As the long march of consolidation continues in the IP communications industry, Oracle (News - Alert) is one company that has gone on a small buying spree since the beginning of the year.  Meanwhile, GENBAND, once the grand rollup play, hasn’t made a purchase in some time, instead concentrating on delivering services and broadening its existing relationships and product lines. Are the two companies headed towards a showdown?

A few years ago, Huawei (News - Alert) was big on GENBAND’s radar. GENBAND was at the height of its acquisition streak and had significant product overlap with Huawei during the days when hardware was king. 

Today is the era of software and services for IP communications – the cloud rules. For all of Huawei’s might, it is still effectively a hardware-based company with some of the same legacy mentality as Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens (News - Alert) Networks (NSN).   Huawei's latest high-profile PR thrust in the U.S. is to sponsor a Jonas Brothers tour to promote its Hero smartphone. (It also says something about Huawei's strategic marketing, but that's for another day).

GENBAND has continued to evolve with the times, preaching the virtues of consulting services (thanks to its acquisition of Nortel assets) to help service providers convert from TDM to IP, moving from multiple hardware platforms to a single one, and this year adding the (now industry standard) story of being able to run services on anything from a dedicated hardware platform all the way to a “cloud” solution.

Oracle started out as a database company, but quickly added services. It adds companies to its portfolio that complement and expand usage of its core database products, but more recently has moved to pump up its holdings in key market segments. Buying Acme Packet gives it leadership in the still-growing SBC arena while Tekelec rounds out a portfolio of IP telephony offerings for service providers.

Now consider the clout each company has established. Oracle is, well, Oracle - a brand name with dominating database products and the leading SBC through its acquisition of Acme Packet. GENBAND has established itself well over the past few years by first focusing on streamlining its product line and acquisitions and then moving into services in a big way. The industry keynotes at PERSPECTIVES 13, GENBAND's user event next week in Florida, reads like a who's who of telecom CTOs -- Tony Melone from Version, AT&T's Krish Prabhu (News - Alert) , and Liberty Global's Balan Nair.

I believe the two companies are going to end up in an IP communications battle royale in the enterprise and service provider markets. About the only piece lacking out of either's portfolio is desktop IP phones, a relatively generic commodity with dozens of manufacturers. Maybe Oracle will buy an IP phone company next year -- maybe Polycom (News - Alert) -- because it has to do something with its cash.