Metaswitch acquires Colibria with RCS in mind

Metaswitch Networks has announced it is acquiring Norway-based vendor Colibria in a deal that matches both companies’ expertise in IMS and brings Metaswitch Rich Communication Suite (RCS) technology that will play an increasingly important role as carriers move to support more contextual call services and presence-based applications.

While RCS has not been much of a factor in the North America market yet, Colibria has deployed RCS applications like enhanced instant messaging, presence and network address book solutions to service providers in Northern Europe and elsewhere. Metaswitch recently made strides to support mobile carriers in launching new RCS-like services with the unveiling of its Thrutu in-call content sharing service at last month’s CTIA show, and both companies said Colibria’s technology will extend the concepts behind Thrutu into other future applications.

Metaswitch CEO Kevin DeNuccio said such applications will become increasingly important as carriers battle over-the-top mobile Internet players as new IP applications become a main battleground. “We are seeing one of the greatest infrastructure upheavals ever around the mobile Internet,” he said. “It’s greater in some respects than what we saw with the Internet, which only affected PCs. The mobile Internet upheaval is affecting more devices, and is happening over much less time. One of the key themes is how messaging and social networking are leading to the next generation of communications, and that’s what this acquisition targets.”

Colibria CEO Lars Myhrum said the deal will help his engineering-intensive firm gain broader marketing outlets, while Colibria’s RCS experience with international carriers like Sweden’s Telia can help operator customers of Metaswitch that “are focused on interoperability with global standards." Myhrum will become general manager for Metaswitch's presence in Norway, with responsibility for the ongoing development and evolution of the Colibria product line.