TELEMANAGEMENT WORLD:Panic is no Panacea

LAS VEGAS--Like an Academy Award runner-up who claims to be thrilled just to be nominated, attendees and exhibitors at this week's TeleManagement World seemed to feel a certain sense of accomplishment just to be at the event rather than bankrupt or obsolete.

Thankfully, that didn't last long. While survival is the order of the day in the operations software sector and will continue to be for many months to come, signs of the competitive spirit and necessary irritant of discontent that motivates business innovation began to appear at last week's show. Even a grumbling about different interpretations of the Forum's Next-Generation OSS initiative heard just below the surface of the event's Catalyst project demonstrations was a sign of healthy rivalry. 

Despite the industry pratfall made worse by the incessantly weakening economy, new players joined the OSS software market. One was Italy's Sodalia--a subsidiary of Telecom Italia and one of few best-of-suite OSS providers with implementations some analysts say rival Telcordia's in scale--which launched its NetOSS portfolio into the North American market. Sybase, meanwhile, expanded its presence in the OSS sector with new e-business solutions. 

While attendance at TeleManagement World was approximately 40% lower than recent shows, it appeared to be an acceptable turnout given the circumstances. Most vendors who didn't exhibit at least had a presence. 

The most important change, however, was not in attendance or product launches, but in the sense of urgency to produce that is now understood by the entire OSS market segment. May it last beyond the recovery.