Cisco to acquire Broadsoft for collaboration software

Cisco agreed to acquire BroadSoft $55 per share, in cash, for an aggregate price of $1.9 billion. The companies said the deal is driven by the opportunities presented for business collaboration tools, especially integrated experiences across meetings, calling and contact centers, both on-premise and in the cloud.

Broadsoft, which is based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a leading provider of unified communications (UC) software and services. It Broadsoft Business product is an open communication suite with mobility and security features for enterprises. Its flagship BroadWorks application software lets service providers deploy an extensive portfolio of business communications and collaboration services from a common network platform. BroadWorks operates in IMS and next-generation network configurations, delivering services over traditional wireline, mobile (2G, 3G, VoLTE, WiFi), wireless and cable networks. In cloud UC call control new line shipments, Broadsoft claims the largest market share (followed by Cisco), with UC installations by 25 of the world's top service providers, for over 3 million lines installed.

As of the end of 2016, BroadSoft had 1,597 employees in 23 countries, including 732 in the U.S.

Broadsoft total revenues:

2012 - $165 million
2013 - $178 million
2014 - $217 million
2015 - $279 million
2016 - $341 million

"We are excited about this transaction, which represents the culmination of a robust process undertaken by BroadSoft's Board of Directors to maximize shareholder value," said Michael Tessler, president and CEO, BroadSoft. "As businesses continue to move toward the cloud in search of simplicity and speed, joining Cisco will allow us to deliver best-in-class collaboration tools and services. BroadSoft's hosted offerings, sold through the Service Providers and aimed at small and medium businesses, are highly complementary to Cisco's on-premises and enterprise-centric HCS offerings. Together, we can inspire teams to create, collaborate and perform in ways never before imagined."

"Cisco recently marked a significant milestone with our 200th acquisition. Acquisitions continue to be a core part of our innovation strategy and over the past two years have helped Cisco accelerate or enter areas such as IoT, application intelligence, AI, hyperconvergence and SD-WAN," said Rob Salvagno, vice president of Cisco Corporate Development. "With the addition of BroadSoft, we expect to accelerate the pace of innovation across our entire collaboration portfolio."

Read More

BroadSoft Powers One Talk by Verizon

BroadSoft confirmed that its BroadWorks platform is integrated in One Talk by Verizon – the company's VoLTE business communications solution.

One Talk delivers advanced business features within the native mobile dialer, BYOD applications for smartphones and tablets, and on state-of-the art desk phones that seamlessly and securely integrate with the Verizon 4G LTE mobile network.

“BroadSoft bMobile capabilities are impressive and have been integrated in our custom-built business solution that delivers one service, one experience, one bill and one business number – all backed by America’s largest and fastest 4G LTE network. We believe One Talk is a game changer for businesses of all sizes,” said Mike Lanman, SVP, Enterprise & IoT Products, Product and New Business Development Team, Verizon.

http://www.broadsoft.com/news/press-releases/broadsoft_technology_integrated_in_one_talksm_by_verizon

Read More

Vonage to Acquire iCore Networks

Vonage, which offers cloud communications services for businesses and consumers, agreed to acquire privately-held iCore Networks for $92 million.

iCore offers a broad range of voice, video, mobile and collaboration services. iCore sells its solutions primarily through its large, direct field sales force, adding significant scale and a national footprint to Vonage's existing sales force. iCore supports more than 85,000 customer seats, with monthly ARPU per customer of more than $4,000, and derives more than 60% of its revenue from customers with 100 or more seats. Monthly revenue churn is less than one percent as a result of three-year contracts that include Quality of Service ("QoS") guarantees.

iCore leverages the same BroadSoft BroadWorks call processing platform used by Vonage, resulting in ease of integration for iCore's customers. iCore has a subset of customers running on BroadSoft's M6 platform.

"iCore is an excellent strategic fit and a natural complement to Vonage's rapidly expanding UCaaS business. This acquisition will deepen our penetration at the higher end of the business market and further strengthen our industry leadership," said Alan Masarek, Vonage Chief Executive Officer. "iCore has a proven track record of delivering the innovative UCaaS solutions required by mid-market and enterprise companies, and has been particularly successful combining hosted communications with complementary cloud services to create a robust unified communications experience."

