How Cloudy Will Oracle Get with its (Pending) Acme Packet Acquisition?

Everyone wants to get into cloud services these days. Could Oracle's purchase of Acme Packet (News - Alert) lead to its Session Border Controller (SBC) appearing in the cloud as a managed service?

Oracle certainly has all the pieces necessary to deliver a telecom services cloud. The company already has its "Oracle (News - Alert) Cloud" portfolio, offering application services, social media management services, Java and database, storage, messaging, and the ability to offer a private cloud and managed cloud services.  

On the SBC side, Acme Packet has made it clear that its software can be run anywhere from dedicated hardware to a virtual instance on a server alongside other processes. 

A cloud-based SBC offering might prove particularly appealing for enterprise customers already contemplating a migration from a dedicated PBX (News - Alert)/IP PBX with all of its hardware, capital expense and overhead to a cloud solution. 

Oracle also has a "Communications Virtual PBX" suite and a professional services division to put solutions for service providers and enterprise customers.

It's not like going cloudy and outsourcing are crazy, out-of-the-blue ideas. Metaswitch Networks has discussed how it can take its Perimeta SBC and other software to build a fully functional phone service running on Amazon or another cloud provider.

One very large service provider seems to do very little other than outsource these days. AT&T (News - Alert) has at least three different services it buys as white label offerings to fill out its portfolio. Metaswitch has been providing the back-end to AT&T's IP unified messaging platform for closet to a decade. 

AT&T's over-the-top international calling application is run by 8x8 (News - Alert) as a turnkey offering, including infrastructure, billing and customer service.

And let's not forget RingCentral Office@Hand from AT&T. Announced about a week ago, AT&T is offering an end-to-end full cloud service with RingCentral to connect workers over broadband. The offering includes "Plug & Ring ready" IP desktop phones for the office, PC and smartphone apps for mobile workers.

But seriously, who isn't a mobile worker at some point these days? (And of course a user of international calling options).

Office@Hand contains the usual laundry list of features, such as the ability to make and receive customer calls (and *gag* faxes) from virtually anywhere by using a business number from a desk phone, mobile device or PC, the ability to route calls, setup auto-receptionist, presence for some types of desktop phones, and the ability to add up to 800 employees for business locations nationwide. 

A Virtual Mobile user starts at $16 a month while Premium office-based users cost $38 a month per user.

With all these pieces on the table, it’s easy to see AT&T and enterprises buying SBC as a service from Oracle some number of months in the future. Oracle wins by getting a monthly recurring revenue stream while AT&T and enterprises avoid capital expense, making the financial people on both sides happy.