Acme Packet Named a Leader in Magic Quadrant for Session Border Controller

By Paul Robinson November 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

Last month we reviewed the enterprise SBC market as seen by Infonetics Research. According to that research Ciscoand Acme Packetwere the two top enterprise SBC vendors in terms of first half 2012 (1H12) global revenue share with Ciscoin the lead having captured 26 percent of 1H12 revenue. Today, we shift focus to the service provider (SP) market for SBCs as seen by Gartner. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for SBCs (October 9, 2012) focuses on incumbent SBC vendors and those that have developed competing products for communications service providers in the past two years. According to that report Acme Packet’s Net-Net Session Director was recognized in the Leaders Quadrant, and arguably the top player there, based on the company’s ability to execute and completeness of vision in the SBC market. Gartner describes Leader companies as “high-viability technology providers that are well positioned with their current product portfolio and likely to continue delivering leading products. They have a global presence and are recognized as major vendors in the SBC market.”

Gartner recognizes the following Acme Packet strengths

High position on ability to execute axis tied to the fact that Acme Packet has more global presence in terms of SBC customers than its competitors, and therefore also greater mind share and recognition as an SBC vendor.

Supporting points:

Acme Packet is widely considered to have been the first company to bring SBC technology to market, introducing the first Net-Net SBC product in 2002. Acme Packet holds more than 57 patents related to SBC technology worldwide.
The company has also sold over 20,000 systems to more than 1,850 customers in 109 countries.
Acme Packet has more than 1,150 service provider customers, including 89 of the top 100 service providers, and 18 of the top 25 multiple system operators worldwide.
Acme Packet has more than 700 enterprise customers, including 48 of the Fortune 100.

Technology curve leadership with respect to its road map and vision, which include advances such as SBCs in the cloud, IP Multimedia Subsystem [IMS]/voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE), femtocell integration, and early involvement in initiatives such as Rich Communication Suite (RCS) and RCS-enhanced (RCS-e). Its SBCs appear in 10 CSP networks that offer these services.

Supporting points:

Acme Packet and BroadSoft have joined forces to provide IMS Xpress, a simplified solution for IMS deployments. Fully standards-based, IMS Xpress can be used to deliver a broad range of SIP services including residential and business VoIP, VoLTE, RCS and fixed mobile convergence.
In addition, during Mid-October, Acme Packet announced its Net-Net 6300 SBC platform. The 6300 is viewed by Acme Packet as one of those key foundational elements that SPs will look to as they architect their networks to withstand the performance, capacity, resiliency, and security demands of their next gen networks designed to support the next wave of interactive communications and advanced services – such as voice over LTE (VoLTE), RCS/RCS-e, HD video calling, HD voice and new Internet-based, or “over-the-top,” (OTT) services that leverage web-based real-time communications (WebRTC) or other technologies.

Acme Packet's purchase of IPTEGO in April 2012 will strengthen its product portfolio by including real-time, end-to-end communications network intelligence, voice and video operations monitoring, customer experience management, and fraud prevention and detection.

The company has a solid balance sheet, no debt and a significant amount of cash (over $400 million). Its customers are distributed widely across the world, and it added 61 new clients in the first half of 2012.

Supporting points:

In the first three quarters of 2012, Acme Packet has added 244 customers worldwide, which includes 84 service provider customers.

Moreover, the Gartner report states that, CSPs should look for evidence of resources, expertise and capital to investment in SBC technology in the long term.

Supporting points:

Continued investment in research and development is critical to the company’s business. According to its 2011 annual report. Acme Packet assembled a team of 246 engineers as of December 31, 2011, as compared to 183 employees as of December 31, 2010, with expertise in various fields of communications and network infrastructure. R&D expense totaled $51.5 million for 2011, $35.6 million for 2010 and $28.2 million for 2009.