Ribbon Communications is a global technology company with more than two decades of leadership in real-time communications. Built on world-class technology and intellectual property, the enterprise delivers secure, embedded and engaging real-time communications for today's world. Telecom Review managed to secure an exclusive interview with one of the most experienced and dynamic executives in the ICT industry, Patrick Joggerst, CMO and EVP, Business Development, at Ribbon Communications. Joggerst has enjoyed a distinguished and decorated career in the ICT and telecommunications industry.
The company transforms fixed, mobile and enterprise networks from legacy environments to secure IP and cloud-based architectures, enabling highly productive communications for consumers and businesses.
In a brilliant, engaging and forthright interview, the CMO and EVP of Business Development at the real-time communications enterprise outlined how the recent acquisition of Edgewater Networks will solidify its position as a market leader, highlighted what differentiates the company from its rival and explained the benefits and capabilities provided by its flagship Kandy platform.
Can you outline to us what your primary responsibilities and goals are as the chief marketing officer and EVP of Business Development for Ribbon Communications?
Ribbon is a very exciting company on the move including consolidating leading companies, with the combination last year of Sonus and GENBAND, and the recent acquisition of Edgewater Networks. I like to describe my role as CMO and EVP of business development as "chief listening officer" - having spent most of my adult life working with the largest and most innovative service providers on the planet, adventuring through waves of creativity and disruption.
I'm responsible for developing and articulating the global business strategy for Ribbon, working with my colleagues on the leadership team to ensure we are fully understanding and meeting the evolving needs of our service provider and enterprise customers. Part of my job is also making sure that these customer insights are integrated into our product marketing and communications teams so that our products and messaging are aligned.
In the business development category, I work with a team of experts who interface with technology ecosystem partners and more, growing our partner network, and participating in open telecom and technology communities.
Ribbon Communications is set to acquire Edgewater Networks in an effort to expand its unified communications portfolio. Can you elaborate on how this acquisition will provide entry for Ribbon into the SD-WAN market?
Edgewater Networks is a perfect addition to the Ribbon family, and we expect to close this transaction in Q3. A market leader in network edge orchestration for the small and medium enterprise and unified communications (UC) market, Edgewater brings us a leading enterprise session border controller and network edge orchestration capabilities.
This acquisition will allow Ribbon to offer its global customer base a complete core-to-edge product portfolio, unrivaled end-to-end service assurance and analytics solutions, and a fully integrated SD-WAN service.
This transaction demonstrates how we are extending our market reach to the enterprise edge, bringing our service provider base a complete platform will, in turn, extend its leadership position in the SBC, cloud UC, security and analytics markets.
Ribbon has become a global leader in creating secure real-time communications for today's digital world. In your expert opinion, what is it that differentiates Ribbon from its competitors?
We've got a number of differentiators. One is our ability to engage with our customers and partners. While some companies build solutions and hope the market will come, we have the opposite approach. We work closely with our customers, systems integrators, managed service providers, and technology partners to solve real-world problems and open new doors with new services and revenue opportunities.
Another is our broad intellectual property portfolio. We've invested significantly in R&D over the years and that approach has paid off. We have real science backing our products and we're able to give service providers and enterprises the reliability, scalability and security that many new market entrants cannot. Our customers are mostly big businesses who want to leverage today's innovation but without compromising on quality of service - we're uniquely positioned to enable that.
Can you outline to us in detail the benefits of Ribbon's disruptive cloud communications platform Kandy CPaaS?
Kandy is a cloud-based, real-time communications platform that enables enterprises and enterprise application developers to rapidly create and deploy high value communications services. Built from our foundation of carrier-grade communications technology, Kandy services can be delivered as turnkey services (such as Kandy Business Solutions UCaaS services), pre-packaged applications (Kandy Wrappers), SIP Trunking services (connectivity and enhanced services), or as a platform with a set of APIs and SDK that developers can embed in business processes to communication enable web services and mobile apps.
We also offer cloud PBX and UC as a Service, as part of our business solutions portfolio, which our service provider channels sell directly into business.
Kandy is disruptive based on technology and economics. Here's a quick list of benefits:
- Elastic scalability - pay only for what you use
- Rich PBX services that simplify transitions
- Anywhere access from mobile devices, PCs and Macs
- Integrated collaboration tools that eliminate pricey 3rd party services
- Innovative Kandy Wrappers to communication enable websites and contact centers
- Cloud-based call center services as well as omni-channel contact centers solutions
We're exceptionally proud of the Kandy platform, and the progress we have made as a pioneer in this space since 2014 when we first launched.
Can you talk to us about some of the customers you work with in the Middle East, and how important is the Middle East market to Ribbon Communications?
There's a tremendous amount of innovation in the Middle East, including in verticals such as e-government and mobile health, and it's a key geography for us. We work with a number of major brands in the region including du, Etisalat, STC and Zain.
We are currently implementing our network functions virtualization (NFV) session border controller (SBC) with major Tier 1 service providers in the Middle East, helping them establish seamless connectivity between disparate communications networks, delivering high scale interconnect applications and network resiliency in the cloud. We have also executed a proof of concept (POC) in the labs of another major Middle East service provider.
Additionally, we are in the process of implementing a private cloud instance of Kandy in the Middle East in partnership with a leading telecom group. This deployment will enable it to roll out unified communications as a service (UCaaS) coupled with CPaaS (communications platform as a service) to service large and small enterprises in the region.
What are the company's main goals and objectives for the remainder of 2018?
Our overarching goal is always to bring our customers and partners the communications software and solutions they need to be successful. This is our key focus: what do our clients need, why do they need it and how can we help? We create and deliver value by engaging with the community in creative ways. While our software solutions are repeatable, scalable and market-proven, we recognize that the real-time communications (RTC) industry is a competitive one and that our customers win when they can innovate. Our job is to enable that creativity and innovation.
Of course, we'll be spending time and energy making sure that we successfully integrate Edgewater Networks later this year. We want to deliver a comprehensive solutions portfolio to partners and prospects while staying abreast of further opportunities in a consolidating marketplace.