Comverse, which acquired UK messaging firm Acision in June, rebranded the merged entity as Xura, which reflects “the joint company’s mission to be a next-generation digital technology provider to operators and enterprises across the globe.”

Xura says its customers number eight of the top 10 global operators, reaching what it describes as “over three billion end points”. The new entity has three business lines: digital communications, monetisation and enterprise.

Maria Hudson, vice president, marketing, told Mobile World Live the business wants to focus particularly on the enterprise side.

“Acision’s messaging heritage will be very close to our heart because that’s our core business but we want to show the world that we can help enterprise and operators take new digital services to market,” she explained.

“Operators have been struggling recently, coming up against OTTs and new apps and services, and we want to help them navigate through the industry,” she added.

“We also want to help move enterprises into the mobility space. Once they have an app, what’s the next step? How can they engage with customers in a more fulfilling way?,” she added.

The company believes enterprises are aggressively engaging their own customers in new ways through mobile and digital services.  While these apps are designed around the service they offer, very few seamlessly integrate multi-channel communications to enhance the customer experience.

She also said that when Comverse acquired Acision “they were very much of the mindset that it was a merger of two companies in similar fields that wanted to achieve the same thing and have the same ambition,” and the new brand is a reflection of that.

JF Sullivan, SVP Strategy and CMO of the joint firm, said the merger of the two companies, which have both been around for over 20 years and once competed in the SMS, voicemail and MMS space, had been a “natural union”.

“It’s probably important to note that Comverse had not been doing so well in recent years. They did a turnaround about two and a half years ago when they optimised their infrastructure business and built new businesses on top of that, and got rid of legacy portions. After that, they were sitting on a business that wasn’t going anywhere,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Acision was doing really well but couldn’t grow fast enough.

When Comverse approached Acision, it was already talking to a private equity firms to raise money.

He added that the new entity has “exciting announcements” planned for later in the year, including an enterprise version of Acision’s ‘fuseMe’ messaging app.