More on the Amdocs, Qpass deal

Amdocs' acquisition of Qpass is garnering a lot of attention in the mainstream press now, and here are some important highlights of the deal and the companies:

• Motivation for the buy: Amdocs pointed to expected growth for mobile content service providers, such as carriers, totaling $15 billion in 2005 and growing to an estimated $70 billion by 2009, Amdocs CEO Dov Baharav said in a conference call Tuesday.
• Although Amdocs already offers digital billing products, the Qpass acquisition will allow it to deliver digital content, such as video games, ringtones and TV programming.
• Most of the service providers that had been betting on the "mobile supermarket business model" are now getting a more realistic approach and are outsourcing some of their own SDPs to managed services companies.
• Amdocs and Qpass already have two important customers in common: Cingular Wireless and Sprint Nextel.
• The acquisition may dilute Amdocs' fiscal 2006 earnings by 1 or 2 cents and to bolster its earnings in fiscal 2007, excluding acquisition-related costs.
• Qpass customers have used its software to make about 480 million downloads worth $1.2 billion since the company was launched nine years ago, said Qpass CEO Chase Franklin.
• Qpass raised about $100 million in venture backing over the years, according to The Seattle Times. Its investors include RRE Ventures, Venrock Associates, Granite Global Ventures, Westbury Partners, Seapoint Ventures and Oak Investment Partners.
•  Qpass is expected to be profitable soon, according to its CEO.

For more on the Amdocs, Qpass deal:
- take a look at this article from The Deal
- check out this article from The Seattle Times