Nokia Siemens to buy IMS vendor Apertio

Equipment vendor titan Nokia Siemens Networks said it will acquire Apertio, a vendor of customer management systems for IP Multimedia Subsystems architectures, in a $205 million deal. The companies have been partners in the past, as Apertio provides efficient access to subscriber data for management purposes in support of Nokia Siemens' converged network offerings. The deal is intended to close by May.

Does this early start to vendor consolidation in 2008 mean another year rife with deal making in the telecom industry? After seeing vendor consolidators like Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens struggle last year, it wouldn't have been surprising for them to swear off M&A for a while, but they still have to continue to improve their platforms wherever possible especially in IMS as that business opportunity grows.

For more:
- read this story in InformationWeek

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