Genband is hoping to shed its legacy, fixed-line vendor reputation once and for all, and it's building out its mobile messaging to do so.
The unified communications (UC) company introduced Wednesday what it's calling Simply Mobile, an umbrella term for all its mobile capabilities, including a new wireless gateway.
Simply Mobile is built around five key areas:
"We are in a key position with all our assets to bring an environment that interworks different networks in terms of media and protocols," Bhatia says.
"We also see that once you can offer WiFi for roaming, you then are in a great place to offer over-the-top services as well," Tamaskar says, adding that voice-over-WiFi is one good example of a service driven by improved WiFi. (See Taqua Lets Mobile Users Talk Over WiFi.)
Why this matters
Genband's Simply Mobile platform essentially amounts to a conglomeration of the services it has acquired and built up over the past year, but it's also important to the company from a market-positioning angle. The one-time hardware maker has had a tough time shaking its image as a legacy voice systems provider. (See Genband Plots Funding of TDM Death March.)
When asked about its mobile strategy in the past, CEO David Walsh said that it doesn't segment between fixed and mobile, because its priority is unified communications across both networks. It's an explanation that might make sense, but the market is moving increasingly mobile and needs convincing Genband can keep up.
Genband CMO Brad Bush admits mobility is where the action is today and says the vendor is now focused on making its customers aware of all the mobile-centric services it offers, as it tried to do when it repackaged its enterprise offerings earlier this year. (See Pulling the Strings at Genband and Genband Unifies Its Enterprise UC Story.)
"This is not just a wrapper of old things, but all of this indicates we are all moving to a mobile world," Bush says. "The things we're offering here from wireline to Kandy and OTT all tie back into the same thing: one, it's all mobile and, two, we're trying to help traditional customers to move up the mobile value chain."
Related posts:
- Genband Joins Intel's Network Builders Club
- iHub Picks Genband for Global Unified Comms
- Slide Show: Genband's Real-Time Perspectives
- Genband Starts NFV Push With Distributed SBC
— Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading
Seems late in the day for a company to be pivoting away from a landline strategy to mobile. Like a car company announcing it's decided to embrace those newfangled horseless carriages.