Metaswitch recently introduced a brand-new solution to the mobile communication world with their “MaX” solution – a strategy that’s designed to let carriers respond to today’s mobile native individuals, and small businesses, who simply want to be able to run both their personal and professional lives through their smartphone. While over-the-top technology and cloud-based solutions have been available up until now, none of them have given customers the precise functionality, security, and reliability they need to make the most out of the mobile network.
The MaX solution by Metaswitch works through a mobile operator’s core network to deliver an outstanding level of voice quality while providing customers with the features and user experience they need when managing their company, customers and work/life balance from a mobile device. According to a Metaswitch survey, this could mean tapping into a huge market, considering around 56% of users are now using mobile as their primary device for business communication. In fact, 71% of the people interviewed by Metaswitch said they’d prefer a solution like MaX to the other options offered by freemium Over The Top (OTT) strategies.
We spoke to Shubh Agarwal, SVP of strategic marketing, and Chris Carabello, senior director of marketing for Metaswitch, to find out more about this new solution, and what it means to the future of mobile communications.
What Does MaX by Metaswitch Do?
Metaswitch has already made a name for themselves in the communication world as one of the leading cloud native communications software companies. The business develops open-source and commercial solutions that help operators build networks in, and deliver services from, the cloud.
Shubh told me that Metaswitch is positioned in a perfect place to start really delivering something new and innovative to both the UC and mobile worlds.
“Our visibility in mobile was accelerated by our acquisition of ‘OpenCloud’,” he said. “We were able to successfully integrate our product lines, and start expanding the solutions we offer to serve both the mobile operators and their end customers in need of mobile native communication and collaboration services.”
As the world becomes increasingly software-focused, MaX is a communications product that uses high performance software, developed for the cloud.
“With MaX, we believe that we can use our software development expertise to offer new solutions to an untapped market who haven’t been served well by existing opportunities,” added Shubh. “By developing network functions and applications, we’re looking to offer a real end-to-end mobile experience.”
Essentially, MaX enables the operators of mobile networks to deliver truly valuable, revenue-generating solutions for group collaboration and multi-persona management in both consumer and business segments. By blending carrier-grade network voice with innovative shared communication and information feeds, MaX can give mobile users a whole new level of contextual communication services. By integrating with the mobile’s native dialler, and using network-based intelligence to seamlessly associate multiple identities with a single number, operators offering a MaX-based service will give their customers control and separation of their business and personal lives, through a single mobile device.
How Are You Delivering Team Software Through Mobile?
MaX is already being successfully trialled with mobile operators, and is generating considerable excitement. Essentially, the system allows small and micro businesses to take advantage of both shared voice, and collaboration solutions to strengthen and improve their relationships with customers. Shubh told me that Metaswitch is giving their customers a simple user interface that makes it easier to connect with customers through a common business number, without having to invest in a separate SIM or phone.
“Say you’re a consultant with a mobile phone. The multi-persona solution means that you can switch between your business and personal persona to keep your different lives separate,” he said.
“You don’t need to worry about multiple SIMs or phones. For group or micro companies, you’ll need a phone number for your business that everyone in your company can use. What we’ve done is taken a virtual persona and attached it to a multi-user group.”
Essentially, the MaX system is the Metaswitch way of replacing (and seriously upgrading!) the PBX for the market that prefers to use mobile. These customers don’t want or need a fixed phone, they just want a primary business number.
“It’s about delivering a strategy for customers who don’t want the one-size-fits-all over the top solutions,” said Shubh.
What and Who Has Made this Technology Possible?
MaX has the potential to make a real difference in the mobile market space, with virtual personas that allow you to switch seamlessly between your work and personal life, a native dialler for easy use, and an AI-enabled management solution that simplifies your disparate identities.
“There’s no VoIP app or call kit, or custom dialler to think about,” said Shubh. “Your voice calls can be delivered from, or sent to the native dialler without the user thinking about it.”
“Our network intelligence solution means that persona selection is managed directly from the network. The system learns who you make calls to from your business identity so that you can automatically work on the persona that you need for at that moment.”
Of course, for Metaswitch, it’s not just about voice, particularly in the small business group scenario, today’s customers need collaboration features and shared messaging strategies too. “We’ve looked for ways to complement the whole voice experience. Instead of providing just another chat app, we’re creating this concept of a real, value-added information feed for the micro business,” he said.
“It’s a private solution where the business group has access to the feed and can complete tasks more efficiently through their mobile devices.”
Why Do You Think that OTT isn’t Enough?
Ultimately, while OTT solutions have existed up until this point, they just weren’t cutting it for the native mobile user. Instead of providing the custom solution that people might need, over-the-top applications try to force people to move their entire group onto a specific platform, when the truth is that people prefer to interact in different ways.
“When people search for a business on Google,” said Shubh, “the business number is still the primary mode of contact.”
Just as over-the-top solutions don’t deliver the service that a modern “professional consumer” or prosumer is looking for, the hardware available on the market simply tells customers to buy more SIMs or mobile phones. As Chris told me:
“We go through the mobile operator network to deliver the quality of service that can’t be achieved by the standard OTT app, which is often unreliable on the native mobile handset”.
MaX is about providing the prosumer who wants instant gratification from a simple, convenient, and effective communication app, with a way to avoid juggling multiple SIM cards and mobile phones. It’s an agile solution for the needs of prosumers who want to separate work and professional lives, without investing in complex solutions or additional hardware.
