Microsoft shoots CSF telecom service provider product

Even Microsoft is shooting some of its lame horses these days. The company has informed its telecom service provider customers that it is pulling the plug on the Connected Service Framework product, taking it out of the market and stopping development of new features. Guess this explains why so many Microsoft telecom people were bailing to greener pastures [1].

Microsoft has decided to call it quits on CSF because the product required a much higher degree of customization and integration than it expected; CSF is currently deployed in 30 service providers around the world, including AT&T and BT. In bailing out of the telecom service delivery platform (SDP) business, it will leave the arena to systems integrators while it focuses more on the delivery of web services.

CSF legacy customers will still get ongoing product support and will continue to be able to support the services they are currently delivering through the platform. Microsoft's partners will continue to provide IT and system integration support.

Who's to blame here? It could be equal parts of Microsoft's failure to understand the depth of customization service providers want and the reluctance of phone companies to fully embrace a Telco 2.0 style initiative. There's also the not-so-little matter of the SDP playing field being crowded with the likes of Oracle, BroadSoft and MetaSwitch - among others-- all targeting the service provider market with different flavors and business models.

For more:
- Telephony tunes in the Microsoft CSF story. Article [2].