Amdocs is going to buy Changing Worlds. It is paying $60 million cash for the company whose ClixSmart Personalisation and Mobile Internet Platform is used by 45 operators to personalise and tailor content on heir portals.
UPDATE:
James Patmore, EMEAVP for Amdocs’s Advertising, Commerce and Entertainment (ACE) division said the acquistion would add three things to his company’s portfolio.
First, the company is expert in personalisation. Secondly, it brings customer profiling, and lastly it adds dynamic portal management.
Amdocs’s aim is not just to add these capabilities to its other subscriber management and customer relationship tools, but to broaden the channels the software can address away from purey mobile portals, to support its customers in their convergence, triple-play strategies. Patmore said there could be obvious synergies between Changing Worlds’ personalisation capabilities and the payment and charging expertise Amdocs has – notably from another recent purchase, that of PayPass.
“Our evolution path is to invest in technology that improves the customer experience. IT’s about creating experiences that are not one size fits all, making offerings to the customer that are tailored to what their interest is,” Patmore said.
So, if Amdocs, a giant in BSS, has made its business to date around managing and holding customer data, what does Changing Worlds add?
“Our traditional business has been in customer management, and obviously we hold a lot of customer data, and we know how to manage that. How we then use that to create profiles of the customer and enhance that profile with other data sets, and to third parties, is an evolving strategy that requires technical expertise that Changing Worlds has knowledge of,” Patmore said.
Patmore said that the aim is to be able to allow operators to use customer data in a more flexible way.
“The strategy we’ve adopted has been to have SOA based technology, so that operators that are looking to provide services to their own portal offering as well as to third parties can do so, for instance by making the customer profile made available as a web service. S othat’s very much part of our strategy. And that’s very much how Telefonica O2 uses Changing Worlds, not only for personalization, but to hold a centralised customer profile” he added.
Amdoc's press release:
Amdocs, the leading provider of customer experience systems, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Changing Worlds, a privately-held provider of personalisation and intelligent portal solutions for mobile service providers. Under the terms of the agreement, Amdocs has agreed to acquire all of ChangingWorlds’ shares for $60 million in cash, net of cash on hand, subject to post-closing adjustments. Additional consideration may be paid later based on the achievement of certain performance metrics. The acquisition is subject to conditions customary to such transactions, and is expected to close during Amdocs’ fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2008.
ChangingWorlds’ technology, combined with the Amdocs CES portfolio, will enable better customer experiences by allowing end users to quickly get relevant information based on what they use most, making it easier to navigate the Internet on their phones and reducing the time they spend looking for content. ChangingWorlds’ technology currently addresses mobile devices, and Amdocs intends to expand the technology to three screens (mobile, PC and television) to personalise the customer experience across all touch points. ChangingWorlds and Amdocs share several customers including Sprint, the Vodafone Group and Telefonica O2.
“Sprint is committed to delivering the best possible customer experience across a wide range of data services, including Internet browsing,” said Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of product and technology development for Sprint. “Sprint and Amdocs have worked together for years on a number of important projects designed to enhance the customer experience. ChangingWorlds has been integral to our Sprint Web offering and provides the technology and expertise that will help us continue to deliver enhanced and personalised Internet services.”
“Personalisation is a cornerstone of Amdocs’ strategy to offer Customer Experience Systems and ChangingWorlds is a recognised global expert in this area,” said Dov Baharav, chief executive officer of Amdocs Management Limited. “ChangingWorlds’ dynamic portal offerings surpass the traditional ‘one- size-fits- all’ approach, and no single vendor can match its range and sophistication of personalisation services.”
ChangingWorlds’ patented technology automatically builds subscriber profiles based on user behavior and usage patterns that require no user input or action to make finding relevant content faster and requiring less clicks. For example, a sports enthusiast will see the link to latest information about his favorite football team on his home page, while a classical music fan will see the link to the upcoming concerts in his area.
“Amdocs and ChangingWorlds recognise the power of the customer experience and the potential for service providers to further exploit their place in the digital value chain,” said David Moran, chief executive officer of ChangingWorlds. “Both Amdocs and ChangingWorlds will continue to aggressively execute on the shared vision of enabling service providers to offer the most compelling customer experience, to grow revenue from data services and retain customers.”
The impact of the acquisition on Amdocs’ non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be neutral in fiscal 2009. The impact on GAAP results will be finalised after Amdocs completes the purchase price accounting for the acquisition. Amdocs may incur a one-time acquisition-related expense in the quarter ending December 31, 2008 to account for certain costs related to the acquisition.