Birds-Eye.Net Lure of Using Microsoft .NET for OSS/BSS

The Lure of Using Microsoft .NET for OSS/BSS
And the stark realities of keeping it

By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your feedback is important to us!)

For over a year now, Microsoft has been pushing the telecommunications industry to build Operational and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) using its popular .NET framework. At least three telecommunications providers (Globe Telecom, Deutsche Telekom T-Systems, and MetraTech) have now taken the plunge and report cards back from these operators (according to Microsoft) have been singing praises to this solution. Perhaps a sign that future OSS/BSS spending may further add to Microsoft coffers. This article will take a look at the benefits (and realities) of moving forward with Microsoft .NET as your OSS/BSS platform.

When considering building your company’s OSS around .NET a number of factors must be considered including up front costs of labor, .NET software, hardware and an operating system, as well as ongoing costs of licensing and labor costs for major enhancements. Lets review some of these cost factors associated .NET more closely.

Since Microsoft .NET is not in itself an OSS but rather a platform that can support OSS capability, telecommunications operators thinking seriously about using .NET need to accept the notion of not only providing telecommunications to their customers but also being a software developer. Telecommunications operators larger than 50,000 subscribers likely develop some of the software that supports their subscribers in-house. The larger the operator, the more software they are likely to develop in house. Smaller operators may also find the .NET platform a great fit for their entrepreneurial and tinkering owners who realize that OSS is not all that difficult (if your expectations held in check) with the right tools and software platform. The key here is the realization that in order to be successful with .NET based OSS your company needs to focus on attending to the needs of your customers as well as to the development of your OSS.

Microsoft .NET developers cost a fraction ($35-50k) of what you would pay comparable Linux ($75-125k) or Sun/Solaris (125k and up) developers. Microsoft .NET solutions are also developed in a fraction of the time that more rigorous programming languages such as C++ or Java require. The minimum time required to develop and deploy new .NET services averages between 3-6 months where as new services earmarked for the Linux or Sun/Solaris platform typically take a year or more just to develop. As a result, software companies seeking to build OSS/BSS solutions based on .NET would see a fast ramp up of capability within a year’s timeframe easily surpassing the functionality, interoperability, and scalability of all but the most veteran OSS/BSS vendors. Faster time to market (2-4 times faster) and lower labor costs (1/4 –1/2 cheaper) associated with Microsoft .NET solutions translate into real hot buttons for telecommunications operators evaluating their OSS/BSS purchase options. The key to .NET is the rapid development environment that evolves over time and ends up saving you money in the long run over off the shelf OSS solutions.

Microsoft also makes a convincing argument in terms of risk avoidance as telecommunications companies compare .NET against a full compliment of startups within the OSS/BSS space. This is perhaps even more the case when comparing OSS/BSS companies that depend solely on the OSS/BSS marketplace as their primary source of revenue. As OSS/BSS software companies continue to multiply, Microsoft .NET makes it economical for these companies (or telecommunications operators) to explore bringing development of these solutions in-house. It also limits the need for off-shore development resources as the personnel costs for .NET developers is comparable to equivalent Unix or Java programmers in far away countries – especially when they can all work in the same room together.

The other key here is that the reason why companies develop their own OSS is to be able to offer their customers unique capabilities. In a highly competitive telecommunications space, simply offering what your competition offers may not be enough to differentiate the products you offer from those offered by your competition. You need to do it better, cater to your customers’ and business needs, and do it cheaper than your competition. Buying an off the shelf OSS may get you into the game faster, but it also puts you behind the competition from the get go as they might not have made a similar up front investment and are therefore already ahead in race for profit margins.

Microsoft .NET is billed as completely open, so long as it runs on Microsoft servers and uses Microsoft programming languages and associated applications. Microsoft’s OSS/BSS push is very attractive although the realities are quite sneaky. They provide all these tools, code examples, interfaces, and support so that people with very little training can churn out fairly sophisticated and robust applications within extremely short periods of time. This time to market savings is paid for through the purchase of Microsoft’s premium server applications that factor into the realized automation. An initial survey of the applications involved in a typical .NET OSS solution can be found in Table 1.0.

Microsoft .Net Associated Products:	Initial Cost:
Visual Studio .NET	$1,079 - 2,499
BizTalk Server 2002	$999 – 24,999/processor
SQL Server 2000	$667 – 19,999 /processor
Commerce Server	$1,199 – 19,999/processor
Host Integration Server	$1,199 – 2,499/processor
Microsoft Operations Manager	$349/processor

All the server software in Table 1.0 requires Windows Server technology (an additional $2,999/computer). Essentially, the up front pricing for an entry-level OSS solution with two computers would cost around $12,500 just for the Microsoft applications. This price excludes the costs of the computers as well as the development resources required to build the OSS functionality. This pricing is still a fraction of what off the shelf OSS vendors charge for a proprietary solution that isn’t nearly as open (standards compliant) as .NET. For all its faults .NET may be highly proprietary, but because it is from Microsoft, it may be the de facto standard even if its not completely open standards compliant.

Microsoft is priming the pump by offering software “enabling” applications that can support next generation telecommunications OSS/BSS as well as allow enterprises and telecommunications operators to rapidly develop solutions using increasingly flexible Microsoft development environments. With many vendors in the business of creating OSS/BSS software for telecommunications companies the challenge of finding a completely open solution from a provider that will be around when you need them cannot be underestimated. Thus far the key to survivability for off the shelf OSS/BSS vendors has been venture capital funding, as only a couple of these vendors actually survive on revenues alone.

If you’re on the market for an OSS/BSS or tired dealing with your existing OSS/BSS vendor here is a short list of things to consider:

In light of these considerations, the best OSS vendor may not in reality be only an OSS vendor but rather a company with significant business in some other software product(s). Since there are over 100 OSS/BSS vendors actively selling products around the world, how many of these companies can realistically survive and is your business willing to take the risk that you might pick the wrong one. If you are considering an OSS/BSS vendor how many customers do they have? Is it less than a hundred or is it more than a 1,000. It doesn’t take long to do that math. If the OSS vendor you’re considering has fewer than 100 customers and their primary business is OSS/BSS software they face an up hill battle in the up coming fight for survival. The last couple years, venture capital in OSS/BSS has pretty much dried up so the need for companies to make it with what they have left in the bank now becomes game time (make or break time). Is your OSS/BSS vendor a gamer?

I believe there are effectively two different OSS/BSS markets. One for larger operators that will require very complex, scaleable, and reliable software and the other for much smaller operators that require very low complexity but full feature sets – quite possibly an appliance type all-in-one box approach. The companies that find themselves trying to sell to both large and small telecommunications operators can’t seem to make up their minds where as the other companies with great focus are well positioned to ride out the storm.

The thing I like about Microsoft .NET OSS/BSS solution is that they don’t have to commit to either market like companies whose primary business is OSS software. Rather .NET is merely a platform that can and does support OSS/BSS as well as anything else you care to build on it. With any other OSS vendor, if they go out of business, you’re left holding the bag. With .NET, you just continue to build. The best OSS vendor therefore cannot be just a developer of OSS/BSS software but rather one that offers you a platform on which you can drive your own products and continue to build upon whether that company is in business or not. The importance of complete adherence to open standards cannot be under emphasized!