http://www.vonage.com

Read More

BroadSoft Acquires mPortal for Mobile UC Design

BroadSoft announced its acquisition of mPortal, a privately-held firm that offers mobile-centric design and development capabilities.  mPortal’s mobile-centric design and development capabilities will provide the foundation for BroadSoft Design – which allows service providers and enterprises to customize and differentiate UC solutions built around BroadSoft’s UC-One solution. mPortal is based in McLean, Virginia. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“It is increasingly clear that a ‘one size fits all’ strategy for delivering unified communications is insufficient for meeting the superior and differentiated end-user experiences that businesses demand,” said Scott Hoffpauir, chief technology officer, BroadSoft. “The mPortal acquisition and launch of BroadSoft Design reaffirms our commitment of simplifying how our customers sell, deliver and support UC services, innovating to give service providers a competitive market advantage and accelerating market adoption of unified communications through a superior end-user experience.”

http://www.broadsoft.com

Read More

Blueprint: How Mobile Operators Can Benefit From WebRTC

by Arvind Rangarajan, BroadSoft

WebRTC is one of the most discussed communications technologies today, as it enables enterprises to conduct real time voice and video calls with customers, partners and suppliers via a Web browser. By 2019, there will be more than 6 billion WebRTC devices and up to 2.5 billion active users of “embedded” communications worldwide, according Disruptive Analysis’ 2014 WebRTC Market Status & Forecasts Report. Even today, WebRTC is already enabled on more than a billion browsers, which indicates a very real and immediate opportunity for mobile operators and telcos.


Moderating a WebRTC session at Enterprise Connect 2015, one industry analyst estimated there to be approximately 200 WebRTC vendor solutions commercially available (or at least announced) at this moment. The sheer volume of WebRTC products, platforms, and applications is particularly remarkable given that most have been launched over just the past few months.

For mobile operators and service providers eyeing WebRTC but unsure how to move forward, the good news is that it doesn’t take years, months, or even weeks to benefit from WebRTC-enabled applications. A growing set of WebRTC-enabling tools simplify the process for service providers seeking to design and customize their own unified communications (UC) offers, which can increase service provider revenue opportunities, enhance the customer experience, future proof investments as the technology evolves, and deliver several additional key benefits.

Extend Unified Communications Beyond Enterprise

Most of the initial WebRTC-enabled technologies focus on delivering more enhanced customer support and a superior customer experience through capabilities such as click-to-call. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses view WebRTC as a way to extend real-time unified communications beyond the confines of an enterprise – to any customer, partner or supplier with a WebRTC-enabled browser.

By extending the benefits of UC to an enterprise's entire ecosystem, external company communications are as simple and efficient as internal communications, in turn lowering enterprise costs by enabling users to take advantage of UC without the need for expensive client software or hardware.  This is significant for mobile operators and telcos attempting to determine where the most immediate and tangible WebRTC business opportunity lie.

WebRTC Can Power Mobile Applications

WebRTC adoption in the mobile world has been slow largely due to the challenges with the use of browsers; for example, it is difficult to notify a subscriber using a mobile browser about an incoming WebRTC call if the browser is not open. That is among a handful of reasons that, initially, apps may be used more than browsers in this context, and until browser enhancements are made, WebRTC can serve as the underlying technology for mobile apps for real-time communications.

The fact is that there are several factors positioning 2015 as the year when the explosion of WebRTC offerings will be matched by a growing user base and tangible revenues for service providers. First, telcos around the world are moving from traditional circuit-switched networks to full IP-based 4G networks to reduce costs as well as offer rich new mobile communications services.

Second, there is also significant demand from enterprises and consumers to have the ability to access all of their communications services on multiple devices. More specifically, data indicate customer interaction will increasingly be mobile-centric. By 2017, research firm IDC projects 87% of the worldwide smart connected device markets will be smartphones and tablets, while only 13% of the devices will be desktops and laptops. At the same time, 2014 research by ThinkJar finds 78% of organizations indicate mobile customer service is valuable to them (up from 31% the prior year).

Mobile smart phone data usage is very different compared to traditional browsing with laptops and tablets. There has been consistent data showing app usage dominating the overall mobile data consumption. For that reason, mobile operators should start by building apps that use WebRTC technology on the back end or even integrating WebRTC into existing apps. By creating a more compelling customer experience on mobile devices, mobile operators will drive more mobile access network usage. For example, adding voice or video capability into an app provided by a mobile operator that gives account details like usage would be of tremendous value. The capability could help the subscriber reach a representative for more personalized support.

Improve user experience for the future

Through WebRTC, enterprises can improve the customer experience by adding a rich media communication experience within their Website, email communications and mobile apps as the solution enables real-time, browser-based video and voice calling. This will prove especially critical for mobile devices, as research firm Gartner recently indicated that weak mobile customer service is harming customer engagement. For this reason, the ability of organizations to leverage WebRTC across all devices – of note given Gartner’s projection that one-third of all customer service interactions will still require the support of a human intermediary by 2017 – will go a long way in creating a superior customer experience.

