Only days after the
announcement that shareowners voting had overwhelmingly approved a merger with French telecom equipment group
Alcatel,
Lucent Technologies has now entered into an agreement to acquire
Mobilitec, a provider of content management software for wireless service providers. The acquisition aims to fortify Lucent’s next-generation platforms that support voice, video, data and multimedia applications, enabling more services for mobile and broadband users.
Lucent will acquire Mobilitec, a privately held company in San Mateo, Calif., in a cash transaction. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to close by Dec. 31, 2006. Financial terms are not being disclosed at this time.
Lucent plans to integrate the Mobilitec solution, which enhances Lucent’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (
News -
Alert) (IMS) and Mobility (3G) portfolios, with Lucent’s application products to enable intelligent, personalized context-aware content delivery and targeted advertising. This will make it possible for service providers to offer special promotions on their Web storefronts that are personalized based on content, profiles, preferences, location and availability. In addition, these promotions can be targeted by device or user segment, and sent to friends through buddy lists to support viral marketing. Lucent’s integrated solution will accelerate the service provider’s ability to respond to the growing market opportunity.
According to Pyramid Research, the global market for mobile content services is expected to reach $73 billion by 2010. This market estimate includes services and applications such as ring tones, games, information, music, video and graphics but excludes messaging and remote access.
According to Sandip Mukerjee, vice president, Lucent Technologies (
News -
Alert) Applications Solutions, “Adding Mobilitec to our team will strengthen our portfolio and enable us to offer our customers a proven solution for a growing market. Mobilitec has already sold its platform to 20 customers with a base of more than 300 million subscribers.”
Mobilitec customers include Vodafone, Orange Israel and M1 and the company has 70 employees worldwide, including research and development operations in Israel. The Mobilitec mPower product provides a single platform that supports all content and media types, such as firewall and security software, ring tones, games, music and videos, enabling operators to maximize content revenues while increasing operational efficiencies.
The Mobilitec platform manages the complete content life cycle by offering software for processing submissions from a content provider, content management in catalogs, digital rights management, rendering to ensure content is formatted for the subscriber’s wireless device, a Web-style page that can serve as the carrier’s “storefront,” and a delivery mechanism.
Mobilitec’s mPower product will be marketed as part of Lucent’s applications portfolio and service delivery platform (SDP). Lucent’s SDP enables the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia applications and blended lifestyle services over wireless and wireline networks.
IP Multimedia Subsystems, a way to bridge the circuit-switched technology of yesteryear to the packet-switched realm of tomorrow, represents the lifeblood for service providers today. And the best way to understand all of the implications of this next-generation enabling technology is to make the IMS Expo a must-attend event, collocated at INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo, WEST, which runs October 10-13, 2006, in San Diego.
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Cindy Waxer is a Toronto-based freelance journalist specializing in business and technology. She has written for publications including TIME, Fortune Small Business, Business 2.0, Computerworld, Canadian Business, and Workforce Management. To see more of her articles, please visit Cindy Waxer’s columnist page.
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