Amdocs Ltd. will solidify its presence in the cable broadband sector after putting up $45 million for privately held OSS and provisioning specialist JacobsRimell Ltd.

The deal will solidify Amdocs's business ties to Comcast Corp., as both firms have deployment deals with the largest U.S. cable MSO. (See Comcast Teams With Amdocs, Ventyx.) JacobsRimell officially became Comcast's provisioning provider in June 2004. At the time, the MSO also agreed to make a $5 million "strategic investment" in the software vendor.

"JacobsRimell's components are an integral part of Comcast's provisioning infrastructure, supporting new Comcast product introductions," said Comcast chief information officer Andy Baer, in a statement.

Other broadband service providers or cable operators in JacobsRimell's customer stable include Cablecom GmbH of Switzerland, Get of Norway, Virgin Media in the U.K., UPC Broadband, and Cable & Wireless plc. Overall, JacobsRimell claims its OSS technology supports more than 24 million multi-service subscribers in 15 countries. Amdocs did not disclose revenue figures for JacobsRimell.

Adding JacobsRimell's customers and its approximately 100 employees to the fold will mark the latest in a string of acquisitions, which has enabled Amdocs to shore up its cable market share in the areas of provisioning, billing, and customer care.

Amdocs agreed to buy DST Systems Inc. and its cable and satellite billing and customer care systems business, DST Innovis, in July 2005 for $235 million. (See Amdocs Buys Into Cable.) A year later, Amdocs signed a $375 million deal to pick up Cramer Systems. (See Amdocs Snaps Up Cramer.)

Amdocs says this combination of acquisitions enables it to support both business support systems (BSS) and OSS for the broadband cable sector, giving it a "complete order-to-cash" platform.

The merger will also apply added competitive pressure on other OSS and billing firms with skin in the cable game, including CSG Systems International Inc. and Convergys Corp..

Amdocs, which pulled in $2.84 billion in revenues for fiscal 2007, said the purchase is expected to be neutral in fiscal 2008 on a non-GAAP earnings-per-share basis. Amdocs shares were up 53 cents (1.9%) to $28.48 each in late-day trading Tuesday.

London-based JacobsRimell was founded in 1997 by former Reuters execs David Jacobs and Phil Rimell, who are the company's chief technology officer and chief architect, respectively. Its U.S. headquarters is in Cambridge, Mass.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News