A service delivery platform is only as good as the services running on top of it. So this week, Oracle introduced the first of what it expects to be thousands of services for its SDP: the Oracle Virtual PBX.

The standards-based Virtual PBX is sold to service providers to allow them to provide hosted PBX services to small and medium-sized enterprises. It runs on Oracle’s SDP, which supports standards such as SIP, SIP Servlets, and Parlay/Parlay X. The PBX technology was part of Oracle’s acquisition of Net4Call in April of this year.

“We always look for companies with an architecture that is close to where we want to be. And where we want to be is in a standards-based, gateway-based environment going forward. Both Net4Call and HotSip had those principals behind their products,” said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president of development at Oracle.

Oracle also acquired HotSip this year. Sweden-based HotSip AB was a provider of communications infrastructure software and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enabled applications for IP telephony, presence, messaging and conferencing on converged networks.

The Virtual PBX builds on these acquired technologies and includes features such as queues and attendant functionality. “With the attendant feature, you can fire up on any browser, which means you can have an attendant in a low-cost center or at home and be able to pick up calls for any small or medium business,” Viarengo said.

The PBX uses standard J2EE and Web technologies to simplify administration, configuration and management of the application, which helps lower the total cost providing services.

“We believe that as the world of telecom converges more and more around IP networks that Java-based platforms are the best way to build next generation services,” Viarengo said.

Timo Varsila, head of service development and product management at DNA Finland, said his company was pleased by the availability of the Oracle Virtual PBX service as a component of the Oracle SDP. He said that IT-based, standards-based platforms for developing network-centric services are here to stay.

But first, Oracle’s Viarengo said they have to prove themselves in the marketplace. “The value of the platform approach is down the road. Telcos will be able to buy from thousands of [independent software vendors]. But he challenge is, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem, so you have to prime the pump and show people how it works,” he said.

He added that the success of the platform would hinge on being able to recruit and deploy these ISV solutions on the platform. The ISVs, in turn, are eager to deploy on a deliver platform so they don’t have to develop their own.