It’s always tough for the plumbers of the networking business to get some headline time. But with some new deals this week and a new strategy that looks beyond its VoIP roots, application feature server provider Sylantro might find itself a bit more in the spotlight, attention that may cause some to ask how long the company can remain private and independent.
Sylantro, whose IP-based software currently provides the back-end application features (like user interface and subscriber management) for a long list of VoIP providers, is now seeking to win similar contracts in larger deployments, such as those for mobile operators who use IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) as a base technology. We spent some time last week on the phone with the company’s new president and CEO, Marco Limena, who talked a bit about Sylantro’s new strategy, which has already paid off with one deal announced Monday with Euro provider Swisscom, who plans to use Sylantro’s application feature set for its future IMS-based network.
Paul Kapustka: What does moving into the IMS and mobile-infrastructure market mean for Sylantro?
Marco Limena: These are potentially much larger deals for us. While VoIP [contracts] are typically 50,000 or 60,000 licenses, you don’t do mobility for just thousands of users — it’s more like millions. So it’s very good, with deals of a much different scale.
Paul Kapustka: Can Sylantro as a company scale to support bigger contracts? Does this mean the company might need to take on additional financing?
Marco Limena: We’re not disclosing or making any announcements about funding. I think we can win with organic growth resources. My responsibility is to manage the company’s growth and execute on our plan. If I can do that, then we will have many options to just sustain growth or [take money] and grow more rapidly.
Paul Kapustka: You joined Sylantro in November after a long career in sales at Hewlett-Packard — how does that experience help you at Sylantro?
Marco Limena: I’ve spent 14 years in sales in the international telecom market, with a long list of contacts reaching across global regions. In leaving HP, I wanted to go somewhere where I could keep my professional [sales] contacts in the telecom industry, such as my relationship with Microsoft, while also finding a more entrepreneurial opportunity, and Sylantro has that. And if we can take the traditional Sylantro opportunity and then not only focus on hosted voice but on a greater evolution, that could make Sylantro a very exciting place to be.
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