What Oracle's Acquisition of Acme Packet Means for UC and Telecom
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Last week's news may have taken many by surprise, but when you look at where the communications landscape is going, seeing Acme Packet acquired by software giant Oracle isn't a big stretch to me. They are probably in the top 5 in terms of clout for shaping the IT/software/networking world, and it seems inevitable to me that communications will be subsumed there. The telco vendors have been losing control of their destiny ever since IP came into play, and as innovation continues to come from elsewhere, along with the rapid rise of the cloud, I just don't see that changing.
$1.7 billion is a lot of money to Acme Packet, but a minor investment for Oracle, so there should be nothing surprising about the economics. Oracle may not need 100% of Acme's SBC pieces right away, but their huge footprint with global Tier 1 carriers and solid enterprise customer base gives Oracle a ready ramp to support end-to-end IP applications. Acme's roots are in enabling voice over wireline networks, but the future is data applications over wireless networks, and they are ready for that as well as any other SBC vendor. This is the world that Oracle wants to be in as well, and pooling two dominant vendors only makes sense - so long as there's a shared vision and all the pieces can work together as a singular solution.
Time will tell, but until then, I think this marks a shift as to where telecom is heading, and while UC isn't the main story here, it will also be impacted. That's the focus of my current contribution for UCStrategies, and it's posted now on the portal. Even if you don't follow SBC's, I think there's an important message here for our broader space, and I'd love to hear your thoughts after you give this a read.
$1.7 billion is a lot of money to Acme Packet, but a minor investment for Oracle, so there should be nothing surprising about the economics. Oracle may not need 100% of Acme's SBC pieces right away, but their huge footprint with global Tier 1 carriers and solid enterprise customer base gives Oracle a ready ramp to support end-to-end IP applications. Acme's roots are in enabling voice over wireline networks, but the future is data applications over wireless networks, and they are ready for that as well as any other SBC vendor. This is the world that Oracle wants to be in as well, and pooling two dominant vendors only makes sense - so long as there's a shared vision and all the pieces can work together as a singular solution.
Time will tell, but until then, I think this marks a shift as to where telecom is heading, and while UC isn't the main story here, it will also be impacted. That's the focus of my current contribution for UCStrategies, and it's posted now on the portal. Even if you don't follow SBC's, I think there's an important message here for our broader space, and I'd love to hear your thoughts after you give this a read.
