BroadSoft :: VoIP Biz-News.com

Number of results 21 for BroadSoft

03/10/2011 - BroadSoft courts service providers with cloud-based web collaboration platform

BroadSoft (Nasdaq: BSFT), which in earlier this month made an all-cash offer for web collaboration iLinc Communications, today announced it had completed the purchase of and was rolling out BroadCloud Web Collaboration commercially in a SaaS play that it believes will be attractive to service providers.

The platform is BroadSoft's first foray into cloud-based web collaboration, and it says the product gives companies an alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting, matching up in terms of features, functionality and price.

The product is the result, obviously, of the iLinc acquisition and provides BroadSoft's 450+ global service provider customers with a cloud solution they can cost-effectively and rapidly deploy to their own enterprise customers.

BroadSoft is pitching BroadCloud as a product that will give service providers an opportunity to white label the suite as their own, enhancing their potential margins.

Phoenix-based iLinc had a strong presence among global businesses, governments and educational institutions.

"Whether it is through strategic acquisitions or in-house development, we remain committed to offering an extensive, innovative range of unified communications services that empower global service providers to meet the evolving communication needs of their enterprise and consumer customers," said Michael Tessler, chief executive of BroadSoft. "With BroadCloud Web Collaboration our global service provider customers can now offer a branded, comprehensive web collaboration service at a competitive price with the goal of earning higher margins versus reselling other services."

For more:
- see this release

19/09/2011 - BroadSoft launches updated call center software for telecom providers

Voice software provider BroadSoft introduced the newest iteration of its BroadWorks Call Center solution, which includes a variety of enhancements that, the company said, will allow it to expand into new markets.

The new capabilities give BroadWorks enhanced reporting and new, Web-based interfaces. The flexibility and scalability of the new version, the company said, should enable telco service providers looking to extend their hosted call center offering into enterprises with higher call volumes and more complex reporting requirements to do so more quickly.

BroadSoft's call center solution supports all call center environments, from a small informal workgroup to advanced distributed, wholesale and in-house call centers.

"We believe that call centers with globally dispersed staff can achieve significant cost savings and operational efficiency by transitioning from on-premise legacy systems to a hosted call center offering," said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft.

A report from Ovum earlier this year forecast an annual growth rate for hosted contact center agent positions at greater that 45 percent for 2011, a significant business opportunity for service providers that offer a scalable, carrier-grade hosted call center solution.

Both 8x8 and M5 recently pushed their businesses deeper into the call center segment, citing business opportunities.

For more:
- see this release

27/07/2011 - Telesphere’s VideoConnect Makes HD Business Videoconferencing a Reality

Telesphere recently announced the launch of VideoConnect, a cloud-based videoconferencing service for businesses of every size. Today the company announced that VideoConnect is the first worldwide commercial deployment of Broadsoft’s BroadCloud Video, an enterprise-grade videoconferencing and telepresence service that incorporates Polycom’s standards-based HDX systems and VVX 1500 business media phones, along with CounterPath’s Bria softclients.

09/09/2010 - Leading Technology Companies Announce HD Voice Initiative in the U.K.

XConnect, Polycom, BroadSoft and Dialogic announced an initiative to promote the adoption of high-definition voice by service providers in the United Kingdom. Through workshops and cooperative communication and marketing, the HD initiative is designed to raise awareness and educate service providers about the benefits of HD voice and help them resolve implementation challenges.

13/05/2010 - Verizon Business makes EU calling cheaper with VoIP

Verizon Business has launched its Global Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) service for its European enterprise customers using its VoIP network to help business save money on calls. The Global FMC service is aimed at reducing mobile phone roaming charges for European workers who make and receive calls outside of their home service area.

Based on software from MobileMax, Verizon Global FMC can figure out the cost-effective routing for mobile calls and directs calls either Verizon's Broadsoft-powered cloud-based global voice-over-IP communications platform or to the customer's mobile network service.

The service is available to Verizon Business customers in nine European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Verizon plans to offer the FMC service in other countries as it builds out its VoIP network.

