BroadSoft

Shoppers: Possible VoIP merger and acquisitions in 2009?

Doug Mohney — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:36:21 -0500

Apple

Would Apple buy Yahoo? At less than $11 a share and a market cap of $15 million it may be a target too tempting to resist. We could also see Mr. Jobs make a quick strike or two for software and/or HD audio technology.

BroadSoft

Sources tell us BroadSoft quietly secured some amount of venture capital in September, disconcerting staff who had been told last year that the company wasn't going to take another round.

Last week, Tessler told FierceVoip, "We always carefully consider opportunities for consolidation, but we want to stay in the applications layer and have been very clear that we won't go beneath that in the stack. Of course, in this climate, something may present itself as a must-take opportunity."

We're not sure if SaaS/hosted companies fall into the above definition, but being able to acquire recurring monthly revenues is always a good thing for any company.

Cisco

Do we need to explain further? Cisco may be trimming up its expenses, but it has plenty of free cash coming in quarter after quarter and an appetite for devouring companies. We wouldn't be surprised if Cisco reached deep into its wallet to make one big (multi-billion dollar) deal in 2009.

Dialogic

Dialogic wants to be a company with at least $400 million in sales, so we expect them to steadily add to the portfolio in 2009 with at least one player "consolidated" under the Dialogic flag.

EXFO

After buying Brix Networks and Navtel this year, what else is there left to buy in the testing and service assurances market? Maybe a SaaS play to get recurring revenue.

GENBAND

Nortel's Ethernet and optical networking assets may represent an opportunity for GENBAND to move beyond its IMS core strategy. Or not - Nortel wants a billion, it will "only" get $500 million.

Regardless, GENBAND doesn't mind buying up individual divisions of companies, and a number of vendors will want to tighten up their portfolios.

Dialogic and GENBAND

Could the two M&A kings end up together to build a potential billion dollar baby? It'd be an interesting marriage with Dialogic at the edge and GENBAND at the core.

Global Crossing

The company told the Wall Street Journal it was interested in possible mergers and acquisitions to gain scale, as they expect a new wave of consolidation in the next 18 months. CEO John Legere said the company has been "in talks with everyone" - whatever that means.

Who do you cross Global Crossing with? Given their all-IP religion, a pairing with XO might make sense, giving GC a bigger U.S. presence and a large metro network. Another interesting combination might be a merger with one of the top three CDN players - Akamai, Limelight or CDNetworks. CDNs need cheap pipe, while GC and other long-hauls would like to accumulate more peering relationships and more IP traffic.

Google

If it's a slow news day, Google will likely buy a VoIP/IP communications company it thinks is hot, then sit on it for about 12 to 24 months while it figures out what to do with the acquisition. At least the company being bought will likely see cash, rather than stock, unless it's a mega-deal.

Microsoft

With $17.8 billion in cash on the books and no publically professed interest in Yahoo this minute (If Yahoo was such a great deal at $31 a share, why wouldn't be an excellent deal at $11 a share? Probably because Microsoft could afford to wait until Yahoo hits $5-7 a share before rolling back in), Microsoft has plenty of cash and a decent stock to offer young UC companies an offer they just can't refuse.

FierceVoIP Leaders- Michael Tessler, CEO Broadsoft

Pete Wylie — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:05:11 -0500

As Broadsoft celebrates its tenth anniversary this week. FierceVoIP talked with Michael Tessler, CEO of Broadsoft, about Broadsoft's plans for 2009 and his vision for the space,

FierceVoIP: What are some of the benefits of integrating the Broadsoft Anywhere platform?

Tessler: It allows business people much greater flexibility and reachability. I can walk into my office and switch seamlessly from my mobile device to my handset and vice versa. There is no special software or handset capability to enable, because the function is baked right into the network. It's not so much a handover, but a seamless bridging, so people on different devices can be connected and are compatible with the system.

FierceVoIP: What sets Broadsoft's offering apart from other players in the space?

