The New Genband: Day One

On Friday, Genband Inc. announced it had closed its massive acquisition of the Nortel Networks Ltd. Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business (CVAS) unit. (See Nortel Completes VoIP Biz Sale to Genband.) This morning, boxes were moved in, desks were set up, and the acquired Nortel folks were badged in and ready to go.

"The product, people, and customer integration were done on day one," says Charlie Vogt, Genband's CEO. (See Genband Wins Nortel's Carrier VoIP Biz.) The IT systems will take until the first quarter of next year, but Vogt says he wants the combined company to come together quickly and be aggressive in the market. He told Light Reading today his plan is for Genband to dominate the next-generation switching market and position itself to help carriers who are building IMS networks.

"We're in the second or third inning of building out NGNs," Vogt says. (See Genband CEO Sees Opportunity in a Complex Deal.)

The new Genband has 2,200 full-time employees and about 800 contractors among its Plano, Texas, headquarters and its seven other major product and support centers worldwide.

Vogt says that while Genband alone would have grown to be about $150 million in revenues this year, it looks to be on track for $800 million in pro forma revenues with Nortel's CVAS business added in -- about 40 percent of that coming from outside the US, Vogt says. The combined company will be spending "about $135 million on R&D on an annualized basis," he adds.

If its forecasts pan out, Genband will see less than 10 percent of its projected revenues this year coming from sales of new TDM products. "One sector we need to improve on is IP data and the SBC [session border controller] market," Vogt says. "We've got a plan to chip away at Acme Packet Inc. (Nasdaq: APKT)."

Today, the company also revealed its management team for the combined company, including two major appointments of note. (See Genband Appoints Mgmt Team.)

The first was Daryl Raiford, formerly of Freescale Semiconductor Inc. , being named chief financial officer. He replaces Jeffrey Kupp, who was announced as Genband's CFO in mid-December 2009 but barely stayed a month at his post after Genband said it would acquire Nortel's CVAS business. Jan Gaulding, now the chief administration officer, has been the acting CFO since Kupp's departure.

Another major appointment revealed today was Jeff Townley, a 26-year Nortel veteran, as Genband's president of operations. In 2007, Townley was made Nortel's chief procurement officer and relocated to China by then-Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski. Townley now works from Research Triangle Park, N.C.

The rest of Genband's executive management team is listed here. Including Townley, four of the nine top Genband executives have come directly from the company's acquisitions over the past several years.

— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading