comverse corporate entity that existed from 1982 to 2013 . for the former subsidiary and current ongoing company see xura . comverse technology inc. former type public nasdaq cmvt industry computer software successor comverse verint systems founded 1982 israel founder jacob kobi alexander boaz misholi yechiam yemini defunct 2013 divested headquarters woodbury nassau county new york united states key people charles j. burdick last ceo and chairman number of employees 4 500 website www.cmvt.com comverse technology inc. originally founded in israel was a technology company located in woodbury new york in the united states that developed and marketed telecommunications software . the company focused on providing value added services to telecommunication service providers in particular to mobile network operators . comverse technology had several wholly or partly owned subsidiaries . the name comverse is a fusion of the words communication and versatility . founded in 1982 the company went public on the nasdaq stock market in 1986 . led by co founder and ceo jacob kobi alexander the company originally specialized in centralized hardware software systems for voice and fax messaging and sold them to telecommunications companies and other large enterprises . much of its funding came from israeli government subsidies and tax credits provided to research and development for hi tech firms . by the mid 1990s one of its most successful products allowed legal authorities and intelligence agencies to record and store data collected from intercepted communications . starting in the late 1990s comverse s voice messaging software became its main product and the company grew rapidly with the surge in mobile phone use passing the 1 billion mark in revenues . it established a formidable position in the worldwide mobile voicemail management market and sold a popular short message service center smsc product . while headquartered in the us most of the company s research and development was done in israel ; comverse became one of the more visible success stories in israel s hi tech industry . it was one of israel s largest employers of software engineers was closely followed in the nation s business press and was the first israeli associated company to join the s & p 500 index . in 2006 comverse was involved in an options backdating scandal . alexander and two other top executives were charged in the us with multiple counts of conspiracy fraud money laundering and making false filings . alexander fled the country to namibia where he engaged in a prolonged fight against extradition . the scandal proved difficult for comverse technology to recover from ; the company was delisted from nasdaq removed from the s & p 500 and spent the next several years consumed by the costly need to restate its financial reports for several years . additionally affected by the financial crisis of 2008 and on and changes in the mobile phone market the company underwent several rounds of large scale layoffs and sold off parts of its business . by 2011 the company began a turnaround . during 2012 and 2013 comverse technology divested itself of all its holdings and ceased to exist ; the two independent companies that carry on its most well known product lines are xura and verint systems . contents 1 subsidiaries 2 history 2.1 origins 2.2 early successes 2.3 growth with wireless 2.4 options backdating and improper accounting 2.5 continuing difficulties 2.6 hopes for recovery 2.7 restructuring 3 industry recognition 4 bibliography 5 references 6 external links subsidiaries edit one of comverse s buildings in tel aviv israel in 2006 comverse technology had multiple subsidiaries comverse also known as comverse network systems or comverse cns is a provider of software and systems enabling value added services for voice messaging mobile internet and mobile advertising ; converged billing and active customer management ; and ip communications . comverse s solutions support flexible deployment models including in network hosted and managed services and can run on circuit switched ip ims and converged network environments . comverse s customer base spans more than 130 countries and covers over 500 communication service providers serving more than two billion subscribers . 1 it typically provided some 70 percent of comverse technology s overall revenue . 2 comverse has 100 local offices in 40 countries with its corporate headquarters located in wakefield massachusetts in the us . verint systems which from 1999 to 2002 was known as comverse infosys 3 4 is a provider of solutions for analysis of intercepted communications digital video focused security and surveillance and analytics and business intelligence for the enterprise . 5 their products are aimed to enable government and enterprises to make sense of the vast information they collect to meet performance and security goals . verint solutions are used by more than 10 000 organizations in 150 countries . 6 verint is headquartered in melville new york with offices worldwide and 2500 employees around the globe . by 2011 verint was 52 percent owned by comverse technology . 7 ulticom provides signaling solutions for wireless wireline and internet communications . 2 5 ulticom s products are used by telecommunication equipment and service providers worldwide to deploy mobility location payment switching and messaging services . ulticom is headquartered in mount laurel new jersey with additional offices in the united states europe and asia . comverse acquired ulticom in 1996 and sold it in 2010 . 8 9 startel sells integrated voice data and networking solutions for use in call centers worldwide . 2 it was originally an independent company that was acquired by comverse technology in 1992 . 10 starhome provides roaming services for mobile network operators . 2 the starhome portfolio includes international roaming services and core network solutions across various technologies including intelligent networks and next generation networks . it was fully owned by comverse technology 9 until being sold to fortissimo capital in 2012 for 54 million . 