Profile: Ubiquity Software Corporation Plc.

by Sali Earls

Ubiquity Software develops and markets SIP-based communications software for fixed and mobile service providers, System Integrators, Independent Software Vendors and OEM partners worldwide, and has recently been selected to drive forward BT's 21st Century Network.

Headquartered in Cardiff, the company has offices in the Americas and Far East, and is quickly revolutionising the communications marketplace with solutions to enable service providers develop and deploy revenue generating services quickly.

Michael Doyle Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Ubiquity told Sali Earls about the company. Doyle has over 20 years of telecoms experience and is responsible for all technology functions of the Group.

What's the history of your company?
The company was co-founded in 1993 by Simon Gibson (now Chief Executive of Wesley Clover) and Michael Doyle (CTO) to develop software that would enable customers to benefit from a closer integration between computing and telecommunications resources. In 1995, Ubiquity accepted its first outside investment from Celtic House, a venture capital firm affiliated with Terry Matthews, the Welsh-born entrepreneur who founded Mitel and Newbridge Networks. The Ubiquity team began focusing on nascent Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Java technologies to deliver integrated computer telephony software solutions.

In October 1999 the company redirected engineering efforts on producing a software server based on a brand new internet communications standard known as the Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP, which the company's architects recognised as an ideal technology for developing and delivering converged voice, video and data services over IP networks. The first version of Ubiquity's SIP server performed brilliantly at a SIP interoperability 'bakeoff' in the spring of 2000.

We secured our second round of venture financing in August 2000, making the company one of the largest start-up software companies in the UK with CapVest, JK&B, and Newbridge (later Alcatel) investing US$42 million in the company.

In 2002, we chose to focus our flagship SIP Application Server product development efforts around a new comprehensive services architecture known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), and around tightly integrating its product into Java-based telco Service Delivery Platforms.

Since then, Ubiquity has established itself as the leading supplier of carrier-grade, IMS-Compliant SIP Application Servers, for both fixed and mobile IP networks.

In May 2005, the company went public on the Alternative Investments Market ((LSE: UBQ.L)) operated by the London Stock Exchange. This helped the company to raise an additional £20m to fuel further growth and expansion globally.

The company now has 220 employees worldwide, is headquartered in Cardiff, and has corporate offices in the US, Canada, Japan and China. The company has partnered with the largest telecom solutions providers in the world, and its software is installed at leading carrier customers in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

What unique products/services does your company provide?
Ubiquity's key product is our award-winning SIP Application Server (SIP A/S) which is a software platform that allows telecom service providers to develop and deploy next-generation rich multimedia converged communications services. Our technology also allows new services to be developed and delivered faster and more easily than using traditional methods.

SIP A/S brings the distributed, open application development model of the internet to telecommunications. This maximises the ability of an application developer to reuse features and components from one service offering to another using open, familiar application programming interfaces. Migrating internet development practices to the telecommunications industry enables service providers and applications developers to create and rapidly deploy different SIP-based applications across fixed and mobile networks. Examples of these applications include VoIP telephony, audio and video conferencing, unified messaging, Push-to-Talk, multiplayer online gaming, and other multimedia 'push' services.

SIP A/S was designed from the ground up with demanding carrier applications in mind. Telecom service providers install SIP A/S in the heart of their networks, allowing them to deliver enhanced, revenue-generating services targeting consumers or business customers, utilizing voice, video or data across fixed and/or mobile networks. SIP A/S uses a distributed architecture that provides the "High Availability", performance and scalability that carrier customers require. High Availability ensures that in the event of a hardware or other component failure, all current live connections will continue to operate without failure or disruption.

What's been the key to your success?
We are driven by continuous innovation and striving to be the best at what we do. Additionally, we have attracted some of the most talented employees in the industry, who share our passion and vision.

We have also aligned ourselves with strong partners, which include some of the more recognised brands in telecommunications, such as Lucent, HP, Nokia and Siemens. We also understand our markets and technology well and we provide leadership through the generation of new ideas for communications products and services that help ensure that our customers are successful.

What one piece of outside technology has benefited your company most?
The answer would have to be Internet Protocol, or IP. The internet has radically changed the world of communications as we know it. And now that the telecommunications industry is moving to IP as the preferred transport technology, IP is allowing the internet and telephony to converge resulting in a complete new set of applications and service possibilities.

SIP, the technology that Ubiquity has pioneered, is at the heart of this communications and multimedia transformation. The combination of these two technologies has led to new market opportunities globally both in the wireline and wireless domains and these are exactly the markets where we operate.

What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
Understand your customers well; listen carefully to what they have to say and problems they have; provide solutions and try to add value to what they do; and grow with them by building solid relationships based on trust and respect.

Where do you see your company going in the future?
Ubiquity has emerged as a global company and a recognised leader in communications software. We see our products and services used by all of the major service providers around the world, including traditional telecommunications companies both mobile and wired.

Increasingly going forward we see an opportunity to serve the emerging "new breed" internet based service providers, such as the likes of eBay and Google, as well as large enterprises and fortune 500 type companies.

Across all of these markets, we see a world where people communicate and share experiences through the use of rich multimedia communications, with Ubiquity's technology enabling a more productive and connected lifestyle.

Find out more about Ubiquity Software Corporation Plc. at www.ubiquitysoftware.com.


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