Metaswitch is one of the recognised market leaders in the development of incredible high-performance and cloud-native solutions for communications software. The company’s software solutions accelerate, equip, and transform communication platform and service providers around the world. Today, the company is experiencing incredible growth, driven by a powerful view of the market, and the ability to adapt to current industry trends.
We caught up with the Metaswitch team and Chris Carabello, Senior Director, Product Marketing, to learn more about how Metaswitch has evolved over the years, and what the company is striving to accomplish today.
How Has Metaswitch Transformed Over the Years?
Metaswitch has always been a company committed to developing software solutions that underpin service provider platforms for the evolving landscape. The cloud-native virtual network functions for Metaswitch are designed to run on commodity hardware in a range of hybrid, public, and private clouds. Flexibility is a crucial component of the Metaswitch portfolio.
Carabello told me that Metaswitch has now been in operation for a total of 37 years, and over that time, the company has established a powerful position in the marketplace, earning a great deal of customer loyalty.
“We started off developing data protocol stacks that have been designed into the product lines of more than 250 OEMs.”
Gradually, Metaswitch evolved to suit the needs of a changing market, making its way into the landscape of unified communications and mobile solutions. Today, the company has a leadership position not just in fixed solutions, but also in mobile and UC services too.
“Our commitment to software and virtualisation from day one has helped us to become a powerful company in this space. We’re a steadily profitable and growing brand.”
What are Metaswitch’s Focus Areas?
Over 37 years, Metaswitch has achieved phenomenal growth, with more than 700 customers, and now over 800 employees. It has one of the highest NPS scores in the field and consistent profitability. I was interested to learn where Metaswitch focuses its efforts in the communication landscape. Chris told me that Metaswitch now sells in three areas. The first area is the “fixed” environment, where Metaswitch provides software to migrate fixed voice lines to cloud and VoIP solutions. “Fixed has been the bread and butter of where we started as a brand and while we continue to drive innovation here with capabilities like our Q-Call Robocall Blocking Solution, we are now very much focused on applications and mobility to drive our growth.”
Now, Metaswitch’s other two areas of focus, UC and mobility, are the fastest-growing parts of the business. The company has seen a 68% growth in its Mobile and UC solutions, and the opportunities keep growing. This year, Metaswitch worked with Nokia to help the Wind Tre business to launch it’s new Office Smart mobile and fixed integrated solution to let companies tap into cutting-edge tech with flexibility and ease. The Office Smart solution makes it easy to organise meetings and make video calls in real-time.
Through mobile native UC, Metaswitch is giving companies the support they need to access cloud-native support and accelerate their path to the cloud. Companies also have the benefit to access a lower TCO with enhanced performance and efficiency. “We’re operating and growing at an incredible rate, working with global service providers. Additionally, the enterprises that use our services through our customers are growing too. We have attracted a range of high-level companies, like Papa Johns, ConocoPhillips and Howard University.”
What Kind of Success is Metaswitch Seeing?
Service providers from all backgrounds are beginning to embrace the flexibility that Metaswitch has to offer when it comes to unlocking the benefits of cloud and mobile communications. For instance, the largest wireless carrier in Indonesia, Telkomsel recently revealed that it had selected the MaX UC portfolio from Metaswitch to deliver unified communication and collaboration services to a broader market.
The new virtual PBX solution offered by Telkomsel is also powered by Metaswitch, allowing for rapid deployment of immersive and flexible telephony applications. According to the brand, they chose Metaswitch because of its incredible feature set, and ability to offer mobile-native capabilities along with unbeatable performance. Metaswitch stands out as capable of providing a unique approach to mobile connectivity.
“The UC part of our business is now our largest; From all angles, we’re in a really good position to continue growing, particularly given the market position and the rapid movement towards the cloud"
"There’s still a lot of opportunities out there. Cloud penetration for business communications currently stands at only at 12.5%, so there’s a long way to go before cloud communications is fully implemented.”
According to Carabello, the cloud has clearly won the war for communication solutions. However, the winners in the space when it comes to market share are yet to be defined. “My job is to enable service providers to win. Some of the competition is selling direct to enterprises and service providers at the same time, but we’re focusing exclusively on the service provider whose control of the network gives it a competitive advantage to deliver the reliability, security, and user experience that business users in particular demand.”
