Transverse tries open-source route for OSS

It’s a universal complaint: OSS/BSS platform deployments and upgrades are too expensive and take too long to implement.

Transverse, a new company led by executives with deep roots in the traditional telco back-office business, says they are addressing those problems head-on with a new telecom operational support system developed and released as an open source platform.

Transverse officially launched last week and unveiled its first product, the Business Logic Execution Environment and Platform – or “bleep” – today. The vendor cites faster time-to-market, better architectural support for new media and Web 2.0-style technologies and a drastic improvement in return on investment thanks to open-source economics as the key selling points for its new platform. Transverse is out of the gate with two customers: CrossRoads Wireless, a white-space spectrum operator, and Spectrum Five Direct Broadcast Satellite, a next-generation DBS player.

The bleep system represents “a fourth generation technology refresh” for telco back-office systems, which started decades ago as custom, Cobol-built monoliths, moved onto more flexible client-server architectures in the 1980s, added Java and Web components more recently and are now focused on even more flexible service oriented architectures (SOAs), said Chris Couch, Transverse chief operating officer.

Transverse is taking on very established OSS players such as Amdocs, Convergys, Oracle and others with its open-source OSS play.

“We think of ourselves as the first-ever carrier-friendly OSS platform – we’re open-source, transparent and break down the barriers to rapidly introducing new services,” said Couch. “This is not just about cheaper software but fundamentally adjusting the cost model for [service provider] IT infrastructure.”

Open-source software and more standards-based IT hardware has lately been making a much bigger dent within service providers. The Apache Web server and MySQL database have been used by telcos and their vendors to cut the core software costs of many carrier platforms. At the NXTComm show earlier this year, Sun Chairman Scott McNealy touted a new telco-ready version of MySQL by challenging carriers with the question: “Why are you still buying software?”