CMS builds an OSS portfolio with Astracon asset acquisition

In its second acquisition of the summer, CMS Communications announced the purchase of activation and connection management vendor Astracon’s software assets. CMS bought Softalia's element management system assets in June.

CMS bought but may not use all three Astracon products: RetailConnect, an activation solution for DSL; Wholesale Connect for transport service such as ATM; and BusinessConnect for IP connectivity.

Astracon at one point had signed a large activation deal with Verizon and had OEM agreements with Telcordia Technologies, Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems. Telcordia has since dropped out of their agreement. “We started conversations to transition and re-establish these relationships,” said John Cullen, president and CEO of CMS. “I can’t say how they are going, but it is an ongoing effort.”

Also ongoing is CMS’ strategy to build, mostly through acquisition, a full suite of products around network management, network assurance, provisioning and activation for both legacy and IP-based networks.

“It is not going to slow down. We are just getting started,” Cullen said. “Our management team has had lots of experience I mergers and acquisitions and in integrating an operating unit.”

CMS has retained a handful of Astracon employees on a consulting basis to help transition the product and product literature. Cullen said he hopes to retain them long-term as well as some additional personnel.

The Astracon acquisition fit into the CMS strategy for acquiring software and assets that were either divested by hardware manufacturers that developed them, are the intellectual property of carriers who developed them for their own use, or created by venture-backed startup companies whose investors have lost interest.

Astracon had attracted approximately $47 million in three rounds of funding. “They had built and excellent product in the provisioning and activation space for the IP segment,” Cullen said. “Unfortunately when the bottom dropped out of the market, the venture guys realized they were never going to get the return they anticipated.”

Cullen said his company is not bound by the return-on-investment cycles of venture capitalists. “Based on our structure and cash flow, we can take this product to the marketplace Astracon originally intended it to get to--but on our timetable.”