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Expectations for Service Delivery Platforms

Infonetics Research predicts that worldwide revenue from service delivery platform (SDP) software and integration services will grow at a 23 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the 5 years from 2007 to 2011.

Their report confirms that while many SDP vendors are struggling to define and position their SDP products, demand for them by mobile and fixed line telecom service providers is escalating rapidly.

SDPs develop, provision, and deploy new subscriber services across wireline and wireless networks by combining discrete services into compound services, reducing the time it takes operators to integrate new services from many months to about 2 weeks, the report says.

"Service delivery platforms are fundamental to a telco's future. Without an upgrade to their service creation and provisioning process, telcos will quickly lose revenue to over-the-top Internet content providers (ICPs) like Google and Yahoo, making their enormous transport and access network upgrades obsolete, said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.

"The demand for SDPs and outsourced integration efforts by major operators worldwide cannot be overstated." However, I wonder if the great expectations for SDPs will translate into new customer experience innovations being realized in the marketplace.

Highlights from the Infonetics study include:

- Fixed-line SDP revenue accounted for 16 percent of total SDP revenue in 2007; mobile SDP revenue accounted for 84 percent.

- North America's share of the SDP market will jump from 16 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2010.

- In the short-term, operators will use SDPs to help streamline the creation and delivery of basic services, including VoIP, ringtones, and steaming video services, and later to create mashups that compete with services offered by Web 2.0 ICPs.

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