While technology and marketing folks from Tekelec were in Boston this week demonstrating the company’s IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) capabilities, corporate was releasing its third-quarter earnings.

While revenue from continuing operations fell 27% from last year’s third quarter ($134.3 million to $97.8 million), orders for the quarter were up 22%, giving the company a book-to-bill ratio of 1.12. Revenue for the first nine months of 2007, however, was only down by less than $2 million.

At VON, Tekelec joined HP in its booth along with BEA to demonstrate what they call “IMS in a box.” In the demonstration, Tekelec’s TekCore Session Manager, a core call session control function (CSCF) platform, interoperates with HP’s OpenCall Home Subscriber Server (HSS) and BEA Systems’ WebLogic Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Server as well as applications from BEA’s partners.

Tekelec’s partnership for IMS goes back to last year’s CTIA event, at which the companies demonstrated the interoperability of their respective products. This year, BEA and it is application partners added the dimension of supporting real applications--in this case, ring back tones and an online charging solution.

“We have been getting a lot of traction from this relationship both here at the show as well as with customers because we have proven we have the ability to support multiple applications from a variety of vendors on our IMS core,” said Vince Lesch, vice president of product marketing at Tekelec, from the show floor at VON.

He added that Tekelec and HP are currently working together on an RFP response for a large North American wireless operator.

Separately, Tekelec announced its participation in the IMS Forum’s IMS Plugfest III interoperability test event, held two weeks ago at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab in Durham, N.H.

The TekCore Session Manager was one of the reference call session control function CSCF and SIP implementation platforms utilized for a series of SIP- and IMS-related interoperability tests at the plugfest.

The IMS Forum’s IMS Plugfest III is the third in a series of events that are designed to foster interoperability and certification for IMS services and applications.

“The plugfest helps you learn from things you wouldn’t see if you were only testing in your own lab,” Lesch said.
On the product front, Tekelec introduced enhancements to a product in one of the most resurgent solutions areas lately: business intelligence. The Integrated Applications Solution (IAS) platform will now be available on a new architecture. A Linux operating system will replace Windows. It also will have new features such as a multi-protocol call trace, network traffic analysis and improved network diagnostics.

The IAS provides the tools service providers need to capture network traffic data and convert it into useful business intelligence for troubleshooting and managing traffic, roamers and services as well as revenues. The system has been deployed with the Latin American operation of a Tier 1 multinational wireless provider based in Europe.

As for the company’s earning, Lesch said that from a marketing perspective, it was a good quarter all in all. “We got six new customers in the quarter and are up to 16 new customers for the year. We are now getting more that 50% of our revenue from outside North America,” he said.