Synchronica has (conditionally) agreed to acquire Nokia’s operator-branded messaging (OBM) business that covers tier one mobile operators in North America, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Rogers and Telus. All those carriers get Synchronica additional 6+ million users, and combined with existing 80+ carrier contracts in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Russia, and Asia, Synchronica’s goal is to become the global leader in next-generation mobile messaging.
Also as part of the deal, the two companies will work together to further develop, maintain and support messaging gateway and client software shipping with millions of Nokia phones. Synchronica will additionally continue to develop the acquired messaging software and eventually merge it with its own Mobile Gateway infrastructure software in a converged roadmap, adding key features, such as document transcoding, PIM synchronization and RCS instant messaging.
As we all know, Nokia isn’t big in North America and selling their messaging business makes sense both for them and Synchronica whose sole focus is delivering messaging services to the mobile users around the world. We’ll see where that goes…