ServiceNOW unwraps NetACE buy as it targets creaking telcos

ServiceNOW has stepped up its efforts to grow into the telecoms space, acquiring a chunk of technology from Israel’s Atrinet.

The workflow vendor used this week’s MWC jamboree in Barcelona to say Atrinet’s NetACE tech will “enable comprehensive, end‑to‑end network lifecycle management for telcos on a single, AI‑first digital workflow platform.”

Just to show it is really serious about telco, and AI, ServiceNOW also announced it had extended its partnership with Nvidia with “telco specific AI solutions” which “elevate” service experiences.

The deal with Atrinet covers the Israeli firm’s NetACE network management and automation technology, which will be “replatformed” into ServiceNOW’s arhitecture. The announcement specifically highlighted Atrinet’s “discovery and activation capabilities”.

The new capabilities will accelerate ServiceNOW’s roadmap for telcos supporting its Telecom Network Inventory and Order Management for Telecom products. Telcos, according to ServiceNOW, will benefit from a “low code” approach to “automating all discovery, provisioning, and network management processes for telcos under an open network, unified management system”.

Most enterprises find discovery, provisioning, and network management a challenge at the best of time. For telcos the challenges move to a whole new level, as they grapple with multi-generational networks distributed over multiple regions and geographies, and, usually, legacy, proprietary software stacks. Concepts like open-ness, and agility might be aspirations for them but are difficult to achieve. This inevitably makes lifecycle management challenging, which in turn contributes to a less than stellar customer experience.

The two companies have been partners for some time, announcing a series of integration agreements back in November 2022, around NetACE Autodiscover and Reconciliation, NetACE Fault Management (FM) and NetACE Performance Management (PM), and NetACE Unified Service Activation & Fulfilment.

Following the transfer of the technology covered by today’s deal, Atrinet will be a certified ServiceNOW Consulting and Implementation Partner.

Similarly, today’s announcement with Nvidia builds on earlier announcements. The firms announced a partnership last May to develop gen AI capabilities to deliver more intelligent workflow automation.

One of the first fruits of that deal is Now Assist for Telecommunications Service Management, which “uses Nvidia AI to boost agent productivity”.

In practice that means “GenAI-powered chat summarization and agent assist capabilities help boost productivity and play a pivotal role in call deflection”. This theoretically means that real live agents can focus on the “complex queries that require personal attention”.

At the same time, service assurance teams should get a “rapid understanding of incidents” such as fiber cuts, with GenAI distilling and summarizing complex information. BT is named as an early adopter of the technology.