OPENET, THE telecoms software company with headquarters in Dublin, has signed a reseller agreement with Cisco, giving the networking giant the worldwide rights to sell Openet’s entire product suite.
Under the terms of the deal, Cisco will sell, deploy and support systems built on Openet’s software products globally, increasing the Irish firm’s reach.
The formal agreement announced this week was seven years in the making. The companies have worked together previously on more than 20 joint technology deployments around the world, with customers ranging from Bell Canada and Orange France to Turkcell and Meteor in Ireland.
“We’ve got a lot of water under the bridge with Cisco; they know us and we know them,” said Openet chief executive Niall Norton. “It allows Cisco to present a more complete solution that has software smarts as well as hardware muscle.”
Cisco has historically been very acquisitive to plug perceived gaps in its own product portfolio but Mr Norton said Openet was not for sale.
“We’ve got a big race to run . . . being acquired isn’t a goal for the management team.”
He said the agreement with Cisco could generate a “significant amount” of sales for both companies – potentially in the tens of millions of dollars – over the next number of years.
Openet’s strategy is to foster deep relationships with a small number of vendors, Mr Norton said. The agreement with Cisco is non-exclusive on both sides and the Dublin company has deals in other areas with IBM and Juniper Networks.
It has identified three other leading technology suppliers as potential partners. The company is already in discussions with two of its targets and has yet to start dialogue with the third.
Privately held, Openet does not disclose revenues but Mr Norton said sales had been growing at a compound annual rate of 55 per cent in recent years. The company posted its first profit in 2009. Growth in 2011 is expected to be strong, but not at the same level.
Openet’s software allows telecoms operators, broadband providers or cable TV companies to manage their subscribers more effectively and bill them for data services.
Mr Norton said industry trends such as increased use of smart phones and faster mobile broadband are working in Openet’s favour, creating greater demand among service providers for the kind of service optimisation technology it provides.
Last year one of Openet’s main rivals, the Israeli firm Amdocs, filed initial papers in the Eastern district of Virginia claiming patent infringement. Mr Norton said he could not comment on the case but the court has indicated the matter could be resolved within months. “We don’t see this as an issue that could hang around for years,” he said.
The court where the case is to be held is known as “rocket docket”, because it is one of the fastest US locations for processing cases. The case has set back Openet’s planned flotation on New York’s Nasdaq exchange.
