Mercator Capital is one of the investment banks many of us in the industry watch. I use them as an indicator of companies that are doing the right things. They're a key validator for some of my assumptions. They publish a regular newsletter that is always chock full of in-depth information and analysis. It's a great resource.

Here's a clip from their December newsletter, with some more thoughts below.

Bridgeport Adds Funding and Pushes FMC Forward

On November 6, Bridgeport Networks announced its latest funding of $13 million, all of which came from existing investors. This brings Bridgeport’s total funding to date to $51 million, and has gone a long way to position them at the forefront of FMC, which we see as being one of the key drivers of telecom now.

The funding will help Bridgeport push forward on two fronts, both of which present promising growth opportunities. First is their MobileStick product, which was announced at 3GSM earlier this year. This is a mobile-PC VoIP solution, and is aimed at helping business travelers avoid roaming charges, especially for inter-continental calls. The “stick” is a USB device that has an embedded SIM card, which has the same phone number as the SIM card in the caller’s mobile phone. By using the MobileStick with a broadband connection, the caller can make or take mobile phone calls via a softphone on the PC.

MobileStick’s appeal is self-evident, but we see the second front as being more significant. Since June 2006, Bridgeport has been working closely with Siemens and Time Warner Cable to develop a dual mode service. At the heart of this service is Bridgeport’s NomadicONE convergence server, which is very much an FMC solution. It supports dual mode by allowing a single phone number to be used across multiple networks, and in this case, cellular and WiFi networks in particular.

The dual mode service is of great interest to the cablecos, who lack a mobile offering to compete against the telcos, as the bundling wars move from triple play to quad play. Mobility has always been the missing link for the cablecos, and Bridgeport is now primed to play a key role to fix this gap along with Siemens, who is now a global reseller of Bridgeport. We should also note that Bridgeport is the first FMC vendor we are aware of to launch a formal product integration – as well as a marketing partnership – with a legacy network equipment vendor. In our view, this provides strong validation for Bridgeport’s vision for both FMC and IMS.

I've been keen on BridgePort Networks since my first conversation with Sanjay Jhawar several months ago. I floow them pretty closely, and did a podcast interview with Sanjay just last Friday. It's posted here. BridgePort has some jkey relationships, notably with Time Warner Cable and Siemens, that are worth watching. Sprint's in the mix as a wireless carrier now There's a lot of activity there, and it's all moving quickly.

BridgePort's MobileSTICK technology is something that really seems to be taking off. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one for testing in the next few weeks.


Technorati Tags: BrdigePort Networks, Mercator Capital, unified communications