Daily Cloud NewsBrief- September 2015

Monday, Sept. 14, 2015
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Unified Communications (UC)

Top Story

1 Switch Teams With Sprint To Keep Mobile Workers Connected

Corporate

2 BroadSoft To Raise $175 Million To Fund Share Buyback, Acquisitions
3 Fusion Borrows $40M To Fund Expansion
4 Private Equity Firm Vitruvian Takes Majority Stake In Voxbone
5 ScanSource Completes KBZ Acquisition
6 Broadvoice Relocates Headquarters

Customer Wins

7 Vermont Community College Chooses Vermont’s Sovernet For UC
8 Britain’s Metronet To Use Genband SBCs and Session Managers

Channel

9 Altus UC Signs CNSG As Master Agent

Product and Partnerships

10 Birch Launches Revised Wholesale Portal

Top Story

1 Switch Teams With Sprint To Keep Mobile Workers Connected

UC and conference call technology startup Switch Communications announced a partnership with Sprint to provide UC services to Sprint customers. The Switch solution is similar to Google Voice in that it allows users to have multiple telephone numbers on multiple devices, for example accessing both a work and a personal telephone number from one smartphone or one computer. The partnership is being marketed by both companies as a means to ensure mobile workers are always available and connected to all services they need. Sprint is the number three U.S. wireless provider with 57 million customers and quarterly revenue of $8 billion.

Last May, Switch received $35 million in Series C funding, bringing total funding to $53 million. At the time, the company said this new money would help it ramp up sales to Fortune 500 companies and support its effort to integrate its service with major cloud applications, such as Salesforce. Switch founder Craig Walker has said the company’s vision is to bring “all the features of the high-end office phone system” to mobile phones. Walker was the founder of GrandCentral, which Google purchased and re-branded as Google Voice.

Corporate

2 BroadSoft To Raise $175 Million To Fund Share Buyback, Acquisitions

BroadSoft (BSFT) announced a plan to offer $175 million in convertible senior notes to refinance existing debt, fund a $25 million share buyback, and support expansion including further acquisitions. The notes include a conversion option, beginning in 2020. BroadSoft plans to use up to $60 million of the funds to refinance a portion of its 2018 debt, and up to $25 million to repurchase shares of its common stock. The remaining proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including potential company or product acquisitions.

In Q2, BroadSoft posted revenues of $64.5 million, up 23% year-over-year. The company generated $9.6 million in cash from operations for the quarter.

3 Fusion Borrows $40M To Fund Expansion

UC and carrier services provider Fusion Connect (FSNN) announced it has completed a debt refinancing that includes a new $40 million bank credit facility with commercial bank Opus Bank. Fusion says this refinancing will “significantly reduce” its cost of debt, to the tune of about $1 million per year. Approximately $28 million of the $40 million will be used for expansion, not debt financing. This is likely to include acquisitions.

On the recent earnings call, Fusion CEO Matthew Rosen stated his intention to grow in part through acquisition. Last month, Fusion reported Q2 revenues of $25.1 million, up 8% year-over-year. Cash from operations for the first six months of the year was $498,045. Fusion has achieved a 30% compound annual growth rate in revenues over the past three years.

4 Private Equity Firm Vitruvian Takes Majority Stake In Voxbone

Local phone number provider Voxbone announced that Vitruvian Partners, a European private equity firm, has taken a majority stake in the company. Financial terms were not disclosed. Voxbone said it will continue to expand its lead in providing international location-based mobile and toll-free numbers (Direct Inward Dialing, or DID, though also referred to as inbound SIP trunks). Voxbone is headquartered in Brussels with offices in the U.S. and the U.K.

Using the Voxbone service, companies can add local, mobile and toll-free numbers from over 8,000 cities in 55 countries, giving them a de facto local presence throughout the world, which is particularly helpful for contact centers, conference calling businesses and UC service providers. The numbers can be ordered in real-time via the Voxbone web portal or API. Voxbone was founded in 2005 and said its revenues have grown at a compound 29% per year.

