The telecom industry got a jolt of excitement in December 2024 when Alianza, a nimble cloud communications company, swooped in to buy Metaswitch from Microsoft. The deal promises to breathe new life into Metaswitch's legacy soft-switch technology while giving telcos a clear path to cloud modernization. For this episode, I’m talking with Brian Beutler, founder and CEO of Alianza, about why Alianza made this bold move and what’s next for Metaswitch customers. Listen now to hear:

• Three reasons why Alianza pursued the MetaSwitch acquisition [03:00 ];
• How it plans to create stability for customers and let them define their own cloud journey [05:13 ];
• How the company plans to manage 5x growth [09:05 ]; and
• The role AI will play in Alianza’s expanding portfolio [12:24 ].

Links and Resources

• Check out Alianza’s announcement about its deal to buy Metaswitch from Microsoft.
• Read more about the acquisition:
  • Fierce Network Exclusive: Alianza buys Metaswitch from Microsoft in deal years in the making
  • Fierce Network Op-Ed: Alianza resurrects Metaswitch from Microsoft grave
  • Telecoms.com: Microsoft sells Metaswitch to Alianza
  • Light Reading: Alianza buys Metaswitch from Microsoft
  • UC Today: Telco 4.0 – Alianza’s Ambitious Deal Could Reshape the Market
• Visit the Alianza website to learn more about the company.
• Listen to my Telco in 20 conversation with Brian from March 2024, Ep 87 - scaling telcos’ cloud mountain with Alianza.
• As with any acquisition being merged into a startup, there are going to be a lot of decisions Brian will have to make with the newly acquired company. A handy (and classic!) book I’d recommend reading is The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen. Brian will have a large Metaswitch customer base to support that’s still on legacy, old-school tech while he’s simultaneously investing in new tech with the Alianza product. It won’t be easy!
• Ready to see how AI and the public cloud can transform your telco? Give Totogi a call!
• Watch this episode on our YouTube channel.
• You can find the episode transcript here.

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This week’s guest

Brian Beutler is the founder and CEO of Alianza, the leading cloud communications platform for telco service providers. He is passionate about transforming the telecommunications industry by empowering service providers to deliver modernized, cloud-native core communications solutions to supercharge growth, simplify operations and reduce costs. Under Beutler’s leadership, Utah-based Alianza has forged a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS and counts Lumen Technologies, Brightspeed, Viasat and Xplore among its tier-one and nationwide customers. 

Podcast Credits

• Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Rios, TelcoDR
• Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
• Senior Editor/Brand Manager: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
• Audio Editor: Andrew Condell
• Supervising Producer: Amanda Avery
• Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
• Music: Dyami Wilson