Genband is expanding its software offering for carriers with the acquisition of fring’s over-the-top (OTT) mobile IP communications service. A direct competitor to Skype and Google Voice in the consumer space, fring has recently packaged its solution as a white label product for carriers. Genband chief marketing officer Brad Bush said fring has some early customer wins which Genband will announce soon.
The acquisition also represents Genband’s first foray into the consumer space. fring has 40 million subscribers already, and Genband expects that number to grow. “We’ll take our fair share in the consumer market,” said Bush. “But the part that we’re so excited about .. is taking this OTT play to carriers in a way that they can digest and put it into their systems, I think that’s the real secret sauce of it. fring has figured out a way to build the APIs back for billing and other things and to package it up and white label it and sell it with some services that help the carriers to get it rolled out with the right marketing plans and other things that make it an OTT-in-a-box-type solution for carriers.”
Bush said that fring will continue as a distinct entity within Genband’s multimedia business unit. Genband’s unified communications offering will not be directly impacted by the fring acquisition. Bush said both fring’s offering and Genband’s UC offering will continue to be sold as parallel products, and that he sees great synergy but not a lot of overlap between the two.
Genband has realized much of its growth to date through acquisitions, and Bush said he expects that trend to accelerate under the leadership of David Walsh, the company’s former chairman who took over as CEO this summer when Charlie Vogt left for Harris Broadband. “David knows more about making telecom combinations than maybe anybody else in the industry, he’s done many, and has been a part of many, and I think that that understanding of how we can do future acquisitions and combinations is something that I’m looking forward to,” said Bush.
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