CTIA: Lucent buys Mobilitec

LOS ANGELES--Lucent Technologies is getting into the content hosting space, announcing at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment its plans to acquire content management software firm Mobilitec for an undisclosed amount of cash.

Mobilitec develops the software and baseline platform that powers carriers’ and content providers’ content businesses, spanning both broadband wireline and 3G wireless networks. While it provides the core technology, it does not have the scale to offer hosted services, which is increasingly what smaller carriers and media companies are demanding, Mobilitec officials said.

That’s where Lucent comes in, said Sandip Mukerjee, Lucent Bell Labs vice president. Lucent can provide the scale, expertise and resources to turn Mobilitec’s platform into fully hosted solutions ranging from video to music delivery to content management and billing, Mukerjee said. And Lucent gains a critical element in not just mobile content delivery, but one that spans wireless and wireline, fitting in perfectly with Lucent’s IP multimedia subsystem strategy, Mukerjee said.