Beyond mobile specifically, service providers are able to leverage WebRTC to customize their UC offers for a particular business need; enabling innovative services that address business issues and current market trends, including an increasingly disparate workforce, the growing share of millennials in the workforce, and a growing desire to access communications applications across a broad array of connected devices.

WebRTC is a true enabling technology; one with all the ingredients to improve the user experience, spark innovation and unlock new customer and revenue opportunities for mobile operators able to rapidly, cost-effectively and efficiently bring compelling solutions to market.

About the Author

Arvind Rangarajan is Director, Product Marketing at BroadSoft, a leading provider of cloud-based unified communications and collaboration solutions.

About BroadSoft 

BroadSoft is the leading provider of software and services that enable mobile, fixed-line and cable service providers to offer Unified Communications over their Internet Protocol networks. The Company’s core communications platform enables the delivery of a range of enterprise and consumer calling, messaging and collaboration communication services, including private branch exchanges, video calling, text messaging and converged mobile and fixed-line services. For additional information, visit http://www.BroadSoft.com

Got an idea for a Blueprint column?  We welcome your ideas on next gen network architecture.
See our guidelines.

Read More

BroadSoft Acquires Leonid Systems for UC Portal

BroadSoft has acquired Leonid Systems, hosted VoIP OSS provider based in Falls Church, Virginia.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Leonid has developed a purpose-built, intuitive web portal for BroadWorks service provider customers that allows enterprise IT administrators and end-users to simplify the configuration and management of their BroadWorks-based hosted Unified Communications services. Leonid’s web portal improves the overall navigation, accessibility, presentation and performance of BroadSoft’s UC-One application, enhancing business collaboration and productivity by making real-time communications services such as instant messaging, presence, voice calling and video calling accessible through a single interface from any Internet-supported desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

“BroadSoft recently unveiled a new corporate identity built around enhancing the user experience at each phase of the Unified Communications customer lifecycle – from upfront service messaging, to the sales and service implementation process, to service adoption and usage,” said Michael Tessler, chief executive officer, BroadSoft. “As service providers increasingly demand a superior front-end UC services experience that is intuitive and modern, we recognized that Leonid had the expertise and experience to help BroadSoft better meet the evolving service delivery needs of our customers.”  

http://www.leonidsystems.com/
http://www.broadsoft.com/

Read More

Sprint Selects BroadSoft for VoLTE/IMS Transformation

Broadsoft announced that Sprint selected its BroadWorks platform to enhance VoIP services made available by Sprint to both its consumer and business customers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Broadsoft said its BroadWorks' Service Centralization and Continuity application server enables mobile network operators to deliver next-generation, Unified Communications (UC) services over their existing legacy GSM and/or CDMA networks.  The platform's Voice Call Continuity capabilities enable these UC services to transition from legacy networks as an operator migrates to VoLTE.

"We were seeking a single voice and video application server platform to support our IMS network transformation in order to provide the communication services both our consumer and enterprise customers are demanding today" said Iyad Tarazi, Vice President of Network Development, Sprint.

Michael Tessler, president and chief executive officer, BroadSoft, said "We are committed to providing superior technical capabilities that enable our service provider customers to offer the highest quality communications experience and look forward to helping Sprint achieve these objectives through our BroadWorks platform."

http://www.broadsoft.com/news/2014/sprint-selects-broadsoft-to-deliver-next-generation-ims-and-voice-over-lte-services/

Read More

BroadSoft Acquires Adaption Technologies

BroadSoft has acquired the assets of Texas-based Adaption Technologies Ventures, Ltd., a provider of hosted business VoIP solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Broadcom said the acquisition will enable it to enhance its BroadCloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery platform to include BroadWorks features and functionality. Adaption Technologies offered web-based service operating platform that enables telecommunications service providers to more quickly sell, provision, activate and bill for their hosted Unified Communications services.

"Thanks to our cloud technology and infrastructure management experience, many of our customers are confident we can cost-effectively develop, deliver and support their branded Unified Communications services," said Michael Tessler, chief executive officer, BroadSoft. "Adding Adaption Technologies' solutions to our cloud platform will allow our service provider customers to speed time-to-market and accelerate time-to-revenue for their branded Unified Communications solutions." http://www.broadsoft.com 07-Aug-12

Read More