NeuStar puts its powerhouse in order with NightFire buy

In a bid to become a force in service management by way of its clearinghouse business model, Sterling, Va.,-based NeuStar, the Lockheed Martin spin-off currently managing the Number Portability Administration Center and administering the North American Numbering Plan, announced today its acquisition of NightFire Software.

The acquisition was completed on August 22, but announced today. No terms of the acquisition have been released.

NightFire is the second acquisition for NeuStar this year. The company acquired BizTelOne in January and began offering its access service request and local service request solutions on a transaction basis. The ASRexpress and LSRexpress services will now be run on the NightFire platform.

NeuStar made its reputation as a trusted third-party provider of information transactions between competing parties. In addition to its NPAC and NANPA roles, NeuStar has run the customer account record exchange (CARE) clearinghouse since 1991 as well as acting as the number pooling administrator. Its strategy is to define the clearinghouse model for OSS.

“Wherever there are information inter-exchange requirements between natural competitors there is a natural sweet spot for NeuStar’s service management offerings,” said John Malone, senior vice president of OSS services at NeuStar and former CEO and co-founder of BizTelOne.

NightFire offered its service management software as both a licensed and hosted solution, but according to Venkates Swaminathan, founder and chief strategist for NightFire and now senior vice president and chief strategist for OSS services at NeuStar, the future for these solutions is the clearinghouse.

“The old model of how service providers purchase these systems—by buying expensive software and installing it at their site and spending months getting it to operate--doesn’t work anymore,” said Swaminathan. “And it doesn’t address the needs of the industry.”

Swaminathan sees it as an opportunity to change the rules of the OSS game and create “a powerhouse player” in a new segment of OSS that better addresses those needs: a low-cost, low-maintenance clearinghouse.

Malone added that the acquisition recasts the OSS strategy of the company from one focused on service order processing to one of service management, which will include service assurance and revenue assurance solutions.

To develop this powerhouse, NeuStar will be taking on the majority of NightFire employees, including the development team. NightFire’s West Coast software development center will become the overall OSS development center for NeuStar. NightFire CEO Gerard Rudisin will leave the company along with some of his financial team.

NightFire interconnection gateways are currently running in 14 carrier environments, including several Tier 1 providers. While Malone said his company hit a trifecta in acquiring NightFire because of the company’s knowledge base, customer base and little overlap in technology, NeuStar nonetheless remains in acquisition mode and will be looking to grow its service management portfolio.