By Christopher J, Kardish, Principal Research Analyst

IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced last week its acquisition of mobile network management supplier Vallent Corporation. IBM plans to integrate Vallent into the Tivoli Netcool Software group, adding mobile device management to Netcool’s existing service delivery platform (SDP) for fixed network and device management systems. The new version of the platform provides consistent management for devices across the enterprise, both fixed and mobile. With this announcement, IBM joins a host of other companies with SDPs embracing the mobile enterprise, including BEA (NASDAQ:BEAS), and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ).

From a competitive point of view, some of Vallent’s channel partners, such as Hewlett-Packard, sell products competing with Netcool. These companies need to watch out for IBM to restrict access to future developments in Vallent’s product, incorporating these enhancements into the core Netcool product.

Vallent’s customers today, like Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) and carriers who work with Lucent, find the tool improves wireless service quality by providing information necessary to identify network problems before they affect customers – the bottom line: fewer traffic bottlenecks and dropped calls. By tracking this information, carriers define service level agreements around metrics meaningful to their enterprise customers.

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