Packet Systems News

Alcatel-Lucent Acquires OpenPlug, Extending its Application Enablement Strategy

Alcatel-Lucent has acquired OpenPlug, a software developer specializing in tools for mobile applications, for an undisclosed sum. The deal extends Alcatel-Lucent's Application Enablement strategy, which is focused on combining the trusted and secure network capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web to provide a richer end-user experience. By building a robust application-enablement system, Alcatel-Lucent said it is aiming to transform service provider infrastructure by unlocking network resources and functionality and thereby creating new revenue share models. OpenPlug, which is based in Sophia Antipolis, France, provides tools for converting application code into software that runs natively on any leading mobile device operating system, including Apple's iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux. The company's ELIPS Studio is essentially an open software environment that lets developers create an application once and then deploy to multiple mobile phone OSes.

Alcatel-Lucent plans to integrate the OpenPlug toolset into its own Developer Platform and Open API Service, thus broadening the functionality available to service providers, enterprises and developers for the exposure of network assets and the rapid introduction of new services across mobile and Web domains.

"Being able to provide more applications across multiple devices helps service providers significantly broaden their app store content to create more value for consumers," said Laura Merling, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent's global developer strategy. "As service providers typically offer multiple mobile devices to their subscriber base, the OpenPlug software can help them get to market five times faster by allowing them to easily port an application to all of their devices. And this isn't purely a mobile play -- the software can be extended to support application development for IPTV set top boxes, game consoles, even the ng Connect LTE Connected Car."

"Deploying valuable web and mobile services requires assembling many different pieces from many horizons," said Eric Baissus, CEO of OpenPlug. "By combining OpenPlug's ELIPS Suite and ELIPS Studio technologies with Alcatel-Lucent's platforms and API services, we enable developers and service providers to gather all these pieces in a very efficient and consistent way. This will dramatically facilitate the deployment and the monetization of the new generation of applications that the market is expecting."

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/application_enablement/
http://www.openplug.com

In June 2010, Alcatel-Lucent has acquired ProgrammableWeb, a leading online repository for Web APIs (application programming interfaces) used by application developers to build web, mobile, and other connected applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ProgrammableWeb maintains a its repository of over 2,000 Web APIs which are regularly accessed by a community of hundreds of thousands of developers. The APIs and mash-ups available for download from the site extend across a wide range of possible applications, such as search result APIs, GoogleMap mash-ups, messaging APIs, etc.

In March 2010, Alcatel-Lucent released its first API (Application Programming Interfaces) bundles that blend service provider and third party application capabilities to enable the faster creation of new applications. Alcatel-Lucent's goal with these API bundles is to enable a new revenue share model to transform service provider networks into an application development platform by unlocking network resources and functionality -- similar to what smartphones and apps stores did for the device world.

The company's first vertical API bundles include three social bundles supporting the creation of new mashups in social gaming, advertising and virtual goods markets. Collectively, the APIs included are SMS, advertising, location, virtual goods, credit card and billing. The initial delivery of these API bundles targets the 14+ million developers worldwide and the two fastest growing and increasingly profitable applications markets today: mobile advertising and virtual goods.

Earlier this year, Alcatel-Lucent introduced its cloud-based developer platform, which leverages the Application Exposure Suite to build, test, manage and distribute applications across networks, including television, broadband Internet and mobile.

SK Telecom Selects ALU's MPLS-TP Packet Optical Backhaul

SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile service provider, has selected Alcatel-Lucent's packet optical transport solution to upgrade its nationwide wireless data network. The project, which is currently being deployed, will increase backbone capacity for the delivery of its WiFi and WiBro services. In addition, it will support SK Telecom's WCDMA traffic and lay a solid foundation for LTE-based services.

Alcatel-Lucent's packet optical transport solution is based on its 1850 Transport Service Switch (TSS) and is managed by its 1350 Optical Management Suite (OMS). Featuring T-MPLS/MPLS-TP, the Alcatel-Lucent 1850 TSS provides a graceful evolution path to packet backhaul in support of all mobile generation from 2G/3G to LTE-based 4G. MPLS-TP provides an evolution path from SONET/SDH-based networks to packet transport networks by enabling convergence between the transport and service routers.

Alcatel-Lucent noted that major global service providers, including BT, China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo have selected this solution for their mobile backhaul and transport networks.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Ericsson Selects GoAhead's OpenSAFfire

Ericsson has selected GoAhead Software's OpenSAFfire source code for use in high availability platforms. The OpenSAFfire product is GoAhead's commercial distribution of the OpenSAF open source high availability software project.

"Aligned with our strategy for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software, we are selecting third party products to strengthen the establishment of an ecosystem around standardized SA Forum-based middleware," said Graham Osborne, Head of Development Unit Core & IMS at Ericsson.

In March, GoAhead announced its move to OpenSAF-based solutions and the simultaneous acquisition of the Avantellis product line from Emerson Network Power. The company's experience in high availability and the new capabilities acquired in the Avantellis deal give it a powerful combination of assets for building market-leading high availability open source solutions.

"This is a major milestone for GoAhead," said Asif Naseem, President and COO of GoAhead Software. "We look forward to providing Ericsson with a world-class high availability solution."

http://www.goahead.com

In July, OpenSAF announced the public availability of Release 4.0 of its high availability (HA) middleware platform. OpenSAF Release 4.0 implements all major functions of the Service Availability Forum Application Interface Specification and includes important enhancements to improve scalability as well as hardware and software management.

"With Release 4.0, OpenSAF has reached a level of maturity that will broaden its reach and cross-industry impact," said Monica Hatlen of Ericsson, President of the OpenSAF Foundation. "Release 4.0 in many ways fulfills the vision of the initial OpenSAF community when the project was created, and we are proud to offer it to the world. It delivers a cost-effective, standards-based way to create highly available and reliable networks, and its new management features take a big step toward solving larger problems, including network saturation from increased smartphone use. Consumers also will reap this benefit as mobile traffic continues to grow."