3:45 PM -- Aepona Ltd. is having an interesting time of it.

The Irish specialist has been at the heart of service delivery platform (SDP) developments for a number of years now and has found itself a niche as a provider of technology that helps connect carrier networks with third-party application developers. And now it has a new round of funding to the tune of $10 million, courtesy of Toronto-based BlackBerry Partners Fund . (See Aepona Banks $10M.)

That money's going to help it develop its platform further, but also enable it to stay at the heart of the GSM Association (GSMA) 's OneAPI initiative that's aiming to develop a standardized way for mobile operators to hook up with those all-important app creators.

New rounds of funding aren't that common in any part of the industry these days. It's good to see Aepona bagging some new cash, and good to see investors like BlackBerry Partners stumping up to fund worthwhile technology efforts, especially those that are at the heart of carrier Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) developments.

- Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading