BroadVision Launches New Unified Messaging System for Telcos

Earlier this month, BroadVision brought to market a new, improved version of Clearvale, its cloud-based, intranet-type social network for business.

Now, as of Dec. 1, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company has added new components that will take Clearvale--the UI of which looks a lot like Facebook--to an entirely new level: one that can serve as a cloud platform as a service for telecommunications providers to resell.

BroadVision has incorporated two new additions into Clearvale called PaasPort ("Paas" stands for Platform as a Service) and MyStream. As a result, the rejiggered package now gives BroadVision's telecom customers a new Web 2.0-type product to market as part of their own services. 

PaasPort provides the unified communications services-instant messaging, e-mail, voice. MyStream adds the data stream management controls for the operator. Using the new package, BroadVision customers will be able to offer custom themes and layouts to their Clearvale installation, which result in branded feature sets.

The Clearvale cloud service enables enterprises to connect with their own service providers, partners, customers-the entire supply chain-and collaborate in a familiar-looking environment.

BroadVision Chief Marketing Officer Giovanni Rodriguez told eWEEK that Japan-based Softbank, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the Far East, has become the first customer to start offering Clearvale PaasPort as a resellable unified communications platform.

That announcement will be made Dec. 1, Rodriguez said. "We'll be making some more announcements in the future along these lines," he said.

Facebook announcement spurs the market

Ironically, when Facebook came out with its unified e-mail/messaging announcement on Nov. 15, things started popping for BroadVision, Rodriguez said. This was because the largest social networking Internet service provider in the world had just revealed its road map toward unified messaging-something BroadVision has been working on for a long time.

"We thought, 'Wow, that's interesting,'" Rodriguez said. "That kind of ignited the market for us.

"From our perspective, the telecom market is opening up. They've wanted to be able to provide this type of service under a single package-that will be the UI-and now they can do it. They will probably not be able to build another Facebook, but on the enterprise side, there is a big opportunity," Rodriguez said.

Facebook has a vision for "unified communications"-the Holy Grail for telcos-as a strategy to own the customer, Rodriguez said.

"With Clearvale PaasPort, telcos can fight back and be the main provider of unified communication services over 'enterprise' social networks," Rodriguez said.

"SoftBank in Japan is doing this to battle with Microsoft [Facebook's partner]. The big opportunity for our telco customers is to attack and defend a big sector of the market that already believes that unified communication services belong on a social network."

Security is a major distinguisher for Clearvale over Facebook, Rodriguez said.

"We've taken great pains to make this the most secure enterprise communication network that you can get," Rodriguez said. "We're using the highest-level security you can use in our platform."

Company has 17-year history

BroadVision was founded in 1993, had some immediate success with the dawn of the Internet and went public in 1996. Founder and CEO Pehong Chen built his business by creating early e-commerce applications and portals.

However, like many other companies in 2000, BroadVision was hit by the dot-com bubble burst and later was forced to reconstruct itself. As new Internet services began to replace the older, outmoded e-commerce portals and application service providers, BroadVision drew up a new road map.

Chen and BroadVision identified the cloud computing trend in 2008 and refocused the business on it. The 250-person company spent two years developing a cloud-based suite of business services called Clearvale, launching Clearvale v1.0 in May of this year. Clearvale 2.0 launched in early November.