BSS is dead, long live BSS!

Even though BSS and OSS system stack and services are getting convergent, they can be readily differentiated. All systems that are customer-facing would come under BSS (like billing,mediatio,revenue assurance,fraud management,CRM). All systems that are network-facing would come under OSS(like service provisioning,service activation,network management systems)

I also agree there are clear boundaries.  SPs are moving to an articulated architecture where there are market-oriented channels (primary users of BSS) and network-oriented operations (primary users of OSS).  Each channel may sell components from various networks (in contrast to the stovepipe architecture of the past).  The nexus is the ability to flexibly map products (market focus) to services (network focus) across the relevant systems.

I too believe that there is reasonably clarity to differentiate BSS and OSS systems at least in logical view. The differentiation criteria could be logical view, technical/solution view or process view. One can take end-to-end process view, where processes cut across business and operations teams. As part of process there will be some systems, which will fall on border line. On the ground, it is likely to vary from CSP to CSP and how the organization depts are structured with control on respective systems. It is possible to have unification of some systems as part of transformtaion programs being run by CSPs. Ultimately, its all about business. Not a big fan of acronyms but what if someone does create an acronym from "Unified Support System for Business & Operations"?

Although the BSS and OSS seem to have little boundary network oriented. But some area there is an overlap. For instant the OSS may have customer care network monitoring. Then it will effect to revenue of operator and CRM.

I agree with you all. There is still a clear difference between BSS and OSS though these systems are converging. Infact, over past few years there has been more focus with respect to BSS systems which was unheard of because of the competition and customer expectations from CSP. Do we need a new term, yes, there is no harm in introducing new terms as we are used to new terminologies every 3-5 years .

The differentiation between BSS and OSS is blurring. Earlier Mediation was referred to as an OSS application. Now, Mediation, Charging and even IN are being referred to as BSS.

Order Management is not longer an application – It is a process spanning across multiple applications. The same with Product modeling.

Hence instead of referring to stacks like BSS and OSS, it would be better if we talk in terms of functional processes like Customer Management, Order Management etc and then think of the underlying applications.