5 ScanSource Completes KBZ Acquisition

Big telecom distributor ScanSource (SCSC) announced it has completed its acquisition of Pennsylvania-based KBZ, a distributor of Cisco UC solutions and videoconferencing products. KBZ, known for its government sales experience, had 75 employees. KBZ sales for the trailing twelve months ending June 2015, were $225 million. ScanSource said the acquisition will help “enhance their focus on Cisco’s solutions.”

6 Broadvoice Relocates Headquarters

Los Angeles-based Broadvoice, which offers business and residential VoIP and other telephony services, is relocating its headquarters to nearby Northridge, California. The new headquarters is a 49,000 square-foot facility which the company says will allow them to house all their operations under one roof. Broadvoice currently employs 150 though says it expects to grow “exponentially” over the next 36 months.

As we have reported, just over the past six weeks Broadvoice has appointed a new Chief Operating Officer, George Mitsopoulos and appointed several new executives to manage channel relationships.

Customer Wins

7 Vermont Community College Chooses Vermont’s Sovernet For UC

Sovernet Communications, a Vermont-based CLEC, announced that the Community College of Vermont (CCV) will use Sovernet to provide VoIP services for all 12 of its statewide academic centers. Sovernet will provide telephony services and equipment for more than 300 phone lines over its own fiber optic network and hosted PBX service. The solution will replace CCV’s existing phone system. The deal follows a RFP issued by CCV in March. Sovernet was already providing CCV with WAN data connectivity, and this new deal will include the existing data service agreement.

CCV said that migrating voice communications to Sovernet will reduce operating costs, and modernize and standardize their telephone system across all facilities. CCV also said that “avoiding a large capital expenditure” was a primary factor behind the deal.

8 Britain’s Metronet To Use Genband SBCs and Session Managers

UC vendor Genband and Metronet, a UK-based service provider, jointly announced that Metronet will replace its existing SIP Trunking solution with Genband’s Session Border Controllers (SBC) and Real Time Session Manager (RSM). Wayne Mills-Kidals, Voice Services Manager at Metronet, stated that “deploying Genband’s SBC and RSM equips us with the advanced technology we require to deliver the quality of service our customers have come to expect, on an exponentially larger scale.”

Genband’s SBCs provide network security, interoperability and session management along with carrier-grade capabilities for SIP Trunking and IP Interconnect. Genband’s RSM solution is designed to proactively monitor service level agreements, provide QoS metrics, and enforce subscriber and network policies. Metronet provides IP services in the UK to business customers, and said their IP voice business is “rapidly expanding.”

Channel

9 Altus UC Signs CNSG As Master Agent

Altus UC, a Nashville-based cloud communications provider, announced that Converged Network Services Group (CNSG) has become a Master Agent. CNSG will offer to its national partner network Altus’s UC suite, which includes telephony, presence, HD video, Collaboration/Desktop-share and mobility applications.

Altus claims more than 1,000 business customers in the US. The company markets its UC service as affordable, scalable and easy to install, with predictable fees. Altus also offers a white label service for companies wishing to sell their own branding UC service. CNSG offers communications solutions, consulting and deployment support in the US, and claims it is the fastest growing master agent in the industry. Last week, CNSG signed as a master agent for UC startup PanTerra Networks.

Product and Partnerships

10 Birch Launches Revised Wholesale Portal

Atlanta-based Birch Communications, which sells IP-based communications services to businesses and wholesalers, has just launched its revised Birch Carrier Solution wholesale portal. The new portal should give wholesalers better access into their orders and help increase awareness of the availability and profit margins of various Birch products which are now available to wholesalers through the portal. Some of these products include TotalCloud PBX, SIP Trunking, and UC services. The company says this is an “important next step in Birch’s evolution to becoming the wholesale provider of choice.”

As we reported last month, Birch has seen record sales of late in part due to sales of its TotalCloudPBX solution to larger customers.