Telcordia held a conference last month for press and analysts in San Francisco, bringing in customer representatives from around the world. From them and from the mouths of CEO Mark Greenquist and his executive team came some answers to the question: Who is this new Telcordia and where is it going?

Greenquist didn't comment on the rate of decline of the old Telcordia — the company's core maintenance revenue — but instead focused on what the company has to offer service providers in a new, competitive and increasingly IP-based environment. “We have what people are looking for: that long history, expertise and ability to bring the old and new worlds together,” he said.

William Wanke, president of service delivery solutions for Telcordia, concurred. “We have more than an academic understanding of how to make a telco run effectively,” he said. “We need to be taking advantage of our knowledge.”

Currently, Telcordia is still taking the most advantage in North America with 84% of its business coming from RBOCs (51%) and other domestic service providers (33%). Despite Asia being the fastest-growing market in the industry, Michael Anderson, president of global solutions for Telcordia, said the company is being careful not to overreach in that market and is being strategic about its market penetration.

Larry Goldman, co-founder and senior analyst for OSS Observer, said that Telcordia's go-to-market partner, Accenture, is not as strong in the Asian market as it is in others.

In addition to getting C-level executives from Cbeyond Communications, kajeet, Level 3 Communications, Qwest and Verizon to attend its event and speak on its behalf, Telcordia also attracted executives from Cable & Wireless International, Chunghwa Telecom, Romtelecom and Tata Teleservices.

Many of them echoed the sentiment of Nicki Palmer, vice president of network operations support for Verizon Wireless, who said of Telcordia's help with a time-and-motion study that helped Verizon streamline its fiber-to-the-premises deployment: “When we look for something like that, we look for someone we can trust [and] who has knowledge of our business. It is less about systems and platforms than about relationships.”

While Greenquist is determined to take better advantage of service capabilities like this, he said that ability “will continue to rely on having a strong product base.”