This article originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.
INTERNET TELEPHONY in May ran a cover story about Sangoma’s new strategy to rev up growth via the delivery of new turnkey solutions, a significantly ramped up product release schedule, and global expansion. In it, Sangoma President and CEO Bill Wignall talked about his three-step process to energize the company and propel growth by better meeting the needs of customers and prospects via this strategy.
Apparently, the strategy is working.
Sangoma Technologies (News 
- Alert) Corp. this summer, in closing its fiscal year 2012, reported its best results ever. Preliminary revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 ended June 30, 2012, was $3.7 million. For the full fiscal year it was $13.8 million. These are increases over fiscal 2011 of 14 percent and 16 percent, respectively – and they are records for both the quarter and the year.
"I am very pleased that our preliminary results indicate a strong close to our fiscal year despite a backdrop of sales downturns amongst some of our competitors," said Wignall in announcing the good news. "We have seen revenue softening in certain markets, but the impact of new products has kept our momentum going despite the turbulent times.”
The company has been able to build momentum by helping service providers and enterprises adapt to and embrace the latest in networking technology and communications capabilities –and without requiring heavy upfront costs.
For example, Sangoma delivers gateways and transcoding devices that enable traditional service providers to better compete with the cablecos and mobile broadband providers of the world. On the enterprise side, Sangoma is helping businesses more easily and affordably adopt the popular Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync unified communications platform by providing them with integrated PSTN gateways and their new Lync Express, the only all-in-one Lync Server appliance with a built-in VoIP gateway.
Sangoma built its reputation as a supplier of the highest quality voice and data boards, a business in which it’s been the leading player for nearly three decades. It’s also been a leader on the open source front. And while the company is committed to continue selling and investing heavily in its board business and supporting the open source movement, Sangoma at the behest of Wignall has set a course to expand its product portfolio dramatically.
“By focusing on our customers’ needs and delivering more products that meet more of those needs, at the same levels of quality that we always delivered, I’m certain we will continue on this upward trend,” said Wignall. “The changes that we put into action have established a strong foundation that enables a very nimble response to market and customer needs. This new flexibility has been a driving force in the company’s record-setting pace on the innovation and financial fronts.”
The integration of technology acquired with the 2011 addition of U.K.-based VegaStream to Sangoma, has strengthened and broadened the scope of the company’s solutions entering the market. The Vega Series of standalone gateways has provided a launching pad for a new Session Border Controller (SBC) and a carrier-grade VoIP transcoding gateway. According to Frederic Dickey, Sangoma’s director of product management, “the synergies that became possible with the combination of technologies has yielded some very powerful solutions that exceed the potential of either company prior to the acquisition. And the speed with which our development teams are turning out new products is a testament to the quality of the core elements.”
Among more than ten new market-driven products introduced by Sangoma this year, the Lync Express appliance has garnered a great deal of attention. Making its debut at the Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference in June, Lync Express has captured the attention of many integrators and businesses looking to deploy Microsoft Lync’s unified communications capabilities across the enterprise. The standalone appliance from Sangoma includes all of the core Microsoft Lync call administration and server functions along with an integrated VoIP to TDM gateway for connection to the PSTN.
Targeting the service provider market, Sangoma has also released the NetBorder SS7 VoIP Gateway (News - Alert) appliance, (supporting a wide range of VoIP and wireless codecs and call routing via XML scripts,) the high-volume NetBorder Transcoding Gateway, (supporting voice codec transcoding for up to 4,000 SIP Sessions,) the Vega400 SBC (providing secure IP-IP connectivity for up to 60 simultaneous SIP sessions,) and the Sangoma STM1-Mux (terminating fiber and breaking out individual E1/T1 spans on-premise.)
In the enterprise space, capacity expansions in gateway and board lines have included new one- and two-span Vega gateways (providing enterprise-level features for SMB deployments,) the A116 16-span digital telephony board (doubling the single server slot capacity of any board in the marketplace,) and enhanced Call Progress Analysis software for contact centers.
The common thread that runs throughout Sangoma’s quickly growing product portfolio is that all of its solutions connect networks together, enabling customers to integrate new products and technologies with their existing infrastructure in a way that minimizes interruption and keeps costs manageable. And that is clearly what customers are looking for.
“Sangoma commitment to deliver solutions that address real-world business challenges enable us to quickly and confidently launch new solutions that not only satisfy our customer requirements, but also contribute directly to our bottom line performance,” said Luiz Roberto Pacces, chief operational officer of CallFlex, a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based a developer of telecommunication systems. “Span density, performance, and reliability all combine to make the high-density A116 just the latest reason that Sangoma is our first choice for telephony boards.”
As a company, Sangoma has been on the move as well, not only in terms of increasing the number of products it brings to market, but also in light of its global expansion. Indeed, Sangoma and its distribution partners now provide solutions to customers in key markets in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America.
"Sangoma's strategy to expand product deliveries over the past year has contributed to our positive fiscal results," noted David Moore (News - Alert), Sangoma chief financial officer. "We've already set revenue records in two separate quarters in 2012, which is particularly encouraging when one considers the sluggish economic conditions that are still prevalent in the market. All of these indicators demonstrate that Sangoma's product strategies are bearing fruit for the company and our shareholders."
They’re also bearing fruit for Sangoma’s customers.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
