It's cute... but it's WRONG!!!

When I worked as a strategist for a major telco Billing supplier, I frequently had the debate about the impact of IP on the telecom industry. My view then, as now, was that IP innovation was moving far faster than telco and would therefore assume the dominant position pretty soon after 'they' ( the IP guys) decided to go after the telco space.
Telcoland response was, effectively, the Parley protocol. 'Hey, let's allow the IP guys to call functions that make the IP network look like the IN network!'.
Great idea....?! It's cute...but it's WRONG.
Why would any developer in their right mind sacrifice the simplicity and flexibility that allowed them to get this far, just to be chums with the slow-moving, analy-retentive telcoheads, who never managed to do anything interesting to voice communications in 50 years!

It seems that IMS is another stab at providing a sandpit for the IP kids to play in. But it is similarly doomed. (Hands up those of us who would willingly let our parents organise a party for us when we were 21?)
Every service that the telcos provide has a way to be bypassed, and the only way the telcos can prevent it is to restrict access - and I don't believe that is an economically sustainable solution!

The interesting applications will exist outside of the IMS straightjacket, and the more successful networks will avoid the expense of IMS implementation to concentrate on building the best customer access experience.
The whole concept of a Service Delivery Platform, at a technical level, is an anachronism. The SDP will produce a large number of very dull services. It's like Stock, Aitken and Waterman producing music (you can have any tune as long as it goes like this!)

By all means, build a business package to assist the creation of new services, but don't, for god's sake, link it to a set of technical standards that are over-specified and under-implemented (and hugely expensive!).

PS. SAW were rather more successful than IMS will be, because they were populist, rather than autocratic. Where is Rick Astley now??