NewsgopherNewsgopher searches out the latest press releases so you do not have to. We call him a gopher, but he is really a Richardson's Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus richardsonii). Portugal’s WeDo has once again taken aim at Latin America and announced it will open new offices in Chile and Panama in 2010. This follows the news that WeDo intends to repeat in Latin America the strategy of diversification it has executed in its home country. The strategy means WeDo will sell ‘business assurance’ to the utilities, finance and retail sectors, as well as to communications providers.  At last, we can lift the lid on the worst-kept secret in the RA industry. Israeli vendors ECtel and cVidya have announced they will merge in a deal that will see ECtel shareholders receive a 58% premium on the recent share price (subject to the usual regulatory approval blah blah). You can read more details in the press release. The reason for the merger was best explained with this comment by Yair Cohen, Chairman of ECtel’s Board of Directors:
In other words, forget the hype about endlessly growing markets and how everybody loves/needs/wants more and more revenue assurance. The truth is that competition is cutthroat and only the strongest will survive… Israeli revenue assurance and revenue management vendor ECtel has been warned by Nasdaq that its shares might get delisted. The warning was issued after ECtel’s shares fell below the minimum $1 per share threshold for 30 consecutive days. ECtel is not alone; reports say that Nasdaq warned five Israeli businesses battling against depressed share prices. But ECtel might still maintain their listing. At the market close on Friday, ECtel shares were worth USD1.02. The balance of trades was just enough to lift ECtel above the threshold, but a quick look at the history of prices over the last month shows ECtel to be dancing around the $1 mark. Now might be a good time for ECtel to use some of its cash pile to buy back shares and drive up the price of the shares that remain on the market. As an alternative, ECtel may simply merge shares, reducing the number in circulation but proportionately increasing their face value. What should two revenue assurance vendors do when one is popular in the North American market but struggles to get out, and the other is popular elsewhere but struggles to get into North America? They should do a deal. That is what ATS and WeDo have just done. You can read the (slightly rearranged) press releases from WeDo here and from ATS here. Without knowing the details, the deal should be a straightforward win-win which gives both vendors many opportunities to introduce their respective offerings to new customers. The match of WeDo and ATS product offerings is good although not perfect. ATS is a niche provider nearing saturation of the US market, whilst WeDo tries to offer a full RA product suite. SimCall, used to automatically validate switch logic, is the most popular product from ATS and should complement WeDo’s product offerings. On the other hand, ATS also sells Amadeus, a CDR analysis tool, which appears to compete with WeDo’s portfolio. SimCall is an undersold tool in global terms, partly because the market for it has not been grown through effective competition, meaning not many telcos have identified the benefit to be gained by an automated audit of switch translation. The deal should also help ATS to adapt SimCall to the different switch implementations found outside of the North America. WeDo, in contrast, is one of several full-suite vendors fighting to make headway in North America, which has historically been a difficult market for RA software. Headquartered in Portugal, WeDo used to underperform in English-speaking markets. WeDo’s 2007 purchases of Irish vendor Cape, and of British consultancy Praesidium was partly intended to address this, although there are more barriers to the North American market than simply speaking English. Some of WeDo’s rivals are currently paying a premium to establish their North American presence. It makes good sense to form a partnership with ATS, a business which has grown organically since it was founded in 1995 and has built a solid reputation in its domestic market. Subex has officially launched their ‘asset assurance’ solution. This uses network asset discovery to recover stranded assets and reconcile inventory to costs and revenues. Linking asset management to data integrity enables Subex to hybridize the capabilities in both halves of their business: the OSS/service activation wing formerly known as Syndesis, and Subex’s longer-established revenue management division. It has been revealed that slack controls over customer data allowed eight people to obtain US$22m worth of equipment from AT&T and T-Mobile US, without paying a cent. The fraudsters stole the identity of customers, ordered equipment in their names, had the delivery of the equipment redirected to themselves, then sold the equipment for a profit. The eight people have now been charged by US federal prosecutors. You can read the story at the Wall Street Journal and The Register. |
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