Sonus has beefed up its IP voice system portfolio and accelerated its virtualization strategy with the $20 million cash acquisition of Richardson, Texas-based Taqua, a long-time developer of VoIP, voice-over-WiFi and VoLTE systems that have been deployed by hundreds of communications service providers.
Sonus Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: SONS), best known for its session border controllers (SBCs), signaling and policy control platforms and software-defined WAN optimization, is getting a range of products suitable for fixed and mobile networks as well as about 80 staff and a few hundred customer relationships.
The acquisition looks like something of a mercy mission. The two companies formed a partnership in December last year focused on WiFi-calling capabilities for mobile operators, and so were working closely, but during 2016 Taqua LLC has experienced a slide in revenues: Having generated full-year revenues of $28.3 million in 2015, its total revenues for the 12 months to June 30, 2016, were just $16.8 million. Sonus expects Taqua to generate revenues of just $4-5 million. In addition, the company has been losing money during the past year, reporting an operating loss of $10.8 million for the trailing 12 months ended June 30, 2016.
But Sonus, which isn't expected to change its name to Staqua, is optimistic that this deal will help it win new business and enhance its virtualization strategy. It believes the deal will:
Investors seemed happy with the deal, as Sonus's stock gained 3.4% Tuesday following news of the deal and added a further 0.3% Wednesday to reach $8.76.
In the first half of 2016, Sonus generated revenues of $120 million, up 14% year on year, and an operating loss of $6.6 million, a vast improvement compared with the near $40 million operating loss a year earlier.
— Ray Le Maistre, 
, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading
In this space, the media gateway and voice bearer path is critcial: You don't route local interconnection voice trunks through a distant cloud; that's potentially control-plane stuff, but even there best suited for the less-real-time aspects. I'm not sure if anyone anywhere near Sand Hill Road really gets how the PSTN itself works.