Tessler: Other companies are offering dual-mode solutions or solutions that are really complex, which you would need considerable IT support behind. Our solution is very simple, yet very effective, and I think it can be deployed more easily than our competitor's solutions. All a customer has to do is configure a phone number, and handover is enabled, regardless of the customer's mobile device.

FierceVoIP: Are there other qualities that separate Broadsoft in its specific competitive arena?

Tessler: I think our range of options and offerings for customers, including media servers, conferencing and unified messaging, makes us an attractive option for their hosted services, because our solutions can be scaled easily and are reliable, in addition to being easy to implement. We also are fast to market with our products and outpace our competitors in innovation. This lets the end-user integrate voice and IP and collaboration services that they can use to run their businesses better.

FierceVoIP: Broadsoft recently announced some layoffs, what was the reason behind those?

Tessler: We're trying to be proactive about finding the right size for the company in the present marketplace. It was a fairly small reduction in staff, although it's never a small issue for someone getting let go, but we knew we were entering a very uncertain marketplace, and we wanted to make sure we were well-positioned for success going into 2009. We wanted to ensure we had the right people in the right places, and we realized some regions we could pull back on and still give quality service.

FierceVoIP: What are some of Broadsoft's plans and goals for 2009?

Tessler: We'll look for continued transformation of carrier markets, further adoption of standards like SIP, and fully hosted affairs with IP-trunking and SIP-trunking. Some of our carrier customers came back after we entered the early market, and told us they wanted more interoperability and they wanted it baked in. We've had a chance to work on that, and I think, beyond interoperability, we've had our involvement with the SIP Forum, not just on the interoperability level, but on installation, troubleshooting and maintenance. That's part of a big program for use that will continue for some time.

FierceVoIP: What do you think the next year to two years hold for the space?

Tessler: I think you'll continue to see migration of networks from TDM to IP, and I think it's passed its tipping point in that regard for several reasons. The cost savings both in cap ex and op ex are very attractive and will convert people in tough economic times, carriers will continue to make investments as they compete and out-innovate each other.

FierceVoIP: How has the economic downturn affected Broadsoft?

Tessler: We remain cautiously optimistic about the outlook, because SaaS is an attractive option when you are trying to cut costs and get leaner as a company. We saw some pullback in September and into October, but we're back on track in Q4. We're seeing a shift to where carriers buy on a just-in-need basis, and reduce license float, but that's always been our model, so we're not overly concerned. We have more than 400 customers that range in size in 61 different countries. We also think our diversity in customer base, from small carriers to Verizon-like incumbents, is helpful.

FierceVoIP: Do you see any current M&A opportunities for Broadsoft?

Tessler: We always carefully consider opportunities for consolidation, but we want to stay in the applications layer and have been very clear that we won't go beneath that in the stack. Of course, in this climate, something may present itself as a must-take opportunity.

BroadSoft cuts jobs -- but how many?

Pete Wylie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:49:23 -0400

BroadSoft is laying off people, but just how many? The company, located in Gaithersburg, Md., reports the cuts will occur in the EMEA region and the U.S. and will come from BroadSoft's sales, product management and engineering divisions.

An initial report had BroadSoft laying off around a dozen of its nearly 300 employees, according to a gigaom.com piece published Friday. However, other reports and sources indicate the number may be much higher.

On Friday, BroadSoft vice president of marketing Leslie Ferry confirmed cutbacks, but did not state the exact number of positions eliminated. Sources close to the company have put the total number of jobs cut in the range of 30 or more, but Broadsoft did not return requests for interviews by press time to verify this number.

The company reported that slowing sales prompted the cutbacks, but also, somewhat contradictorily, reported it was on pace to grow profits and revenue. Wouldn't the company have a slower pace to grow profits and reviews if sales are slowing?

Wild rumor on the street has BroadSoft looking at a major acquisiton/merger deal. Could the cuts be some trimming up prior to a merger or major acquisition by BroadSoft? We saw this happen over at BroadSoft's Gaithersburg, MD neighbor, NexTone, prior to its acquisition by GENBAND.

For more:
- see the gigaom.com post here

Related articles
Digium and BroadSoft Play Well Together
BroadSoft and Microsoft announce hosted UC alliance
BroadSoft buys GENBAND App Server

BroadSoft and Microsoft announce hosted UC alliance

Doug Mohney — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:11:52 -0400

Piling on to a stack of announcements this week at its annual users' conference, BroadSoft announced the general availability of a hosted unified communications services for businesses, based on Microsoft software.

The BroadSoft/Microsoft solution is built on Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) version 4.5 and integrated with BroadSoft's BroadWorks platform. Since it is a hosted offering, businesses can get unified communications without the fixed capital cost of servers and software, and without the dedicated operational costs of maintaining them.

BroadSoft and Microsoft are underlining the ability to "enhance business processes" by being able to tie in vanilla UC features (i.e. IM, email, phone, video) to business process software such as CRM, accounting and enterprise resource planning.

It will be interesting to see how this announcement plays out both to BroadSoft customers and Microsoft's favorite UC partner Nortel. Microsoft's hosted solution first turned up on Nortel hardware, and Nortel has enjoyed a most-favored UC partner status in larger integration deals.

For more:
- Microsoft's press release on working with Broadsoft.

SPOTLIGHT: Digium and BroadSoft Play Well Together

Doug Mohney — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:58:13 -0400

Digium and BroadSoft have announced that Digium's Switchvox IP PBX is certified to work with BroadSoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform.

Since BroadSoft provides VoIP apps to eight of the world's ten largest telecommunications companies, and Asterisk is the world's most widely used open source telephony, this should mean that carriers using BroadWorks should feel comfortable with selling Switchvox turnkey IP PBX solutions to SMBs. Switchvox should go well with SIP trunking options, so carriers should have another option beyond hosted and all the proprietary solutions floating around.

One might suppose this is part of a larger "Play well with others" strategy by Digium. A few weeks ago, Digium announced it was building an interoperability solution between Asterisk and Skype.

For more:
- Broadsoft's release on Switchvox/BroadWorks interoperabiliy

BroadSoft buys GENBAND App Server

Doug Mohney — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:22:08 -0400

BroadSoft has acquired GENBAND's M6 Communications Application Server (formerly VocalData), product line and related customer base.

The deal allows BroadSoft to further expand its market leadership position in the VoIP applications market (software), while freeing up GENBAND to focus its efforts on its gateway (hardware) business. As a result of the acquisition, BroadSoft will grow its customer base to 435.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but BroadSoft's press release describes the acquisition as the "beginning of a long-term partnership" between the two companies. Future cooperative efforts fall under the heading of "Network Transformation" projects, so one might assume that GENBAND would supply the gateways, while BroadSoft provides the software.

Interestingly, this deal puts GENBAND into the selling category; the company has conducted a number of acquisitions over the past couple of years, including Baypackets, Tekelec's Switching Solution Group and Siemens Networks technology.

Meanwhile, BroadSoft has been hot and heavy on the Web 2.0/mashups front, announcing a number of deals as it grows an independent network of developers to quickly develop and deploy VoIP applications.

For more:
- BroadSoft press release on acquiring GENBAND app server

BroadSoft, Fonality get Certified

Doug Mohney — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:10:15 -0400

BroadSoft and Fonality have performed a cross-certification ritual, assuring that their respective products play well together.

Specifically, BroadSoft has certified Fonality's trixbox Pro and PBXtra work with the BroadWorks VoIP applications platform. In addition, BroadSoft has joined the Fonality Authorized Certified Ecosystem (FACE). Certifying that the two products work together will allow the two companies to offer service providers a complete line of hosted and premise-based unified communications offerings for customers of all sizes; it should be noted Fonality focuses on the SMB space, however.

This dance gives Fonality Yet Another Way to sell its products above and beyond its traditional VAR/channel partners (about 7,000 at last count), its own website, and the bundles sold through/on Dell's website. About the only place Fonality isn't selling right now is down at Costco, and this reporter wouldn't put it past Chris Lyman and company to cut a deal with a Big Box retailer by the end of the year along with a FACEcon in '09.

