Microsoft has informed its telecom service provider customers that it is removing its Connected Services Framework product from the market and will no longer be developing new functions for the CSF. The move is a significant one for Microsoft, indicating the failure of its major Telco 2.0 initiative to develop a service delivery platform that could be widely deployed, but it is also a significant indication that the telecom industry has not moved as quickly to embrace a common approach to service delivery.

Microsoft made the decision to “end-of-life” the CSF because current deployments, in 30 service providers globally, had proven to require a much higher degree of customization than Microsoft expected, prompting the software giant to focus more on the delivery of Web services via Exchange Online and Sharepoint Online and leave the telecom service delivery platform business to systems integrators.

“If you look across the deployments for service delivery platforms, they have tended to be highly customized, very integration-intensive,” said Terry McGuigan, director of global partners for Microsoft’s Communications Sector. “The degree of customization required has caused us to re-think whether we could use a standard platform.”

The 30 service provider customers of Microsoft CSF, including AT&T, BT and others, will receive ongoing product support and will continue to be able to support the services they are currently delivering through the platform, McGuigan said.

“When they are ready to migrate or look beyond the current platform, with Microsoft technologies and with our partners, we are confident we are going to be able to help them make that transition, based on feedback today,” McGuigan said.

Microsoft’s partners, including Accenture and others, will also continue to provide IT and systems integration support for CSF customers, said Richard Koh, director of technical product management for Microsoft’s Business Online Services Group.

“We continue to work with them to decide what is the next-gen platform,” Koh said. “We will engage jointly with one of these partners on solutions that include core Microsoft products and address our customer needs.”

Microsoft launched its Connected Services Framework in February 2005, promising to take telecom to the next level. As part of that launch, Microsoft also offered a Connected Services Sandbox in which service providers and other vendors could safely test and explore new service opportunities.