It will be integrated with the company's VoIP platform next month to allow for more advanced capabilities using PBX office phone systems as well as providing more cost savings for customers who use both the FMC and Verizon VoIP service.

For more:
- read the release

28/01/2010 - BroadSoft and Polycom team for hosted UC and video

The great debate over hosted vs. non hosted VoIP services continues, this time with a VoIP application software company teaming with an established hardware vendor to launch a hosted service. Broadsoft and Polycom are working together to bring an integrated Unified Communications (UC) platform to their customers.

The companies call their new offering V2Connect and the hosted solution offers Polycom's Open Collaboration Network and Broadsoft's Broadworks VoIP application platform. Together the combined offering gives service providers a unified voice and video solution in a hosted service. "The hosted unified communications market is rapidly growing as part of the new era of communications. Integrated IP-based voice and video are an important part of any UC network, and it's crucial for vendors to offer a fully interoperable solution," said Brent Kelley a senior analyst at Wainhouse Research in the release.

The service brings voice and video together into one service where they once would have operated independently. The companies are also introducing a go-to-market program allowing Value Added Resellers and Systems Integrators to host and manage V2Connect on behalf of an enterprise.

For more:
- read the release

02/12/2009 - XO Unveils New Enterprise SIP

BroadSoft and XO Communications announced a new enterprise-class, multi-site SIP trunking solution offered by XO.

XO Enterprise SIP is an enhanced SIP trunking service offering for large enterprises, that enables them to transform their distributed PBX/PSTN interconnection to a “more centralized and cost-effective” VoIP solution.

01/12/2009 - XO uses BroadWorks VoIP platform to deliver new enterprise SIP

XO Communications and BroadSoft today announced a new enterprise SIP trunking offering from XO. XO's new offering uses Broadsoft's BroadWorks VoIP platform and its enterprise trunking features to build out the enterprise SIP service.

"XO Enterprise SIP is an enhanced SIP trunking service offering for large enterprises, that enables them to transform their distributed PBX/PSTN interconnection to a more centralized and cost-effective VoIP solution," the companies said in a release.

Banks, financial institutions, professional services firms and retail stores with multiple locations often rely on one large IP PBX to provide PSTN connectivity to the entire business. With all the eggs in one basket, the switch to SIP trunking allows for IP network scalability and easy disaster recovery should communications go down.

Back in May, Broadsoft and AcmePacket made a similar announcement about their SIP Trunking offerings. That solution integrated Acme Packet's Net-Net session border controller and BroadSoft's BroadWorks VoIP application program for enterprise SIP Trunking.

For more:
- read this release

28/10/2009 - BroadSoft reveals new app store

VoIP applications vendor BroadSoft debuted a new platform called Broadsoft Marketplace that allows service providers create their own custom application stores. The stores, which would be branded with the service providers' logos and stocked with third-party applications, are meant to combine Web 2.0, mobility and social networking capabilities with BroadSoft's VoIP platform.

Broadsoft's new platform makes is easy for developers to access its VoIP platform as well as upload their applications to reach BroadSoft's customers and their 500 million subscribers. The system is still in beta, so it is not fully launched yet. However, Comporium, SimpleSignal, Telesphere and WorldxChange all said they plan to open their custom branded application stores in 2010.

For more:
- read this article

07/10/2009 - BroadSoft to acquire Packet Island to enhance its VoIP and Video QoS capabilities

Broadsoft announced in a release that it has entered an agreement to acquire Packet Island, maker of quality of service assessment and monitoring tools for VoIP and video networks and services. The move expands the the VoIP application software provider's ability to address QoS issues for real-time communications.

By acquiring Packet Island's lifecycle management assets Broadsoft will be able to address its service provider customers assess networks before deploying VoIP and video services as well as verify the deployments to establish a baseline. Also, these solutions allow for continuous monitoring of VoIP service quality and provides troubleshooting tools to pinpoint problems. The combination of Broadsoft's rapid IP communications deployment services with Packet Island's QoS and QoE monitoring tools will help the company offer service providers fast and cost-effective VoIP and video services deployments with extensively monitored service delivery.

