3GSM: Back-office vendors remake strategies/products

CANNES, FRANCE--Back-office software makers Amdocs and Portal Software unveiled new products and ramped up business strategies this week at 3GSM World Congress.

Amdocs announced that it was expanding its portfolio of software and services to include consulting and was partnering with business software giant SAS in an effort to offer a more comprehensive and fine-tuned back-office solution to its carrier customers. Amdocs director of solutions strategy Neil Philpott said Amdocs already does outsourcing work for its CRM, mediation, billing and management products, but has decided to set up a separate consulting group to help carriers set up and run their entire back-office operation.

"For too long software vendors have put out software and gone through the integration process, but haven't shown carriers how to get all the benefits out of their systems," Philpott said. "We've found that many carriers need some business and consulting advice. We can answer the question 'what does a best-in-class billing operation look like?'"

While many carriers turn to consulting firms like Accenture to provide those services, Philpott said Amdocs has an advantage in the sector because of its specialization in telecom systems. "Certainly we know our software better than anyone else, we have 20 years of experience dealing with large providers and we have a sizable outsourcing business," Philpott said.

Portal Software unveiled the latest version of its back-office software, which incorporates real-time revenue analysis into its portfolio of service management tools.

The Portal officials said the new release, called Portal 7, adds intelligent revenue analysis functionality to its already launched generation, capture and collection tools. The package is geared directly at carriers navigating the choppy waters of mobile data, which require a whole new set of time-to-market demands and service creation issues that carriers previously didn't face with voice.

A Portal spokesman said carriers can use the new revenue analysis tools to effectively break down how a new data or voice rollout is deployed and used within a week of a launch, allowing them to tweak or even overhaul the service in reaction to immediate market demands.