BroadSoft, a Gaithersburg, Md.,-based VoIP application platform maker, has cut about a dozen positions, according to a source familiar with the company. The cuts are said to have taken place in its sales, product management and engineering divisions, in both the Americas and the EMEA region. BroadSoft had about 300 employees, so a dozen cuts represents a fairly small percentage. What’s significant is the reasons behind them — sales have started to slow, not just for BroadSoft but for other vendors as well.
Updated: Leslie Ferry, Vice President of Marketing at BroadSoft did confirm that the company had some cuts though she didn’t reveal the exact numbers. She indicated that the company was on track to grow both revenues and margins going forward. Meanwhile, other reports have come in saying that the cuts might be deeper than reported earlier.
Nearly 10 years old, privately held BroadSoft counts some of world’s largest telecom operators among its customers. The company is estimated to have logged around $60 million in revenues last year and was said to have broken even. It recently acquired the M6 application server business from GENBAND, expressing high hopes for the future. It seems the economy has stopped BroadSoft in its tracks. Notably, Cisco Systems just last week said it planned to shut down its broadband telephony business in Texas, a sign that the demand for VoIP-related hardware might be maturing, too.
Both Sylantro and BroadSoft made critical mistakes by not acquiring “last mile” software apps over the past few years. Anyway you cut it, switches has been a dying business over the past few years….and the few apps they developed were weak at best.
I believe both Sylantro and BroadSoft have raised nearly $100M each. Sadly, the VCs behind these deals continued to throw good money after bad. The fire sale is coming.
Will be interesting to see what happens to Cedar Point since they are targeting the MSO’s.
Funny — MetaSwitch is still hiring.
I have heard a very wild rumor that BroadSoft was looking at some sort of deal to buy Sylantro. Sources come out of the BroadSoft user group conference last week.
If BroadSoft was trimming its staff in anticipation of adding another company, then Sylantro would be soon to follow in terms of right-sizing…
It makes total sense for Broadsoft to acquire Sylantro. They have a solid customer base that complements Broadsoft’s Tier 3 plays and their Bangalore Engineering team is very good at what they do despite most of the original talent leaving the company.
Of course, Sylantro’s weak management and product marketing at HQ will have to go.
If this is any indication that VoIP market has matured, the most logical thing in my mind is to merge BroadSoft, Sylantro and IPUnity (possible get bought by Acme Packet). This probably gives the combined company a “more complete” product portolio rather than struggling to sell application servers, media servers or session border controllers.
I would also consider BroadSoft or Sylantro aggressively proposing their existing customers that are most probably struggling as well an option to ‘run the service’ for them (white listing the service) at 10% of their current operating cost and a cut in their revenue… I would even consider offering services on their own by hosting their applications on Amazon computing cloud! It would allow these guys to showcase their capabilities and attract more customers rather than running behind losing Service Providers!