Mu Dynamics: 2009 was 'Another Strong Year'

For a number of companies in the telecommunications sector, 2009 encompassed a stressful 365 days – less so for those who managed to roll out cutting-edge products and services.

 

Mu Dynamics (News - Alert) did more than just hang on. The company spent 2009 expanding its signature Mu Test Suite, which makes testing IP services easier and more cost-efficient. The year 2009 also saw the rapid growth of Mu’s online social networking site www.pcapr.net, a repository of relevant IP service packet captures.

 

So what will 2010 bring for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company?

Lucky for us, Mu Dynamics CEO Dave Kresse (News - Alert) answered that question and more in a Q&A with TMCnet.  

 

The full exchange follows.

 

 

DK: Mu had another strong year on many fronts.

 

Our solutions continue to be adopted within our core telecom and mobile operator/vendor markets as we further grew our customer base. Our customer base has grown to now include the top 4 service providers in North America and the top 3 network equipment manufacturers.

 

On the product side, we expanded our Mu Test Suite solution capabilities with the recent launch of Mu Studio. Mu Studio represents the company’s most innovative solution set to date, aimed at a much broader testing audience who are focused on functional and interoperability testing of their IP services  Initial results of customers using Mu Studio show that our unique approach to testing such IP services is providing more than 10 x improvements in test effectiveness. These gains are realized in terms of dramatically reduced time to test and significantly increased quality.

 

2009 also saw the rapid growth of our online social networking site www.pcapr.net, which has grown to be the world’s largest community and repository of relevant IP service packet captures (pcaps). With more than 55 millions packets containing hundreds of different protocols, from thousands of end users, the community share, modify and leverage these pcaps to accelerate their testing efforts.

 

Finally, Mu was recognized with numerous awards again this year most notably by SC Magazine who designated Mu's Test Suite as one of its “Top 20 Products in the Last 20 Years” 00 further validating our innovative approach.

 

 

 

DK: In this tough economic climate both operators and their vendors are under enormous cost pressures to rapidly deliver high quality products/services at lower costs. To stay competitive, customers understand they cannot compromise the quality of their offerings. 

 

What we have seen is a great deal more scrutiny from both operators and vendors around the investments they make. They need to ensure every investment provides a tangible and significant return in the form of reduced time to test, quality improvements and reduced costs. The fact that Mu has clearly shown customers this return is why we have grown so significantly in spite of the broader economic challenges in the industry. 

 

 

 

DK: We’re extremely excited about the year ahead and believe both Mu and its customers have an extraordinary opportunity. The testing industry has not kept pace with the rapid innovation around IP services -- evident within carrier networks, within the Smart Grid initiatives, within Government, within Software as a Service and within the Cloud….until now that is. So for us, it’s heads down as we continue on our path of helping our customers realize huge value -- one customer at a time.

DK: There are a tremendous number of exciting trends and innovations happening within our industry; the explosion of smart devices and the rapid move by carrier operators towards next generation networks in support of this trend is something that is very exciting, and something we anticipate will continue for several years. We are also keeping a close eye on new developments in the Smart Grid space, where vendors and operators are looking at ways to tackle an important business and social challenge. The rapid evolution of cloud computing – and subsequent rapid adoption of cloud-based IP services -- is yet another fascinating trend we are following closely.

 

In all three of these areas, the rate of innovation demonstrated by both the operators and the vendors is astounding. Unfortunately, the testing industry has not kept pace with this innovation… until now. We aspire to drive the same level of innovation in the space of IP services testing that can lead to equally valuable solutions.

 

 

DK: Mission-critical IP services in government, business and consumer markets are becoming mainstream. A key challenge we are beginning to see, and expect to see more of, is the growing cost incurred by end users when these mission critical services fail. The Mu team has decades of combined experience in the IP services space, and we understand both the power and the fragility of these services. Our expectation is that we will see more high-profile service outages in the months ahead that will compel operators and vendors to change their existing testing approaches as they aim to ensure high quality IP services and products. 

 

 

DK: Mu’s solution is already proven in helping customers deliver higher-quality IP services faster and more cost effectively across the network infrastructure and wired and mobile services. It’s still early days when it comes to cloud computing services, government services and Smart Grid ecosystems.

 

All of these markets however have a shared need (and it is literally shared between the operator and the vendor ecosystem) to put out higher-quality product/service offerings in less time and at a lower total cost. Over the course of the next year, we see our biggest opportunities in bringing to market new and innovative solutions around the IP service testing challenge that continue to deliver proven value to our growing base of customers.