BroadSoft is also wrapping up a busy week, having been selected by Belgacom to provide IMS-related services and teaming with Samsung Networks to provide hosted services for large enterprises in Korea.

For more:
- BroadSoft, Fonality compatibility announcement

Related articles:
Fonality Logs 15 Quarters of Growth
Fonality, Allworx top SMB IP PBX appliance reviews

Did Anyone Watch the Fireworks?

Doug Mohney — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:30:48 -0400

Based upon the number of IP communications merger announcements this week, there were plenty of people busy working on deals up to (and likely over) the holiday weekend.

Aspect Software bought BlueNote for its SOA software technology, giving the Asterisk-using UC contact center company a bunch of interesting bits and pieces of things for "communications enabling business processes (CEBP). Terms weren't announced, but I suspect BlueNote (and its investors) was happy to be bought since the company had to sell a VoIP-SOA story to enterprises against the likes of IBM and BEA.

Sangoma snapped up Paraxip (OK, so the Canadians would be working over the Fourth). The deal was under $5 million, but gives Sangoma a software base to build on for the future and customer lists in the contact center and enterprise space. Definitely an interesting move.

Finally, there's the rumored/unconfirmed purchase of Ribbit by BT for around $55 million. Looks like both sides were at least talking about acquisition and BT hasn't been shy about being technology if they feel it fills in a vital need. On the other hand, the Ribbit guys have been billing themselves as "Silicon Valley's First Telephone Company" so if BT didn't know there was some ego involved in the deal, they likely do now with all the loose lips.

FYI, if you need some quick cash, BroadSoft announced a voice mashup contest with a $5,000 cash and a free booth at the Broadsoft Connections show to the winner.

- Doug

NXTcomm08: BroadSoft Bulks Up Ecosystem

Doug Mohney — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:04:41 -0400

NXTcomm08, Las Vegas--BroadSoft has announced a couple of new enterprise voice mashups, more than 300 hundred developers, and a channel partner program.

New BroadSoft's Web 2.0 apps include the GotVoice voicemail-to-text service and MobileMax's Enterprise Edition Mobile Client. The voicemail-to-text service is pretty self-explanatory; users can receive all of their voice mail as text and digital audio via email and within a personal GotVoice.Com account.

MobileMax is a fixed-mobile convergence client application that resides in a user's mobile device and extends BroadWorks calling functionality to mobile handsets. The client allows users to use a single number for mobile devices and desk phones, a single voice mailbox, and to route mobile calls through their company's BroadWorks-based phone networks for reduced toll costs.

On the reseller front, BroadSoft's Channel Partner Program expands BroadSoft's existing OEM relationships for the BroadWorks applications platform. Channel partners quality for the program to offer BroadWorks-based business and residential services based on their technical expertise, pre-existing service provider relationships and customer base. Channel partners will also have access to the Xtended Services Interface, enabling them to integrate BroadWorks calling features with web-based applications for creating new services faster.

For more:
- BroadSoft discusses new channel partners and Web 2.0 apps

Related articles:
BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook
MetaSwitch makes mashups

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET mashup Facebook

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:59:57 -0400

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET have launched the first Facebook mashup to include carrier-grade VoIP features. J.NET's Click2Message Facebook application talks to Broadsoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform, so Facebook users can enable their friends and colleagues to call them through their Facebook profiles with a single click.

The Click2Message application enables click-to-dial using any device and Facebook users can add the application to their profile pages, allowing their network of friends and business connections to call them without revealing their own phone numbers to the caller. (If they are your friends, why would you need to hide your number? Hmm.) The basic Click2Message application is now available free of change to any U.S.-based Facebook user; sign-up information for the free beta is available at http://marketplace.broadsoft.com. A for-pay version with advanced bells and whistles such as low-cost outbound calling, call forwarding, do not disturb, and voicemail-to-text transcription, will be released shortly

Click2Message is the latest high-visibility application announced out of BroadSoft's Xtended Developers Program, following announcements combining BroadWorks functionality with Salesforce.com, ACT! by Sage, simulScribe, and Polycom. Developers get access to APIs to integrated advanced voice features with their applications.

