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I think pretty much any company that doesn't make an SBC or resells them disparages them. Isn't that the nature of marketing? I look at cisco as the king of this model in general, and they show the way with SBCs. When they didn't have one it was bad and unecessary. Now all of the sudden their message is of course there's an SBC.
As someone else posted in another LR thread a while ago, this is a replay of the firewall era. When they first appeared everyone said they were a temporary security measure and were going to be integrated into hosts and routers. Some of their functions were, but it sure looks like their market as a stand-alone is solid business.
If you were really an "FMC Man" you wouldn't have said that. SBCs are just an element that includes functions defined in IMS, such as the p-cscf, bgf, ibcf, and iwf. IMS doesn't tell people where to put or how to put the functions into boxes. Every IMS function can be a separate piece of equipment, or they can be integrated as needed. For example most s-cscf I've seen are also an i-cscf, and some also include a p-cscf and bgcf.
If acme has half a brain they'll evolve as their customers want them to. As far as I can tell they're the incumbent in many voip networks so they have an advantage. but time will tell.
Bottom line (IMHO) is that we need to forget about acronyms for a while, and figure out how to make our carrier customers wildly successful. How an SBC maps into a ibcf is not the point. How our customers make money and thrive is the point. THAT is what FMC man is all about.
Beyond that, I'm not sure that it matters if a start-up is well positioned for "IMS" since that's still a ways out. I think its more pragmatic: 1) who helps operators offer new services with technologies available today, 2) drives out costs, and 3) clearly fits into the longer terms IMS vision.
By that logic, then IP core routers are useless and have no future since Caspian, Hyperchip, and Procket succumbed to competition due to flawed products and bad timing. Nevermind that Cisco and Juniper make billions each year. Just look at the failures.
Poor products that don't meet the needs of service providers does not condemn a category.
And the other start-ups do spend effort disparaging SBCs...either carving niches away from SBCs since two companies dominate the category or attacking them as futureless.
Thanks for your reply to my earlier SBC/IMS post. My concern, which is also reflected in the other posts about the future of IMS or SBC's, is about the general investment climate. As these conservative giants face change, it is simpler for them to freeze than to move ahead. Will they buy alot fo SBCs if they are afraid that somehow (logically or not) that the functionality will be subsumed into some IMS future?
I presume they do not want alot of legacy boxes sitting around in those networks. Given their cash flows and relatively monopoly-like positions, they can afford to "wait for IMS". If that comes years from now, always held close in their vision by would-be suppliers like LU, that wait could easily take years. I personally believe IMS will never come, leading to a market stall. This could explain new technologies dieing on the vine.
IMS will never come for the carrier inertia reasons that you pointed out but also more importantly for the reason that the services are better provided by other players. The non-occurrence of IMS will not hinder the technological advance. Private IP networks are racing ahead in functionality without any requirement for IMS services.
It is no coincidence that IMS was created by 3GPP which brought the world another stillborn technology.
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