Nokia lines up €347 million bid for OSS specialist Comptel

  • Move values Comptel at  €347
  • Comptel to bolster Nokia's software portfolio
  • Looking to provide end-to-end orchestration of complex SDNFV deployments

Nokia has launched a takeover bid for Finnish IT company, Comptel, a specialist in ‘back office’ telco technology. Comptel is to be an important plank in Nokia’s stated desire to build what it’s calling a ‘stand-alone’ software business ‘at scale’.

The move values Comptel at  €347 million and Nokia has made its bid in the form of a Tender Offer, which establishes a period during which another suitor can step in and make a higher bid.

Nokia says that the addition of Comptel would “bolster Nokia's software portfolio by adding critical solutions for catalogue-driven service orchestration and fulfillment, intelligent data processing, customer engagement, and agile service monetization.”

It’s a strategy designed to elide with the industry-wide move to software driven networks (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV), compounded these days as SDNFV, which, by definition is designed to create a clean break between hardware and software in the core network at least.

Tackling adjacent markets

Nokia is also tuning itself to be able to deliver solutions to what it’s calling ‘adjacencies’. These are non-telco organisations looking to wield network technologies to provide services for vertical industries or even, in some cases, for themselves. That might include connected car players, large media companies, banks and so on. These players are looking for next generation communications technology, which Nokia is keen to provide, along with partnerships, MVNO arrangements, spectrum sharing and so on,.

While it’s still huge (€64 billion) the existing telco infrastructure market is expected to be almost flat over the next five years (CAGR of 0.4 per cent) while the smaller ‘adjacencies’ market (€2 billion) is expected to grow by around 23.2 per cent.

End to end orchestration

The company says that when Comptel is combined with Nokia's OSS, BSS, analytics and cloud technology, customers will be provided with end-to-end orchestration of complex NFV and SDN deployments - including the ability to close the loop between service assurance and fulfilment - and the intelligence and automation required to create and manage increasingly complex service offers.  

"Nokia is committed to building its software business and is backing its commitment with strategic investments. The timing of the Comptel purchase is important as our customers are changing the way they build and operate their networks. They are turning to software to provide more intelligence, automate more of their operations, and realize the efficiency gains that virtualization promises. We want to help them by offering one of the industry's broadest and most advanced portfolios. Comptel helps us do that," says Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia's Applications & Analytics business group.

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