Packet Island founder and CEO Praveen Kumar will be named BroadSoft's PacketSmart Chief Technologist when the merger is complete.

For more:
- read the release

Related articles
BroadSoft CEO: "Bullish" on 2009
Acme Packet and BroadSoft update SIP Trunking offering
BroadSoft-Sylantro: 6 months later

25/09/2009 - NETXUSA Expands Provisioning Capabilities of BroadSoft Service Providers

NETXUSA, a VoIP distributor and a BroadSoft partner, releases version 4.0 of their Provisioning & Professional Services (PPS) software.

The company says this “major release” provides the solutions to manage a greater number of device types and options for deployment.

Version 4.0 makes this possible by including a new configuration management system, which allows customers to manage an unlimited number of device configurations and device options for all customer-premises equipment (CPE).

24/09/2009 - TANDBERG pitches telepresence to specific verticals

TANDBERG is ramping up its efforts to sell its high-end telepresence and video conferencing solutions by highlighting use cases for the technology in specific industries. TANDBERG targeted the medical and legal industries with specific messaging around the use of its video conferencing technology solutions for "telemedicine" and more efficient and cost-effective legal operations.

The company said that video teleconferencing, which has become much more feasible and cost-effective with the spread of broadband access, could allow doctors to see more remote and specialists to serve a broader area. While TANDBERG said the solution would enable remote medical consults and diagnosis, there are sure to be ethical and legal issues providers will have to navigate before this practice becomes widespread.

In the legal arena, TANDBERG says it can save courts and police forces money by enabling remote legal hearings, a move it says will also "keep violent criminals out of the courtroom and away from innocent civilians." The company argues that its solution will cut down on expenses related to inmate transport and handling, as one telepresence or other video conferencing endpoints at a jail or prison could enable multiple hearings without the need to incur cost to physically move the inmates to the courtroom. Again, there will likely be some legal issues regarding the implication of video appearances for a right to a fair trial, but the potential for costly errors in this case appear to be less than in the medical realm.

For more:
- see the press release targeted to the legal community here
- see the press release targeted to the medical community here

19/03/2009 - Broadsoft and TANDBERG team up on hosted UC video services

BroadSoft announced a partnership with TANDBERG to bundle the BroadWorks Hosted UC applications platform with TANDBERG's portfolio of video solutions. It is good timing with video as The Next Big Thing since voice has matured.

TANDBERG and Broadsoft are proposing that service providers offer a hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to business customers, combining BroadSoft's hosted UC platform with TANDBERG's set of video phones and hardware, including the company's newly announced E20 video phone

Video uses the two companies suggest include a video receptionist with a virtual front desk, video training, video customer care/call center, video mail, and even video ringback greetings for incoming calls. However, most enterprises will want to master the basics of straight videoconferencing before they get into video mail and video customer care.

There's also the chicken-and-egg problem with video applications; end-users have to make calls in using a compatible video phone to access a video call center, leave video mail, or see a video ringback greeting. Who's footing the bill for the video phone outside of the organizational footprint?

Ironically or prophetically, BroadSoft's former VP of Marketing Scott Wharton left the company to move to Silicon Valley and start up a video venture to work on interoperability and videophone proliferation.

For more:
- Broadsoft announces TANDBERG partnership. Release

09/03/2009 - Polycom joins media phone wave, adds video

Polycom has rolled out a media phone for the business environment. Unlike the media phone Avaya introduced last week, the VVX 1500 includes a "personal" video conferencing system.

In addition to video conferencing, the device includes a full-featured VoIP phone with HD voice, an XML-based open API for customization and a "microbrowser" for real time delivery of personalized web content and integration with business applications. The phone's software bundle includes Polycom's Productivity suite for enabling users to initiate and control audio conference calls right from the VVX's screen, as well as the ability to record calls locally using a flash drive in the phone's USB port. There's also a bundle to a free web portal for information updates.

At a list price of $1099, the VVX 1500 includes a 7-inch color LCD touch-screen display, the aforementioned USB port, SIP, power over Ethernet (PoE), a two-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, a 2-megapixel video camera, and a bunch of power-saving features to keep consumption under 11 watts when fully active.

