Madonna Chronicles

Openness, by Bob Madonna. Take that out of telecom context and you could be talking about a touchy-feely tell-all book that chronicles the emotional fall and rise of some famous singer's neglected half-brother. (Provided your warped imagination forgives the first name/last name disparity, that is.)

Enough of that, though. Bring out yer context. This is indeed telecom, and Bob Madonna is the top banana-chairman, president, CEO, all that-at Excel Switching. Creator of software-programmable switching platforms. And he brings a message of openness.

Madonna and Excel, studies in uniqueness bordering on obscurity. Started his telecom equipment shop above an automotive one, living off paint fumes and hot dogs. Or so the story goes.

Built Excel into what is, at last measure, a $123 million public company. Headquartered in that commerce center for telecom manufacturing outfits: Cape Cod. Excel Switching, conveniently located miles from nowhere but mere minutes from the Kennedy compound.

So what's the secret of Madonna's success? Again with the openness. Excel sells a computing platform rigged for telecom network switching duty and service manipulation. Takes and supports and processes anything you throw at it, software-wise. A clean slate. Malleable.

Madonna and Excel, hucksters of openness. Started out selling the system as an enhanced services platform to the Bells. In the early '90s, started injecting it via OEM deals into wireless infrastructure because that's where the money and the market were (and where a lot of that remains).

Now: Excel is pursuing the group that doesn't like to over-commit to anyone, the group that wants any and all vendors to be their friends and partners. New local carriers that want to be masters of their own domain.

"Any time there's an emerging carrier business, this type of platform increases in market potential," Madonna says. "This model works well with emerging carriers because they want control over their destiny."

Case in point: IDT, one of the companies that pioneered the international callback and IP telephony trails. A long-distance carrier in more than 225 countries, an ISP offering both dial-up and dedicated access, and an IP voice provider. Sells Net2Phone service at cut rates via the Internet off of its debit card platform, which is where Excel comes in.

About 60 Excel units in IDT's network form the pipeline for the debit platform. "It's a phenomenal product for us because it's PC-based and affordable," says Jack Lehman, director of global facilities at IDT. Sees the Excel platform as a way in for IDT and others trying to catch a break: "You can start at under $100,000 and grow."

The twist is that IDT is using its own software to customize the Excel system. No third parties invited-at least not yet. There's that need for openness again.

"That gives us the ability to do anything in-house," Lehman says. "We have the flexibility to do anything."

Didn't hear that? Here's Madonna on why Excel's openness plus IDT's software flies: "It gives them complete control over their network."

Where else can you get this? From other programmable switch vendors, maybe. From the data network vendors or big switch sellers? Maybe, maybe not. To Madonna, though, what those vendors are doing means business for Excel.

Madonna: "This whole open technology approach is being promoted not just by Excel but by the data companies and even some of the big switching companies." One world is enough for all of us.

Why? Take voice transport over a data network-think IP-as an example. Toll-quality voice features are still required. Enter Excel.

"The more success the data companies have in building an IP network that can carry voice, the more success we'll have with open platforms," Madonna says. "The more open the networks, the more opportunity for supplying services on top of those networks."

Technology partnerships help further the cause. Take vendors such as VocalTec and Dialogic: With their apps and Excel's base combined, things start to make a little more sense to a carrier.

"We're seeing opportunities where we can front some partners' applications onto our carrier platform," says J.C. Murphy, Excel's director of sales. He, too, preaches the openness sermon: "Having that open architecture up front helps us facilitate that type of thinking in the marketplace."

Another operator example that backs up that open-networks-plus-services-equals-success concept: TelePost. Uses the Excel switch as a springboard for a value-added services play. Builds a bridge: Mixes together the reliability of the public network and the versatility of the Internet. Hosts a suite of enhanced services that ISPs and other carriers can draw from, push along to their own customers.

Here again, the Excel platform is the connector, and TelePost is its own software developer. Half the company, in fact, is devoted to development.

"Because it's programmable, we can write the software that allows the enhanced services to be accessed," says Bill Hopps, TelePost's executive VP of corporate development.

The services? Conference calling, unified messaging, document sharing. The stuff that SOHO workers' and telecommuters' dreams are made of.

TelePost can also provide the customer support and the billing, if that's what the carrier wants. All of it tied together with a revenue-sharing arrangement between TelePost and the carrier. So everyone's fat and happy. Contracts announced so far include AccessOne and RAINet, both ISPs connecting the lovely Pacific Northwest.

This whole carrier thing is Madonna's long-time dream for Excel. It's where the action is, where the business is. The show.

It's what prompted him to take Excel public in November 1997. This was no fundraising effort, mind you. Plenty of money in the bank at the time, according to Madonna. Instead, the IPO was an attempt to take what was working and make it more noticeable. Crank things up a notch. Attract the attention of more carriers by creating a more public persona, giving off the presence of a larger company.

Another way? Merge for scale, or be taken by the lions. Madonna and Co. resist all suitors, at least to date. (Not so, for its most direct competitor, Summa Four, bought by Cisco last year.) But partnerships are another story-particularly among software developers. Third-party programs are very appealing. But an M or an A could sacrifice the mission-could close thatcoveted openness.

"Before we went public, I explained to a banker what my ideal partner would be," Madonna says. "He said that only happens in heaven."