Metaswitch in Five to 10 Years

Thoughts on Carrier Evolution (Oct 7 2011) Applications , Marketing

1. If Metaswitch Networks executives succeed with their current vision of how the company will change over the next five to 10 years, Metaswitch will have become an advanced call control platform that allows developers to create new apps rapidly.

   It won't be a supplier of wired network or wireless network equipment (though it likely will do some of that) so much as a software company whose business is call control functions usable by any network services provider whose business includes messaging, voice, multimedia, web applications and other elements of a communicaton session.

   At least, that's what I would say if you asked me, today, where I think the company is going (and I have no knowledge of any proprietary information Metaswitch has not disclosed in public.

   But those are the logical conclusions one would draw after listening to a great number of presentations by Metaswitch personnel at the Metaswitch Forum 2011. Some of the keywords include the word "platform," the words multimdia and mobility.

   When you hear phrases such as "intelligently connected with social and presence features," "cloud," "on any device" and "twinning," that's where it all points.

   "Wireline SMS" and the ability to sustain a session initiated on one network, and continue on another, as well as clients for iPhones, iPads and Android phones and tablets, with features available on either fixed or mobile networks, are other suggestive phrases. 

   "Bring your own wireless to the fixed network" is another illustrative indication, as is the phrase "platform to host and deliver apps."

   "Software is the new infrastructure," I heard. Likewise, I heard the phrase "service bureau." All of that indicates to me that the phrase "application management and control" might be a better way to describe what Metaswitch will be doing, at the heart of its business, in a decade.

   Again, I have no access to information other than what lots of people said, in public, over four days. I might be wrong. But that's my educated guess. 

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