Polycom gives a shout-out to BroadSoft for helping to bring the phone to market and "deeply" integrating with the BroadWorks platform. Ultimately, the product is expected to be SIP video-certified by more than 30 "call control" partners, including NEC Sphere, Objectworld and Zultys.

For more:
- Polycom release

28/01/2009 - BroadSoft benchmarks success of Xtended Voice 2.0 mashup program

Less than a year after launching its Xtended web services mashup program for third-party developers, BroadSoft is providing an upbeat progress report about its uptake. It seems service providers and third-party developers are taking a shine to Xtended's capabilities.

Launched in March 2008, BroadSoft Xtended program enables service providers and third-party developers to use the Xtended API to build new applications with BroadSoft's voice services in a mashup fashion. Service providers get the opportunity to generate more revenue by quickly creating and deploying apps.

Five service providers -- Alteva, SimpleSignal, Telesphere, Unity, and WorldxChange Communications -- have completed the implementation of the Xtended platform, and eight others have the program in the lab or on the product roadmap for launch in 2009. Of the eight in-progress, at least one is a Tier 1 provider, and is likely Verizon Wireless based upon comments made to Telephony. Another 12 service providers are "actively interested" in the platform, defined as having conducted in-depth technical discussions with BroadSoft as to what it would take to use it.

The big numbers are on the developer side, with over 1,500 registered users in the Xtended developer program steadily cranking up applications. Twenty applications are currently available, including enhancements to Salesforce.com, ACT!, Facebook and PhoneTag. Newly announced apps include an Apple Mac OS X client, functions for the Chumby web-controlled consumer electronic device, and a native iPhone app to allow a user to originate calls from an iPhone through their service provider.

One service provider - WorldxChange - was quickly drinking its own champagne with highly profitable results. The New Zealand provider implanted an application to improve debt collection and improved collections by over $100,000 in the first month of deployment. Customers would get past due notifications in a variety of non-traditional ways, including SMS or IM, and they said they liked the "less intrusive" methods of communication, said Leslie Ferry, VP of Marketing at BroadSoft. Needless to say, other service providers are looking at that particular app more closely and WorldxChange is moving forward with two more products.

Ferry indicated that the Xtended program is now incorporating Sylantro and GENBAND developers. In the coming weeks, additional announcements should be forthcoming to detail a relationship with IBM, and this reporter suspects that Lotus and/or LotusLive may play some role, but Ferry would not comment upon particulars.

For more:
- BroadSoft Xtended release

30/12/2008 - Germs, Guns, and BroadSoft

By Thomas Howe

One of my favorite books, Germs, Guns and Steel, asks a simple question: Why did Columbus sail across the ocean to meet the Indians, rather than the other way around? Why were the European and Middle Asian cultures more advanced than the native Americans? For the author, the answer came down to fundamentals of geography (the European continents were more horizontal, such that domesticated crops were more successful leading to higher populations), the numbers of native animals that could be domesticated (mutated germs from domesticated animals were the main source of human-borne illnesses, most were from Europe which increased the Europeans resistance to them) and natural elements like steel (allowing the Europeans to have advanced tools and weaponry.) As we look at the acquisition of Sylantro by Broadsoft, we can ask a similar question: Why was it that Broadsoft was the victor and Sylantro the vanquished?

Before I get too far in the analysis, I suppose some caveats are in order. First, even for people who worked directly for the two companies, this is an impossible question to answer fully. A major element of understanding organizational behavior is that of blindness: You might understand your job, but as the distance increases between your position and somebody else's in the same organization, your understanding goes precipitously down. Mike Tessler, for all of his obvious gifts, simply cannot understand what it is like to be the staff engineer at Broadsoft, or vice versa. It is nothing but hubris to believe that somebody outside either organization really understands what happened inside. Second, my own experiences color how I perceive the world. I was the US CTO of their joint major competitor, Netcentrex, which was acquired by Comverse in 2006 for $164 million. I ran the Sylantro Mashup competition in 2007; I won the Broadsoft Mashup Competition in 2008. Thus, I am as well-educated as an outsider can be, but I see things based on my own experience and am not party to all events inside the companies. Lastly, I firmly believe that analysis like this says as much about the analyzer as they do about the answers they give. However, this is valuable in-and-of-itself. So, given that I've dispensed with the disclaimers, how do I see it?

