legacy systems.
Oracle President Chuck Phillips said on a conference call that SDP arrives at a
time when the telco industry is under a lot of competitive pressure. He added that networks are converging around IP networks so that wireless and
wireline are converging from the same companies so “everybody’s getting into
everybody else’s business.”
“Customer retention is an issue,” Phillips said. “It’s become easier for the
consumer to switch services. The premium pricing telcos used to enjoy on the
voice side is going away. They have to introduce new services, and to do that
you have to be able to provision quickly.”
The idea is to cut the time and cost to set up new voice data and integrated
multimedia services on current and future
IP networks, Phillips said.
To wit, Oracle SDP supports IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS),
Internet-based communications, with its SIP
and proxy registrar.
These components were acquired through Oracle’s recent HotSIP
acquisition.
The new offering also supports carrier legacy software based on Java API
Parlay X Web Services standards, thanks to technology acquired through its
purchase of Net4Call.
Phillips said HotSIP and Net4Call give Oracle SDP the technology customers
need to accelerate the development of telecommunications networks that
employ new and legacy technologies based on standards.
“The emergence of Voice over IP, multimedia and SIP, the pressure to roll
these capabilities out quickly, is there today; it’s not something that’s
going to take three to five years,” Phillips said. “There is competition
increasing as we speak.”
Oracle SDP is running now on several customers’ networks.
SDP will eventually feature call control and charging once the company
integrates its purchase
of Portal Software, which makes a billing and revenue management system for
IMS and legacy networks.
Oracle believes the move is a natural one because, as Phillips claimed, the
company sells technology and applications to over 90 percent of
communications companies in the world today. Nine of the top mobile
operators use Oracle’s database while 17 of the top 20 communications
companies use Oracle applications.
Oracle is also looking to up the ante with what Oracle Senior Vice President
Thomas Kurian said is a more complete offering than those from rival
providers BEA Systems and IBM.
BEA got a jump on IBM and Oracle last year with its WebLogic
Communications Platform.
Earlier this month, IBM unleashed a new version of WebSphere Application Server with SIP support.
