In a rush of acquisition activity, network equipment vendors have put their operations support system (OSS) houses in order and are ready to take back the service delivery platform (SDP) field from IT vendors and systems integrators through the creation of common service management platforms, according to the latest Light Reading Services Software Insider.

    "IT vendors had stolen a march on the SDP... but equipment vendors have come back now," says Caroline Chappell, Heavy Reading analyst at large and author of the report, "Service Management: The Key to SDP/OSS Integration."

    In part, they've done it through acquisition. Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT - message board) acquired service fulfillment vendor Leapstone Systems Inc. , while Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC - message board) has acquired billing company LHS Group and SDP firm Drutt Corp. . (See Motorola Jumps on Leapstone, Ericsson Buys Billing Vendor LHS, and Ericsson Snaps Up SDP Firm.)

    "Because networke quipment vendors have a purely telco focus, they are unafraid to acquire the OSS and SDP product vendors they need to build a comprehensive service management platform," Chappell writes in the report.

    Systems integrators, on the other hand, are mostly partnering to build comprehensive service management capabilities. That could result in an "expensively integrated" solution, the report finds.

    Megadeals have had their SDP upside as well. Chappell says that Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU - message board) and Nokia Siemens Networks have emerged from their respective mergers with stronger service management and SDP capabilities. Alcatel-Lucent is creating an integrated service management strategy, she says.

    The drive for a service management platform comes from operators that are under pressure to speed the time to market for new services. One way to speed service development is to decouple OSSs from individual services so that new services can be created with a common service management platform.