First, I think this particular segment of the market had a fishing problem. I have grown to believe that if you had to pick a single function of a business to be excellent at, it would be marketing because it answers the most important question: Does the lake that you are fishing in contain fish? From the outset, the market for IP Centrex was immature and not well-developed. Sitting here in 2008, it is much more mature and attractive, but in 2000 - not so much. IP Centrex requires a value chain that didn't exist, making it an uphill battle for all companies - Broadsoft, Sylantro and Netcentrex alike. At the time, plain ol' centrex didn't have the reputation as the hottest and best selling aspect of telephony. This set the bar pretty high on execution for all the players - failure to execute perfectly was deadly. If the pond had more fish, it would be much more forgiving. As it was, forgiveness was not in the cards.

Secondly, sticking with marketing, Broadsoft started its life with a killer marketing team, with Mike Tessler, Scott Haufpair and especially Scott Wharton. The best that any company could do was to match the skill and talent of those three; I couldn't draft a team that was better. (As good maybe, not better, and I would need some serious money to do so.) Sylantro struggled early and often with marketing and execution, moving from a PBX focus to IP Centrex, losing a little bit each time, finally settling down with a carrier focus. I met the Broadsoft team soon after they formed at a VON show, and, from the start, through the past years, to today, Broadsoft was focused.

Finally, and maybe as a direct result of its long term applied focus, Broadsoft succeeded in gaining the lion's share of the customer base, making it increasingly risky to choose another path. Even though my company had more lines and seats than Broadsoft when we were acquired, Broadsoft had more customers, reach and influence. Our customers had larger installations, with business models that lined up with our offering - but there were fewer of them. Broadsoft succeeded in establishing the standard for the industry, and is a position that they will enjoy for a while. This had the obvious impact of making it harder for Sylantro to garner attention, money and customers. The death spiral took full hold, resulting in the acquisition of Sylantro.

The lessons?
Find a pond with fish in it. Since manufacturing demand is a lot like pushing on a string, accept that it's wiser to compete for fish than to be alone in a boat on a lake with no fish.
Focus. Accept that your company may fail because you picked the wrong market, as it will allow you to win if you picked the right one.
If you aren't perceived to be the leader in your field, pick a new segment to be a leader of - even if it's smaller, because leaders like BroadSoft win.

29/12/2008 - Broadsoft officially announces Sylantro acquisition

In a short announcement released Monday morning, BroadSoft officially announced its acquisition of Sylantro Systems.

"Sylantro has been a strong competitor of BroadSoft for 10 years. This acquisition further advances our market and innovative leadership position," said BroadSoft president and CEO Michael Tessler in today's press release. "Sylantro's solutions, talent and customers complement BroadSoft's business and enhance our ability to deliver compelling solutions and services to our customers."

BroadSoft did not disclose terms of the transaction in the release. Sources closes to both sides say that BroadSoft acquired Sylantro at "fire sale" prices, with BroadSoft assuming Sylantro's existing debt, along with getting its customers, software and other assets. BroadSoft said it intends to support Sylantro's Synergy platform through its direct sales force and authorized Sylantro and BroadSoft partners.

In the release, BroadSoft highlighted its worldwide footprint, citing development and customer operations centers in Montreal, Canada; Dallas, Texas; Bangalore, India; Sydney, Australia; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Gaithersburg, Maryland. BroadSoft picks up Bangalore from Sylantro and the Dallas facility comes from BroadSoft's earlier acquisition of GENBAND's M6 Communications Applications Server (which was formally VocalData) in August.

For more:
- BroadSoft buys Sylantro. Release

22/12/2008 - Your VoIP Stocking Stuffers: News and Tidbits at the end of the year

> PEERLESS NETWORK SELECTS SONUS

> Jeff Pulver lists 12 clever things to do with VoIP for the holiday season.

