Summary Bullets:
- Huawei acquired the SDN software assets of Ireland-headquartered Amartus in a bid to accelerate its SDN roadmap and enhance its presence in the European market.
- Huawei takes over the Amartus Chameleon SDS platform but gains precious little new channel influence and begs the question why it could not develop equivalent service orchestration assets in-house.
Huawei acquired the SDN software assets of Amartus, although the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The terms of the deal include the senior team and product staff based in Ireland joining Huawei with the remaining Amartus staff retaining the rights to service current customers and pursue operator software development and integration service opportunities. Huawei gains the Amartus Chameleon SDS product, which is designed as a multi-vendor service orchestrator that extends lifecycle automation for on-demand cloud and network services over hybrid virtual and physical environments. Specifically the Chameleon SDS uses the Amartus Runtime Programmable Modelling technology which is developed to enable developers to build orchestration apps via runtime configuration and modeling while avoiding legacy coding methods.
How does the acquisition of the Amartus SDN software assets advance its SDN roadmap and improve Huawei’s competitive prospects?
- Improve Vertical Targeting: Huawei has yet to provide details on how it plans to integrate the Chameleon SDS product into its portfolio. However Huawei has already used SDN to underpin the development of its Agile IoT platform aimed at easing onboarding of IoT apps. Moreover, Huawei has devoted more of its portfolio development and marketing resources to promote solutions aimed at supporting verticals such as connected car, transportation, and energy. With the Chameleon SDS technology, Huawei wields more SDN resources to address a wider range of SDN-driven operator and enterprise vertical opportunities.
- Fixed Network Presence: The president of the Fixed Networks product line, Jan Zhu, was quoted in the press release explanation for Huawei’s decision to acquire the Amartus software assets. This was no coincidence since Amartus touted its Chameleon SDS platform was already proven in fixed networks (i.e., Carrier Ethernet) before its targeting of mobile networks. Presumably Huawei will continue to develop the Chameleon SDS assets for fixed network applications, especially within the European fixed network segment where Huawei already commands a top-tier market presence.
- Detail Amartus Integration Progress: Curiously Huawei did not issue its own press release in acquiring the Amartus SDN software assets. While Huawei was not obligated to issue an announcement it gives rivals some latitude to advance marketing claims where Huawei has left a marketing void. For example, the deal allows Amartus to retain rights to service current customers and pursue new software development and service support deals. This can cause short-term confusion in the channels, which Huawei can rectify by detailing its progress toward integrating Amartus SDN software assets. Likewise Huawei provided few details on how the Chameleon SDS platform fits into its overall portfolio beyond generic aims to accelerate its SDN roadmap and competitiveness. With more shared details Huawei can reduce the degree to which rivals can portray the move as the buying of distressed assets on the cheap that indicts Huawei’s capacity to develop SDN/NFV orchestration capabilities in-house.
- Clarify Mobile Development Aims: Amartus touted the Chameleon SDS platform’s credentials in supporting fixed network apps, such as Carrier Ethernet, MPLS, and DSL, through publication of multiple use cases. This also included highlighting OSS transformation use cases for fulfillment, assurance, SLA management, inventory, and traffic monitoring apps. Before Huawei acquired the Chameleon SDS assets Amartus embarked on targeting mobile environments. Huawei needs to clarify if it plans to continue developing the platform to better address mobile networks to pre-empt rivals challenging its suitability for mobile apps.