New Zealand CRM Platform Vendor Argent Acquired by Redknee

December 2007
TMCnet

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Redknee Solutions has said it will acquire the assets of Kiwi billing company and CRM platform vendor Argent Networks for up to $8 million.

Redknee will make an initial payment of $4 million and then up the total if certain revenue goals are met, the company said. The deal is expected to close Jan. 31.

Argent is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and has operations in Australia, Middle East and the United States. Following the acquisition, Argent will be integrated into Redknee's existing business.

Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee, called the transaction "exciting for Redknee," as it "expands our operator footprint with 18 new operators in the emerging markets and five in North America, while increasing our product portfolio to include interconnect billing, and converged billing for IPTV and broadband operators."

You might know Argent for its ArgentEclipse Interconnect, a revenue assurance, interconnect and content settlement software product, and ArgentEclipse, a convergent billing and customer care CRM platform for fixed line, wireless and broadband operators.

This February Argent announced that it had deployed its Eclipse real-time data billing product to Libercell, Liberia's national telecom provider, for CRM and other functions.

ArgentSDP and ArgentEclipse agreed to provide Libercell with IN & NGN based pre-paid and post-paid voice and data billing, unified real-time rating and CRM for all mobile, fixed line, and value-added next generation services, Argent officials said at the time. ArgentEclipse agreed to operate on a network supplied by Huawei Technologies andEricsson Communications.

ArgentEclipse will have dual interconnects to both the existing Ericsson MSC and the new Huawei MSC (News - Alert) providing "2.5G Edge billing for real-time convergent pre-paid and post-paid subscribers using the ArgentEclipse unified rating engine," Argent officials say.

Larry Barker, CEO of Argent Networks, says that with more than five times the number of mobile phones to fixed lines and increasingly more convergent data being used by Libercell's many customers, Liberia is set to continue its rapid growth in its telecommunications networks.

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