What's it worth?

Operations support systems are the lifeblood of the telecommunications carrier industry. In 1999 alone, carriers spent $10 billion on OSSs, and every year some 3% of total carrier revenues will be paid to OSS suppliers. The Eastern Management Group undertook a study to clarify many issues facing buyers and sellers. The study revealed that there are 6 hidden costs to assess before doing any buying: poor software quality, extensive internal support requirements, inadequate flow-through performance, the high cost of scaling, complex interface requirements and insufficient system functionality. As a result of the hidden cost phenomena, carrier executives often are lured into 3 traps when making OSS purchase decision: the first-cost trap, the best-of-breed trap and the near-term solution trap.