> From Idaho, Lessons Learned in Finding a Solid Home VoIP Provider

> Genachowski to be new FCC Chaiman?

> BroadSoft and Sylantro - Thank you, Mr. Off-the-record

> AT&T rolls out U-Verse for SMBs

22/12/2008 - 2008 Year in Review: Hosted UC arrives in force

If it is a stand-alone business application, service providers and vendors will find a way to turn it into a hosted service. Unified communications is no exception, and it was only a matter of time before Cisco and Microsoft rolled out their apps and programs with carrier hosting options. Siemens has had a hosted UC option for a while, and Nortel is currently providing the hardware for Microsoft's hosted solution.

There have also been marketing makeovers for existing applications that tweaked language and presentation of the initial presentation to add some eye-catching UC zing. Did BroadSoft really have to jump into the UC arena by integrating BroadWorks with Microsoft's hosted UC platform? Was Cisco's WebEx "UC" before they called it UC?

More practically, hosted UC solutions provide access to two different user segments. SMBs can get in on the UC wave with a per-month subscription fee (and ditch it if they don't like/need it). Hosted solutions can also provide service for remote and/or distributed offices outside of the traditional reach of the corporate data center.

Next year will likely see more UC SaaS (Software-as-a-service) packaging and/or offering. Expect to see more weather talk, as Microsoft and others transfer their hosted talk to cloud computing and the whole "scale up/scale down" paradigm.

Sylantro: UC the Pull for IMS - FierceVoIP
NXTcomm08: Microsoft Announces Hosted UC solution; Nortel delivers ...
Cisco's WebEx gets UC SaaS makeover - FierceVoIP
XO Hosting Mobile UC - FierceVoIP
Verizon Business adds managed Cisco UC solution - FierceVoIP
BroadSoft and Microsoft announce hosted UC alliance - FierceVoIP
Siemens releases new UC platform - FierceVoIP

18/12/2008 - RUMOR MILL: BroadSoft buys Sylantro

If our sources are correct (and we're not being elaborately punked), BroadSoft has tendered an offer to Sylantro for acquisition and Sylantro's board of directors approved the deal earlier this week. Terms of the deal apparently are not favorable to most/many Sylantro stock holders, but some will walk away with some cash.

A BroadSoft representative declined to comment on the matter, saying it is the company's policy not to comment on rumors. Calls and emails to Sylantro for comment were not returned by press time.

Sylantro is said to have circulated documents to its private shareholders describing the deal and asking for their consent to the merger, requesting a response by December 12, 2008. Stockholders and option holders outside of the Series E-1 Preferred class are being asked to "consent" to the retirement of shares or options in exchange for nothing.

As a part of the acquisition, BroadSoft is supposedly agreeing to take on 11 Sylantro employees and a bunch of people will get cash compensation of some sort; most likely for termination of employment contracts.

Another source described the deal as an "asset sale" with Sylantro having to do the deal because it ran out of cash and wants to avoid bankruptcy.

Rumors of BroadSoft and Sylantro getting together first started circulating this fall, with more-than-the-usual buzz coming out of BroadSoft's annual users conference. Sources close to BroadSoft and analysts in attendance at the conference said they had heard a deal between the two parties was under discussion.

Vendors dealing with Sylantro said the company had curtailed spending and quietly implemented some staffing cuts over the past few months, with belt tightening occurring after the company's Global Summit 2008 user group event in mid-October. Sylantro's PR firm was put on hiatus after Global Summit.

A source close to BroadSoft said the company had raised another round of venture capital in September or October - a move upsetting to some employees since BroadSoft CEO Michael Tessler had foresworn the need for more money after taking its last round of investment. If true, we now know what the money was used for.

If the deal has gone down, it brings together VoIP application server market-leader BroadSoft and its largest rival in the space.

Pete Wylie contributed to this report

For more:
- A former Sylantro employee said a deal was done on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Blog.

14/11/2008 - FierceVoIP Leaders- Michael Tessler, CEO Broadsoft

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.

All sections | Sections | All articles | News |