Aepona, a global provider of telecoms software products and services headquartered in Belfast, United Kingdom and Appium, a leading technology vendor offering Telecom Application Server and Service Creation Environment products based in Malmö, Sweden, will merge to create the world’s leading independent vendor for the Telecom Service Layer.

The merger will create a single business, operating under the Aepona identity, with the product breadth and operational scale to expand its share of the global Service Delivery Platform market, which is worth $1.4Bn in 2007 and is forecast to reach $3.2Bn by 2011, according to the analyst firm OSS Observer. The merged company will be headquartered in Belfast with the Malmö facility continuing to serve as a development centre and regional sales office.

“There are a number of compelling reasons behind the decision to combine the strengths of Aepona and Appium,” said Gilbert Little, Chairman of Aepona’s Board of Directors. “Service providers globally are set to invest heavily in this segment to satisfy the demand for rich, converged consumer and enterprise services. The two companies have complementary products, customers and channels to market, and the combined entity has the scale, intellectual assets and sales and marketing fire-power to fully capitalise on this exciting market opportunity.”

New Aepona brings a complete portfolio of Service Layer products to market, including Telecom Web Services framework, Service Broker, Telecom Application Server, Service Creation Environment and Convergent Network Gateway. The products will be marketed under Aepona’s existing Universal Service Platform (USP) banner. As well as the USP product family, new Aepona will continue with its strategy of bringing to market profit-generating applications enabled by the USP, and the company’s ability to nurture and support the 3rd-party application developer ecosystem is significantly enhanced by the merger.

The combined company has a strong international base of Tier 1 Service Provider customers, including the France Telecom/Orange Group, BT, Sprint, Telus, Telefonica, KPN, Bharti, Telmex and Vimpelcom. The two companies have previously worked together in delivering end-to-end solutions to customers such as France Telecom/Orange, demonstrating the complementary nature of the existing Aepona and Appium products.

Eric Lundquist, CEO of Appium, commented: “Merging with Aepona is a natural step in the evolution of Appium’s business, and I am very pleased that the company is entering this new exciting phase. Customers of both companies will benefit from a more complete solution offering from a single entity, and the combined portfolio gives the merged company a much stronger proposition within the Service Layer market, enhancing our competitive position which will consequently drive significant revenue synergies.”

“This deal makes a lot of sense for both companies”, said Jean-Charles Doineau, Service Infrastructure Practice Leader at leading research firm, Ovum. “Whilst it is clear that there is a significant and growing market opportunity for independent software vendors within the Service Platform segment, this can only be addressed by companies with real credibility in the marketplace. Ovum has been tracking the progress of both Aepona and Appium over the past several years, and we have been impressed by both companies’ ability to directly serve the needs of demanding Tier 1 Service Providers. Now that they are together, I expect the combined entity to be an even more formidable force in the market over the coming years”.

About Aepona
Headquartered in the UK with regional offices across the world, Aepona is at the forefront of the evolution towards better, more service-rich communications networks. The company is a leading provider of application-led products and expert services to telecommunications operators globally, allowing them to rapidly deploy profitable new services across fixed-line, mobile and SIP/IMS networks. Aepona possesses a unique combination of expertise in both telecoms infrastructure and IT, and its solutions have been chosen by Tier 1 operators such as France Telecom/Orange, KPN, Sprint, E-Plus, Vimpelcom, Eircom and Bridge Mobile Alliance.

Aepona’s solutions enable operators to adopt new business models, combining externally-hosted with network-resident services to unleash the full power of their networks. Based on standards such as OSA/Parlay, SIP and Web Services, Aepona’s Universal Service Platform allows service creation and implementation to be carried out within the Service Network, independent from underlying network resources. This means that new services can be developed and readily deployed in multi-vendor environments, increasing innovation and reducing time to market. The Universal Service Platform hosts Aepona’s own suite of ready-to-deploy applications as well as those developed by carefully chosen partners, and has been pre-integrated with a broad range of network platforms from the major network equipment vendors.

About Appium
Appium AB develops and Markets world-leading communications software that supports seamless service migration and convergence. Our products support SIP/IMS, Parlay, Parlay X and OMA for fixed and mobile service providers, System Integrators, Independent Software Vendors and OEM partners worldwide. The companyís HQ is in Malmˆ, Sweden and it achieves a global reach with sales offices in London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Las Vegas and Singapore.

Active in the telecoms market since 1992, Appium has received funding that has enabled the company to create a true Telco class application platform using standard IT components ñ Appium-XWay. The Appium-XWay is commercially deployed worldwide by many leading operators such as BT, KT, FT/Orange, TIM, Telefonica, Hi3G, TeliaSonera, TDC, Centertel, Connex and others. Appium added managed web services functionality with Telco grade facilities to the Appium-XWay platform early in early 2005. This was a world first and is now used in day to day operations by many Tier 1 telcos.

Appium-XWay is now extended to cover SIP/IMS. This has proven to be the worldís first Telco grade application server supporting migration to IP based networks and seamless convergence of fixed, mobile, broadband and video networks. No other company in our market space has such a clear focus on making service delivery truly seamless and convergent.

To provide a comprehensive market offering Appium has built strategic partnerships with leading Telecom and IT vendors such as Ericsson, Alcatel, Lucent, Marconi, HP, Sun and others. Appium has also built partnerships with leading software technology and telecom application vendors such as AePONA, CapeClear, IONA, TietoEnator, MBT, Ericpol and several others.