M & A Rainmaker

Hot on the heels of Andrew Sage, VP Small Business Systems in the U.S., tweeting that Cisco and Wholesale Hosted voip provider NGT had been awarded ” Product of the year ” from Internet Telephony magazine “ for Outstanding SMB Service Innovation in Collaboration with Cisco “

http://www.ngt.com/news/?presspager=104&arc=&yr=2009&my=

it was announced that NGT had been acquired by Comcast for an ” undisclosed sum “. ( The announcement was in the small print of the first release aswell )

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/att/comcast-does-wholesale-voip—buys-ngt.html

There’s a number of interesting aspects of this:

1. Some time ago Cisco started partnering with Hosted Voip providers in the U.S. and the U.K. Some of these partners used front ended Call Manager at the core but Cisco also partnered with ” competitor ” platforms. This seemed a little strange until you realised that a lot of Cisco endpoints were getting shipped by these customers - in NGT’s case ”  150,000+ IP endpoints under management ” and the bundle provided used “  Cisco SPA 500 Series IP Phones “.  ” NGT is ( ??? ) the largest provider of wholesale hosted IP Telephony Communication solutions in the U.S. and NGT enables leading VARs, MSOs, Service Providers and Agents to provide nationwide, managed IP communication services to their customers through its proven channel ready solutions “. So NGT had an indirect model. It had sold to a number of ” Telcos “.

2. This might kick off a bit of a ” land grab ” as Telco’s realise that they have to have Hosted Voip in their portfolio. This applies to the U.S. and the U.K.

3. There are a number of Hosted Voip players in the U.K. - a couple using front ended Call Manager; others using a ” competitor ” core but Cisco endpoints and others using neither.

Watch this space because it is going to get pretty wild !!

This article in The Times on Saturday

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article7043146.ece

shows how much progress Cisco Systems has made during the global downturn.

Although it’s market capitalisation is well down on the boom times it’s market share is up to 85% !!

Many of it’s old competitors are virtually dead now - Nortel, Lucent etc etc

Having just provided the network for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics it is now gearing up to do the same for the 2012 Olympics in the U.K.

A friend of mine Evert Bopp is pulling together a team and equipment to help re-establish communications in Haiti.

If you know anyone that can help here is the list of equipment that they need:

http://haiti-connect.org/what-do-we-need/

Please pass this on to anyone who you think may be able to help or may know anyone that can help.

Thank you.

I have a client who is looking for SaaS companies that might fit into it’s Buy and Build Portfolio. They will deliver solutions for the public and private sectors.

If you know of any such companies please let me know asap.

See more detail here

http://tre.emv3.com/HM?a=DNX7CkVEXWoz8SA9MOOayTLnGHxKRjh2iw_F

see
http://www.megabuyte.com/newsletter/&id=1901

http://www.megabuyte.com/newsletter/&id=1888

For todays report please go here
http://www.megabuyte.com/newsletter/&id=1825

comprehensive i-technology media site

http://www.sys-con.com/