CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
6 October 2008
Acquisitions
Convergys Accelerates Investment in BSS/OSS through Acquisition of Ceon Corporation
Convergys Corporation, a global leader in relationship management, announced it is expanding the breadth of its Business/Operations Support Systems (BSS/OSS) solutions available to clients through the acquisition of Ceon Corporation, a leader in the development of product lifecycle management and multi-play fulfillment software for communications service providers.
The new capabilities, delivered as Convergys Enterprise Product Management Solutions, enable Convergys clients to more effectively manage their entire product lifecycle across all network domains, shortening time to market for new convergent offers, improving quality, and reducing the costs associated with managing a large product portfolio. Convergys continues to enhance its capabilities to enable service providers to better construct, manage, and deploy a layered catalog that includes the full technical and commercial definition of products and services.
“As service providers launch new convergent services to differentiate themselves from their competitors, their product management requirements become increasingly complex,” said Bob Lento, president of Information Management for Convergys. “Ceon’s product management assets are at the heart of our strategy to help our clients more effectively manage new and advanced value-added services, introduce these services quickly, and evolve these new offers at market speed.”
Telecom operators, such as ice.net (formerly known as Nordisk Mobiltelefon), are successfully leveraging the product lifecycle management solution to more rapidly launch new products, and streamline ordering and fulfillment processes for their clients.
“Ceon Product Control Center is enabling us to rapidly define and launch new offerings, in some cases in a matter of hours,” said Thomas Norberg, CIO of ice.net. “The product modeling approach, the integration facilities, and the alignment of the system with our standards-based systems architecture have allowed us to complete the initial deployment and integration of the system within months.”
Ceon, a privately held company founded in 1999, maintains a principal office in Redwood City, California, with satellite offices in France and the UK. Last January, Convergys and Ceon announced a strategic alliance for which Convergys issued convertible debt with the right to acquire the company. Convergys expects this small but strategic acquisition to be accretive beginning 2009 on a GAAP basis.
Convergys consulting, professional services, and technology drive true convergence while enabling operators to evolve their BSS/OSS environments with minimal risk. Built on a modular architecture, Infinys [r] software provides unsurpassed scalability, flexibility, investment protection, and support. Using a broad range of consulting and professional services, as well as Infinys, Convergys clients - ranging from mobile to wireline to cable and satellite service providers - have the capability for rapid market innovation via their bundling of convergent voice, video, and data content for their residential and business customers.
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