Your Tech Story

communication

amdocs

Digital solutions of Amdocs is making communication smarter and faster

Amdocs is a famous multinational software company providing the digital solution in the sector of communication, media, finance, and many giant digital enterprises. The history of the company dates back to 1982 when this Israeli business was founded by Morris Kahn and Boaz Dotan. Boaz became the first CEO and President of the company. Today, the company is based in Missouri, United States. It has more than 25,000 employees and last year its annual revenue summed up to $4.1 billion.

Let’s delve deeper into the history of Amdocs and have a look at why it is better than other software companies.

About Morris Kahn and Boaz DotanAmdocs Founders

Morris Kahn is one of the most famous Israeli entrepreneurs who is also a billionaire. Kahn stepped into the business world and explored different niches of business for a long time. When he was young he established a bicycle company followed by a cattle company. He is also a famous philanthropist who received Bonei Zion Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Boaz Dotan received his bachelor’s degree from Tel-Aviv University. Apart from founding the company, Boaz is currently a partner at AfterDox and a board member of Retalix Ltd.

Founding history of Amdocs

The foundation of the company took place as a part of Golden Pages which is the Israeli phone directory company. Morris Khan acquired Golden Pages hence the company which then came under the Aurec Group, a telecom company established by Morris in 1968. Boaz Dotan was the first president of Amdocs who along with Morris developed software for phone directory companies. This led both of them to open a new company, Aurec Information & Directory Systems.

In 1985, a 50% share of this new company was acquired by Southwestern Bell Corporation and the company was renamed as Amdocs. Within the next couple of years, the other assets of Aurec Group were sold to Amdocs as well for $1 billion. The company started gradually expanded to the area of the telecom sector followed by mobile communication. In 1998, the company went public and next year it acquired ITDS thus entering into the reign of management services.

2000-present

Stepping into a new century, the new acquisitions by Amdocs flooded the news headlines. In 2001, the company acquired a software firm, Clarify for $200 million. Amdocs acquired DST Innovis and Cramer Systems in two consecutive years and an Israeli start-up called SigValue in 2007. This was just the beginning and the following years witnessed the acquisition of many more communication and software companies from around the world. Last month, Amdocs acquired Openet Telecom Inc, a world-renowned 5G connection provider.

Why choose Amdocs?

The demand for every business is different depending on the sector of business and type of clients. Amdocs has connectivity solutions for any business and helps gain a faster pace to grow one’s business. Last year, Gartner named Amdocs as a leader for both IRCM and OSS and IT Services Magic Quadrants. Till now, the company has worked with more than 350 service providers in 80 countries. Amdocs also helps in accelerating the network and cutting cost at the same time. And, the most important and valuable service for a client is to received quality solutions cost-effectively. Amdocs is also excelling at providing fraud-management services based on ML and AI. A few months ago Amdocs launched Home Operating System powered by AI and Cloud-Native.

Amdocs’ AI-powered Home Operating System

This year, Amdocs’ revolutionizing home broadband has become a big hit in the market. The name of the product is Amdocs doxiO HomeOS providing better suggestions based on AI, enhanced cybersecurity, working more on basic commands thus adapting the “touch-free” notion and making it easier for everyone in the home to control and use the connected devices.

The consumers can change manually the Wi-Fi settings that getting an insight into how many devices are connected. This is specially designed for the benefit of parents as one receives notifications regarding the usage patterns, media, and gaming consumption. And, alerts and notifications are also sent to the users if anticipated a security breach.

Effect of COVID-19 on Amdocs

Putting forward the safety of employees and partners, Amdocs didn’t attend the MWC Barcelona 2020. The CEO of the company said they appreciate the preventive measures taken up by GSMA, but the health concern of Amdocs’ employees is the first priority for the company. This statement was given by Shuky Sheffer, current president and CEO of the company on 19th February 2020.

skype

Skype : A Communication App that Won the World

In the last few decades, the world has changed a lot. What seemed to be impossible a few years ago, is being executed with zero effort today. With the boom in entrepreneurship and startups getting the hang of the wave, human life is at its technological best. Our generation has witnessed a large number of success stories, but not every one of it has managed to stay with us for so long. The inventions that change the world are the ones that feed the depriving hearts of society. The success story of Skype is one such idea that changed the very nature of web business by revolutionizing the chat connectivity of the virtual world.

Founded in the year 2003 by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, Skype turned out to be the biggest surprise that changed the face of online communication for the years to come. One can say that Skype lessened the distance between people, or in other words, started bringing people together. It gained almost 6000 subscribers within just one week of its launch, and this is when the duo realized that they are in for something huge. This realization proved to be true as we look at the trail they have left behind.

Janus and Niklas developed the application with the help of a group of highly skilled individuals, namely Ahti Heinia, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn. The most attractive aspect of Skype is that it is free. During a time when the telecom industry charged a fortune for international calls, Skype provided free video calls through the usage of P2P connectivity. It was an actual boon to the people who were separated from their loved ones through distance. It also mitigated the location issues for major business meetings and other official programs.

skype founders
Image Source: taliawebs.com

Like every huge success story, Skype, too, has a humble beginning. Zennstrom was collecting the telephone bills of his friend in Europe when he realized how huge the telecom companies charge for long-distance phone calls. This is what led to the invention of Skype, as simple as that. They wanted to avert the escalating telephone bills and wanted to make communications across the globe more cheap and efficient.

Within just two years of its inception, Skype already had 20 million active users and was growing at an exponential rate of 5 new users per second. This growth soon attracted a lot of attention from huge names such as eBay and Microsoft. eBay later in 2005, acquired Skype for a whopping sum of 3.5 billion USD. The most successful project of the internet industry, Skype, again get attracted the interest of other tech giants. And, this time, Microsoft acquired Skype for 8.5 billion USD.

The innovation by a team of young minds changed the way people talk across the globe. It was an extravagant success, as there is no greater deed than filling the deficiency of society.

Back in 2003, it was the need for a more efficient and low-cost communication system. The founders say that they were very naïve and highly optimistic in their journey throughout Skype. But it was this same spirit that led them to launch the service. They did not dive into the what-ifs and other nitty-gritty of all the things that could go wrong. The other main highlight of the concept was that there was nothing much complicated about functioning. There were no complicated procedures or troubling interface. Everything was simple and clear. This also was a contributing factor to the immense success of the idea.

Every big change starts from a small spark. This spark comes to every one of us. The ones who can latch on to the spark and ignite a fire become successful. These build unicorn companies, multi-million dollar empires and some even end up becoming legends. Skype provides the biggest example of how small ideas can revolutionize the world. It started a chain of changes that still ripples across the surface of the virtual world and how people communicate with each other.