IBM today launched a suite of IP multimedia subsystem products designed to help telephone companies make the transition from legacy networks to IP-based networks, while making money on new services along the way.

IBM’s strategy is based on using pre-integrated business solutions that have been built on a carrier-grade architecture that integrates IMS with the existing service delivery environment. Rather than wait until they have fully deployed an IMS architecture or deploy it in pieces, telephone companies can use the pre-integrated business solution approach to get started today offering the next generation of services, knowing that what they deploy today will fit into the future architecture as well, said Joseph Ziskin, vice president of strategy and growth initiatives for IBM Telecommunications Industry.

“The most important thing is to get started,” he said. “The driver for IMS isn’t ‘We have this new technology, let’s go implement it.’ This industry continues to face financial pressure. The margins are being squeezed, and these are especially burdens on incumbents. The move to IP networks is a faster, less costly and more profitable way to do business. The incumbents are in a good position to take advantage of that because they own the customer. But with a huge legacy environment, the transition will take time. Every step along the way is about leveraging your existing resources, and seeing how the new integrates back into the old, and takes advantage of the new and better way to offer services.”

IBM built its IMS architecture on standards-based components, but also taps into service-oriented architecture capabilities and Web Services as well, to use those existing systems as means to quickly and efficiently offer new services. The computing giant is drawing on its existing software capability, including Rational, Tivoli and WebSphere software, and its hardware, including IBM eServer BladeCenter T and CarrierGrade Linux computing platform to create its IMS solutions.

One of the key advantages of IMS, Ziskin points out, is that it will enable telecom carriers to take advantage of technology advances already made in the IT world.

“The key is that the standard has been defined--IMS solutions equal open, standards-based solutions,” he said. “Companies are looking at it in those ways, which enable them to leverage a lot of the investments that have been made in the IT world.”

Today’s announcement is the first in a series related to IBM’s IMS initiative the company said. It is unveiling six new Telecommunications Solutions Labs around the globe that will enable service providers to take advantage of IBM’s research, as well as its hardware and software systems and its consulting and business relationships. The labs will be located in Austin, Texas; Beaverton, Ore.; La Gaude, and Montpellier, France; Hursley, U.K.; and Beijing.