Amdocs to buy Bridgewater Systems

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 19 June 2011 11:34

IT Industry - Deals

Amdocs is to acquire Bridgewater Systems, a publicly held provider of policy management and network control solutions to boost its offerings that enable service providers to monetise new value-added data services on mobile networks.

The transaction values the Toronto Stock Exchange listed company at approximately $C$211m ($A203m), or $C128m ($A123m) net of Bridgewater's cash as of March 31, 2011. The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction.

It is the second major consolidation in what is becoming known as the SPIT -Service Provider Information Technology - space in a week, following Ericsson's acquisition of Telcordia. Network infrastructure vendors like Ericsson increasingly move into this space puts pressure on standalone OSS/BSS suppliers like Amdocs - which are not able to leverage infrastructure deals with telcos.

According to Heavy Reading analyst, Graham Finnie, "The major issue for Amdocs is whether its customers will want to acquire policy capabilities from it. There's no doubt that the BSS-related stuff around charging and billing and customer experience management are all becoming a bigger part of the policy story, but right now the main buyers and policy decision-makers inside operators are in the network side, not the IT side."

Amdocs said that the deal would expand its customer experience systems (CES) portfolio with sophisticated data experience management capabilities. "This acquisition is aimed at enabling service providers to support virtually any pricing strategy for data services, based on the combination of advanced customer models coupled with network level information."

Amdocs claimed that Bridgewater's solutions combined with its convergent charging technology would provide a holistic view of the customer hierarchy across multiple devices, lines of business, and networks. "This would enable service providers to completely redefine the real-time data experience and their approach to monetising and optimising data services," the company said. "It would also increase service providers' competitive differentiation, allowing them to improve the experience of their customers and maximise return on investment."

According to Amdocs group president, Brian Shepherd, "This acquisition would build on Amdocs' leadership in delivering innovative solutions that change market paradigms. It is a continuation of our strategy to support service providers as they seek to transform their businesses in anticipation of new market opportunities like 4G and machine-to-machine, and in response to clear threats, such as the data explosion.

Bridgewater has an office in Sydney, which it opened in 2007 and lists Telstra and Telecom New Zealand as its customers. Amdocs counts Telstra, TelstraClear and Sensis among its local customers.