11 comsor was a venture capital operation created as a subsidiary in partnership with soros fund management that invested in start up companies directly and was active in the late 1990s and early 2000s . 12 13 history edit origins edit the company s origins date to 1982 or 1983 sources differ when three israelis aspiring investment banker jacob kobi alexander of shearson loeb rhoades engineer boaz misholi and alexander brother in law and columbia university computer science professor yechiam yemini got together and founded an israeli start up company efrat future technologies ltd. 14 15 16 17 in a meeting in new york misholi had the idea of building a business around centralized hardware systems to support voice and fax messaging and selling them to telecommunications companies and other large enterprises who could then resell the voice and fax services to their customers . 14 the three quickly returned to israel and started the company with the goal of securing israeli government grants to fund the research and development work . 14 the early years of the company were difficult ; in 1984 they founded comverse in the united states which became the parent company of efrat . 14 the name comverse was chosen as a fusion of the words communication and versatility . 18 in 1986 comverse went public on the nasdaq stock market with a 20 million valuation ; the company used the money so gained as its final round of funding . 14 15 the three founders had trouble working with each other and yemini divorced alexander s sister ; in 1987 alexander was left with sole control of the company after the other two pulled out . 16 the company was a penny stock on the edge of collapse . 19 early successes edit under his lead alexander was credited with turning around comverse s fortunes . 19 in 1989 the ascom group made a 6 million direct investment in the company . 20 in 1990 comverse won a potentially 10 million contract its largest yet to deliver computers running voicemail and fax applications on west german cellular networks beating out far larger corporations in the process . 21 deutsche telekom became one of the company s biggest early customers . 18 by 1991 the company had annual sales of 17 million and was selling a combined voice and fax mailbox system . 22 many of its early successes came from avoiding the huge telecommunications companies in the u.s. and instead focusing on selling to small and medium sized companies in the wireless market in europe . 18 the company also sought a variety of other markets including developing countries such as mexico and china for its trilogue virtual telephone service . 23 24 gradually its product emphasis shifted more from hardware to software . 14 while headquartered in the u.s. nearly all its manufacturing was done in israel where it was able to substantially benefit from government subsidies and tax credits provided to research and development for hi tech firms and industries by the office of the chief scientist in the ministry of trade and industry and by the israel u.s. binational industrial research and development foundation . 12 24 25 many other israeli companies were built by the same model including another top software company mercury interactive . 26 27 during the 1990s comverse received at least 69 research and development grants from the ocs program . 14 in 1993 the company reported a 341 percent rise in profits 28 on revenues in the 64 million range and was named a company to watch by fortune magazine . 24 however its stock plunged for a while in 1994 after a disappointing earnings report . 29 by 1995 comverse was best known for its audiodisk product which was sold to overseas clients and allowed legal authorities and intelligence agencies to record and store data collected from wiretaps . 30 31 half the company s revenues at that point were from audiodisk and market analysts were recommending comverse s stock . 30 growth with wireless edit comverse became a market leader in voice messaging software and boomed during the late 1990s with the surge in mobile phone use . 16 much of its market focus was on wireless operators and overseas companies 32 and it gained a formidable position in the worldwide mobile voicemail management market . 15 the growth coincided with sms text messages becoming popular ; the first big application for sms was as a notification mechanism to tell a wireless subscriber that voicemail were stored in a voicemail box . 5 comverse expanded this application into a full blown short message service center smsc which receives buffers processes and dispatches all sms messages throughout a mobile network . 33 comverse branded and productised this as the intelligent short message service center or ismsc . 5 34 typical of telecomm software it ran on unix based platforms such as unixware and later linux . 35 comverse s ismsc found success as a lower price solution for lower traffic networks where it competed with logica s telepath solution . 5 other companies in the smsc space included cmg and openwave . 33 ismsc found considerable market penetration exemplified by all six of hong kong s wireless carriers using it . 34 comverse also became a participant in forming international wireless standards such as in 2001 for the speech application language tags salt markup language for xml to add voice capabilities to web based applications . 36 37 additional industry standards groups in which comverse has been active include the open mobile alliance and tm forum . 38 39 in addition to growing organically comverse technology began acquiring other companies in both israel and the u.s. 14 31 it acquired dale gesek mcwilliams & sheridan later known as dgm & s telecom in 1996 and renamed it ulticom in 1999 . 8 comverse technology acquired one of its key rivals boston technology for 843 million in stock in 1997 . 32 the acquisition gave comverse entree into the large u.s. telecommunications market