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In FY 2003–04, the telecom software industry registered a growth of around 18 percent. A similar growth was witnessed by the industry in FY 2002–03. The total telecom software revenue was pegged at around Rs 6,597 crore in the last fiscal in comparison to Rs 5,570 crore in FY 2002–03. All the major software houses have showed significant growth in the last fiscal and the same was reflected even in telecom software.

The above figure includes the sales and development costs of software products, embedded software for telecom and stacks given to Indian companies by service providers and equipment vendors. It also includes services revenue such as software-applications development, software integration and management, and software consultancy. A majority of the telecom software revenues was international in nature.

The top six companies contributed around Rs 4,052 crore which translates to around 61 percent of the total turnover. Others contributed around 39 percent, i.e., Rs 2545 crore. There are a large number of companies in the others category, which include: Axes Technologies, FutureSoft, Future Communications, AdventNet, Alopa Networks, BayPackets, Bluefont, Deccanet Designs, Ittiam Systems, HCL Tech, and others.

At the Top
TCS, is the number one telecom software provider in India followed by Wipro, Infosys, MBT, and HSS. TCS once again led the table with sales figure of Rs 1,213 crore registering a growth of around 35 percent. TCS is also India's number one software exporter and has excellent relationships with service providers and equipment vendors. For TCS, telecom is the second largest vertical. On the service provider space, the company has tie-ups with leading players. On the vendor front, the company does work for Ericsson, Fujitsu, Lucent, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, and Nortel.

Wipro did pretty well, and registered a growth of around 23 percent. Being number two, Wipro focused on full product ownership on an ongoing basis and had notable clients like Cisco and Nortel. Recently, Wipro signed-up with Nokia for software development of CD60, the user interface for its mobile phones. The company also licensed its wireless LAN IPs (intellectual properties) to STMicroelectronics.

Infosys, the number three operator registered revenues of Rs 795 crore. Its communications and product services practice focused on wireless, broadband, SAN, OSS/BSS, and datacom. The company signed a five-year contract with Telstra for $50 million for core applications. British Telecom was another of its big-ticket deals, along with that of a premier wireless carrier in the US. The company also serves leading telecom service providers like Bell Canada and Verizon.

Infosys also focused on expanding its offerings and entered the telecom solutions area through a tie-up with the US-based Quintessent Communications. The two will work together to develop and test selected applications that automate data exchange between telecom carriers.

Pure Plays Too
The next three places were occupied by pure-plays-MBT, HSS, and Sasken.

MBT, the pure play telecom software player registered revenues of Rs 729 crore. The company did pretty well with APAC service providers. It focused on three areas-service providers, equipment vendors, and ISVs. The company has strong expertise in customer care and billing solutions and also focuses on CRM, network planning and designing, and network security. Though BT contributed around 70 percent of its business, the company was equally aggressive on non-BT revenues too.

HSS focuses on several new technologies like GPRS/UMTS and verticals like protocol stacks and voice-
over-packet1. A specialist in convergent network software, the company became the first protocol stack vendor to market 3GPP Release 5 compliant software components for 2.5G and 3G networks.

Just like MBT, Sasken also focuses exclusively on the communications market space. The company focuses on wireless, DSL, and multimedia applications. The company also saw its first royalty flowing in with the first DSL license. The company has also launched a phone based on the GSM/GPRS protocol stack in the Chinese market. The phone has also been tested on several other networks worldwide.

V&D estimates CyberMedia Research

The 'Others' category has a long list of players and all these companies focus on specific niche areas. For example, Axes Technologies focuses on media gateways, ASIC/FPGA/VLSI design, VoIP stacks and protocols, softswitches, SS7, etc. FutureSoft has expertise in internetworking, broadband, wireless, network management, embedded systems domains, and an array of products in areas like IP, ATM, and network management. Future Communications Software provides communications software source code products and services. Last year, it announced the availability of its IS-IS (intermediate system to intermediate system) protocol software product, a key routing component that is essential for resilient carrier networks. AdventNet focuses on telecom protocol stake and test tool whereas Alopa Networks design, develop, and deploy infrastructure software solutions for broadband service providers (BSPs) for the activation and management of IP services. BayPackets provides converged platforms and applications for wireless, wireline, and cable operators. Bluefont Technologies focuses on short-range wireless, digital imaging, and streaming media domains. Deccanet Designs focuses on software and hardware design services for wireline and wireless technologies. Ittiam Systems has competencies in multiple-end equipment domains covering wireless and wireline.

With worldwide communications equipment market still recovering, lot of vendors are focusing on India for reducing their product development cost and time. All these vendors are either directly or indirectly present in India. Having benefited from the indirect presence, many vendors are upgrading and moving towards a direct presence. Companies which are present in India are now increasing their development base. This should result in excellent growth of telecom software in the country.

Pravin Prashant