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February 14, 2013

GENBAND Continues to Evolve

By Doug Mohney, Contributing Editor

If successful companies evolve to meet the needs of its customers and the marketplace, GENBAND (News - Alert) is working hard to be successful with its latest announcements of UC and RCS offerings and a broader vision of "Making Networks Smarter."  



A few years ago, conventional wisdom was that GENBAND was a grab-and-go M&A play in the telecommunications space. The company rolled up a lot of different parts and pieces and merged them all together under a hardware umbrella. After buying Nortel (News - Alert) 's Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business (CVAS), GENBAND's story evolved  to a software and services business. 

GENBAND's launch of NUViA, its multimedia communications cloud services offering for service providers and channel partners shifts the story again. Service providers will be able to use NUViA to accelerate the commercial delivery of multimedia communications apps through a cloud offering; this approach also saves on upfront capital expenses and offers the usual advantages of "pay-as-you-grow," a flexible service delivery model, and the ability to quickly extend service footprint.

Does this business model sound similar to those of once-hardware/software, now-services companies such as HP, IBM, and Oracle? It certainly does to me. GENBAND certainly isn't generating the revenue on the size of the aforementioned three, but I could make the case that the company is building a business designed to grow and thrive as service providers move from TDM and build-it-yourself services to IP and outsource/off-the-shelf.

NUViA currently comes in two flavors. There's the stock Unified Communications (News - Alert) as a Service (UCaaS) offering including HD voice, video, multimedia messaging, mobility, conferencing, Web collaboration, desktop clients, and fixed and mobile convergence. NUViA RCS gives wireless operators the ability to roll out what the company calls "extensive" multimedia communications services that go well beyond standard RCS capabilities for consumers.

To sweeten the pot for service providers, NUViA supports a "build, transfer, own" model. Service providers can start on GENBAND's cloud offering, then build their own cloud infrastructure and transfer customers to it.

GENBAND's NuViA announcement is part of the company's new "Making Networks Smarter" vision, encompassing solutions from the core to the edge of the network. Grouped in three areas, IMS solutions will be delivered as the SMART CORE group and use the CONTiNUMM family brand name for IMS, call session controllers, and gateway solutions. SBC solutions will fall into the SMART EDGE group and the QUANTiX product family of SBCs, security gateways and the GENView real-time session manager. Unified communications falls into the SMART EXPERIENCE solutions category and the EXPERiUS applications portfolio, including Smart Office, Smart Home and Smart life solutions along with the SIP applications server, RCS services and VoLTE services.

Today's announcements are the start of a campaign throughout 2013, with more products and partners to be revealed in the months ahead. I'm especially looking forward to GENBAND's Perspectives 13 event in Orlando from April 29 through May 2. Speakers for the event read like a who's who of telecommunications including the CTOs for AT&T, Liberty Global and Verizon (News - Alert). In addition, "Inside Edition" host Deborah Norville will be moderating a CIO roundtable on "Liberating the cloud" including the CIOs of Akamai (News - Alert), HP, the NFL and Oracle. I expect lively discussions and some revelations to come, especially since Oracle sells competing products and services with GENBAND.


Edited by Brooke Neuman
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