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Ribbon Communications boosts UCaaS portfolio with Edgewater buy
Ribbon Communications' acquisition of Edgewater Networks is expected to add analytics, security and service-assurance capabilities to Ribbon's UC portfolio.
Ribbon Communications said it will acquire network edge orchestration provider Edgewater Networks for $110 million to expand its unified communications portfolio and enter the software-defined WAN market.
The acquisition offers Ribbon Communications, based in Westford, Mass., the opportunity to expand its service offerings, especially for its UC-as-a-service (UCaaS) provider partners, according to Irwin Lazar, analyst at Nemertes Research, based in Mokena, Ill.
"The Edgewater portfolio brings in a wide range of edge devices that enables UCaaS providers to monitor performance quality for voice and video services," he said. Edgewater Networks, based in San Jose, Calif., has more than 635,000 actively deployed edge devices and more than 20 million connected endpoints, according to Ribbon.
Edgewater Networks provides service assurance, security and analytics tools for unified communications and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) through a hybrid cloud or edge model. Its customers include communications service providers, managed services providers, and small and midsize enterprises.
Managing UC performance at remote offices
With the acquisition, Ribbon Communications will expand its UC portfolio with end-to-end service assurance and analytics for its Kandy UCaaS offering, as well as voice and data intelligence capabilities in its Ribbon Protect UC security offering.
Ribbon's UCaaS offering is based on its Kandy embedded communications platform, and it uses Kandy's APIs to provide voice, video and contact center capabilities. Ribbon Protect UC provides end-to-end security of the communications network to mitigate threats, such as toll fraud and telephony denial-of-service attacks.
The combined portfolio of Ribbon and Edgewater will expand Ribbon's Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams offerings. Edgewater Networks' services have been used in a number of Skype of Business deployments as remote survivable gateways, Lazar said.
"Blending the two companies provides a broader range of devices for both enterprises and service providers to manage UC performance at remote offices," he said.
The combined portfolio helps Ribbon Communications toward its goal of expanding its global reach and entering new markets. Acquiring Edgewater Networks gives Ribbon entry to the SD-WAN market, Patrick Joggerst, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of business development at Ribbon, wrote in a blog post. Edgewater's SD-WAN offering targets small and midsize organizations, but the acquisition will allow Edgewater to target larger enterprises and expand outside North America, he said.
The acquisition comes nearly eight months after real-time communications provider Genband and session border controller and UC security provider Sonus merged and rebranded under the Ribbon Communications name. The Edgewater acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter and highlights the ongoing vendor consolidation swirling around the UC market.