For more:
- BroadSoft Facebook Mashup release

Related articles:
BroadSoft powering XO Hosting Mobile UC
TMC piece on Broadsoft ACT! Mashup

MetaSwitch makes mashups

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:59:56 -0400

MetaSwitch has announced it is demonstrating mashups using its CommPortal subscriber interface with iGoogle and Salesforce.com, providing click-to-dial experiences with both websites. The solutions will enable service providers to integrate CommPortal directly into both websites, allowing users to access click-to-dial, contact integration, visual voicemail and other features.

Demonstrations are taking place this week during MetaSwitch's annual user forum event and put the company into a crowd of softswitch-based vendors that have announced mashup solutions, including BroadSoft and Sylantro. Other companies with mashup capabilities include Digium's SwitchVox SMB IP PBX and NewStep's CSN converged communications platform. Typical objectives around mashups are to enable service providers to quickly develop new applications at reduced cost while adding more revenue-producing services.

The iGoogle/CommPortal mashup includes an iGoogle gadget to enable click-to-dial and a remote click-to-dial option that allows subscribers to utilize the function on their mobile phones. Users can also integrate their Gmail contracts with the CommPortal interface for some contact management functionality. Salesforce.com gets a click-to-dial function with CommPortal and users get access to a contact-based view of their call history along with access to a visual voicemail application; frankly everyone is doing a Salesforce.com mashup.

For more:
- MetaSwitch Mashup release

Related articles:
BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook
Converging out of CTIA

MetaSwitch Makes Mashups

Doug Mohney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:11:32 -0400

For more:
- MetaSwitch Mashup Release

Related Articles:
BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook
Converging out of CTIA

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET Mashup Facebook

Doug Mohney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:26:25 -0400

BroadSoft and JoeDeveloper.NET have launched the first Facebook mashup to include carrier-grade VoIP features. JoeDeveloper.NET's Click2Message Facebook application talks to Broadsoft's BroadWorks VoIP application platform, so Facebook users can enable their friends and colleagues to call them through their Facebook profiles with a single click.

The Click2Message application enables click-to-dial using any device and Facebook users can add the application to their profile pages, allowing their network of friends and business connections to call them without revealing their own phone numbers to the caller. (If they are your friends, why would you need to hide your number? Hmm.) The basic Click2Message application is now available free of change to any U.S. based Facebook user; signup information for the free beta is available at http://marketplace.broadsoft.com. A for-pay version with advanced bells and whistles such as low-cost outbound calling, call forwarding, do not disturb, and voicemail-to-text transcription, will be released shortly

For more:
- BroadSoft Facebook Mashup release

Related articles:
BroadSoft powering XO Hosting Mobile UC
TMC piece on Broadsoft ACT! Mashup

XO Hosting Mobile UC

Doug Mohney — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:18:34 -0400

XO Communications has launched XO Anywhere, a new service that adds mobility and unified communications feature to its existing IP services portfolio. XO Anywhere enables employees to turn any phone into their XO office phone and includes mobile UC (i.e. FMC) capabilities such as simultaneous ring on up to 10 different devices at the same time through a single number, make and receive calls from any device with the office phone number displayed as a caller ID and charged to the office’s XO service, click-to-dial in Microsoft Outlook and web browsers, and a web-based tool bar. Current XO customers can get XO Anywhere services as a simple add-on to their IP based services.

BroadSoft is proving the software to bring everything together.

While XO is laying claim as the first service provider to offering these features, by no means will they be the last. There are two key concepts underlying XO’s announcement: 1) Businesses are moving beyond the concept of vanilla UC and want to bring mobile phones into the fold of the corporate IP PBX and 2) The use of a hosted solution offered by a carrier, rather than an appliance-based gizmo installed on the customer premise and costs a lot. Businesses save money on capital expense and installation costs while carriers get to generate more revenues out of vanilla IP pipes and IP PBXes with value-added applications.

For more:
- XO’s Mobile press release
- Telephony’s XO write up