Another year goes by, and we are all a year older. Are we a year wiser? Here is the review of what happened in revenue assurance this year.
January
Israeli RA vendor ECtel expanded in both the UK and Singapore.
February
Lavastorm rebrands and adopts the name of its parent group, Martin Dawes.
March
US RA vendor TEOCO announces an alliance with data appliance providers Netezza.
April
British fraud solutions vendors Neural Technologies acquires VAS provider Prime Creation Technology and is listed as one of the top 100 fastest-growing British private companies. Meanwhile, cVidya obtains an additional USD 5m credit line.
May
ECtel announces revenues are down, whilst they are on the up for WeDo. Back on the money trail, cVidya seek further VC funding.
June
Subex turned the corner with better year end results.
July
The news leaks that cVidya is in talks to buy ECtel. The former CEO of the Global Billing Association launches BillingViews, a new website about telecoms billing. US RA software vendors Razorsight purchases rivals Singletusk.
August
Weak controls at US operators AT&T and T-Mobile left them susceptible to a USD 22m fraud by dealers.
September
Niche US vendor ATS announces a global deal with Portuguese vendors WeDo. Subex combines network asset discovery with revenue assurance to create a new asset assurance solution.
October
The deal to merge fellow Israeli RA vendors ECtel and cVidya is officially announced. Subex tries to fix its looming problem with refinancing its foreign-denominated convertible bonds by offering an exchange for new bonds with a higher coupon value.
November
WeDo takes advantage of its communications skills and announces a growth strategy for Latin America.
December
ECtel shareholders approve the proposed merger with cVidya.
That was a busy year for revenue assurance. Will be 2010 be even busier? I suspect so. The big questions will be the direction RA takes as business models reach their limit and how much money there will be to finance more M&A activity. The pace of change in telecoms is unrelenting. Revenue assurance needs to move just as fast to stay relevant.
