Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Motorola to buy Winphoria

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:01:20 -0400

April 15, 2003
Motorola to buy Winphoria
By Ed McKinley

Motorola Inc. has agreed to acquire a company that makes "soft-switch" wireless
telecom equipment that’s less expensive and more robust than conventional
switches and can support cell phones with the hot new "push-to-talk" feature.

Schaumburg-based Motorola on Tuesday said it would buy privately held
Winphoria Networks Inc. of Tewksbury, Mass., in an all-cash transaction. The
purchase price was not disclosed.

Analysts have said Motorola's
lack of switching products was
a disadvantage in the fiercely
competitive industry because
the company is unable to meet
all the needs of its wireless
carrier customers.

The advantages of the soft
switch "translate into direct
benefits for our carrier
customers and prospects by
helping them reduce operating
costs and by offering them a
software-driven switch that can
be easily upgraded and
enhanced at lower cost," Christopher B. Galvin, Motorola chairman and CEO,
said in a statement.

Compared with conventional hard switches, the soft switches made by the 125
employees at Winphoria are five times smaller, use three times less energy, cost

75% less to deploy and save 30% in total costs, a Motorola spokesman said.

"That’s why carriers are very interested in them," he said.

Switches route incoming and outgoing calls, and soft switches support third
generation systems that feature text messaging, video, music and push to talk,
the spokesperson said. Push to talk resembles walkie-talkie technology.

Telecommunications manufacturers coveted Winphoria, and Motorola probably
pursued the company for several months, said Greg G. Gorbatenko,
telecommunications and media analyst for Loop Capital Markets LLC in Chicago.
P> Motorola plans to integrate three-year-old Winphoria into its Global Telecom
Solutions Sector business unit, a Motorola statement said. Last August, Motorola

and Winphoria began testing a Winphoria-made soft switch — branded as the
Motorola Soft Switch — in Asia. Motorola expects to introduce the switch on a
broad scale in Asia in June, and trials may begin in North America by then, the
Motorola spokesperson said.

Motorola shares were trading down 3 cents at $7.95 Tuesday afternoon.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=8545

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