TL;DR
Voiply’s thorough analysis of MetaSwitch and BroadSoft revealed the same structural failure underneath two different brand names.
Who: Voiply, a fast-growing UCaaS provider led by Co-Founder & CEO Shea Georgetti. What: A thorough platform analysis of MetaSwitch and BroadSoft before selecting a UCaaS core. Outcome: Migration to the NetSapiens platform from Crexendo; scaled from 50 to 600 concurrent sessions supporting 40,000+ subscribers with improving unit economics.
Partial API access. Both platforms market APIs; neither exposed complete programmatic control. As Shea Georgetti put it: “We kept hearing, you can do this… but not what you’re looking for.”
Vendor-controlled interfaces. Provisioning, device management, and troubleshooting locked behind portals — an architectural choice, not a technical limit.
Roadmap dependency. Innovation timelines governed by Cisco (Webex priority) and Alianza (cloud-migration goal), not by operators.
BroadSoft wrote the script in 2018; MetaSwitch is now following it. Cisco acquired BroadSoft Feb 2, 2018, ~$1.9B. Microsoft acquired MetaSwitch July 2020, announced workforce layoffs June 3, 2024; Alianza completed acquisition March 4, 2025.
NetSapiens’ design philosophy is the inverse: if you can do something in the portal, you can do it via API — everything, without exception. Session-based licensing where margins improve with every new customer. Deploy in your cloud, Crexendo’s OCI, or hybrid.
The AI test. Without APIs, AI remains informational. With APIs, AI becomes operational — application-layer (AI receptionists, intelligent routing, predictive CX) plus systems-layer (automated provisioning, anomaly detection, real-time remediation).
Table of Contents
- The BroadSoft Playbook: How Cisco Wrote the Script MetaSwitch Is Now Following
- Is MetaSwitch Under Microsoft, Then Alianza: The Same Movie Only Faster?
- What Voiply’s Analysis Revealed: Why MetaSwitch and BroadSoft Failed the Innovation Test
- Platform Comparison: NetSapiens vs MetaSwitch vs BroadSoft
- What the NetSapiens Platform Does Differently
- Why This Gap Gets Wider in the AI Era
- Frequently Asked Questions
There is a pattern in the UCaaS industry that keeps repeating itself. A platform with strong market share and a loyal customer base gets acquired by a larger company. The press release promises investment, innovation, and a better future for customers. And then — slowly at first, then all at once — the roadmap stalls, the engineering talent walks, and the customers who signed multi-year contracts find themselves on a platform being managed toward end-of-life rather than built toward the future.
BroadSoft customers lived this story after Cisco’s 2018 acquisition. Now it looks like MetaSwitch customers are living it now — first under Microsoft, and most recently under Alianza, which completed its acquisition of MetaSwitch from Microsoft on March 4, 2025.
Voiply’s thorough analysis of both platforms revealed the same structural failure underneath two different brand names. As their CEO put it:
"We kept hearing, 'you can do this… but not what you're looking for.'"
— Shea Georgetti, Co-Founder & CEO, Voiply
The issue was not features. It was the fundamental architecture of how those features could be accessed, controlled, and extended. That distinction — between a platform with capabilities and a platform with programmable capabilities — is exactly where MetaSwitch and BroadSoft fall short. And exactly where the NetSapiens platform, delivered by Crexendo, was built to lead.
The BroadSoft Playbook: How Cisco Wrote the Script MetaSwitch Is Now Following
When Cisco acquired BroadSoft on February 2, 2018 for approximately $1.9 billion, the pitch was familiar: Cisco’s global reach would accelerate BroadSoft’s UCaaS capabilities and deliver a better-resourced platform for service providers.
What actually happened followed a different arc. Cisco’s strategic priority was Webex — its own unified communications platform targeting enterprise end-customers. BroadSoft served wholesale carriers and UCaaS service providers, a structurally distinct market. Within a large enterprise software portfolio, a platform serving an adjacent segment does not get investment. It gets managed.
When a platform's parent company has a competing product, the acquired platform doesn't get accelerated. It gets rationalized.
- Roadmap velocity slowed as engineering shifted to Webex integration rather than BroadSoft-native development
- Feature requests entered extended queues governed by Cisco's enterprise prioritization — not UCaaS operator timelines
- Support escalations routed through Cisco's enterprise structure, misaligned with service provider response expectations
- Per-seat pricing remained entrenched with no movement toward session-based economics
- API access stayed partial — full programmatic platform control was never delivered
The BroadSoft customer base did not get the platform Cisco promised. They got a platform Cisco maintained. Operators who recognized that distinction early and acted on it are on modern platforms today.
Is MetaSwitch Under Microsoft, Then Alianza: The Same Movie Only Faster?
Microsoft acquired MetaSwitch in July 2020. For a brief window, the acquisition appeared to carry genuine strategic intent as part of the Azure for Operators initiative. That window closed on June 3, 2024.
On that date, Microsoft announced layoffs covering most of the MetaSwitch workforce — sales, sales engineering, professional services, and software development. The practical meaning was unambiguous:
What the June 2024 layoffs meant in practice: MetaSwitch products would no longer accept new customers. Microsoft would not invest in new features for MetaSwitch products. Microsoft would continue to provide support and bug fixes — but MetaSwitch's development life was effectively over.
Months of customer uncertainty followed. In December 2024, Alianza announced a definitive agreement to acquire MetaSwitch from Microsoft, excluding certain key technology components. The acquisition completed March 4, 2025.
What the Alianza Acquisition Actually Means for MetaSwitch Customers
Alianza is a cloud-native UCaaS company that has acquired a platform with a customer base far larger than its own. The cultural mismatch is pronounced: Alianza’s DNA is cloud-first and subscription-based. Much of the MetaSwitch customer base runs on-premises equipment under perpetual licenses.
Alianza has promised “choice and flexibility” in customers’ modernization journey — but as Award Consulting observed after examining the acquisition in detail:
The parallel to BroadSoft under Cisco is not coincidental. Both acquisitions promised continuity and investment. Both reflected the same structural reality — a legacy platform absorbed by a company whose long-term interest is moving customers to a different architecture.
What Voiply's Analysis Revealed: Why MetaSwitch and BroadSoft Failed the Innovation Test
When Voiply went to market evaluating platforms, they were not looking for a reason to leave — they were looking for a platform that could keep up. What their analysis uncovered across both MetaSwitch and BroadSoft was not a feature gap. It was a programmability gap — and it ran deeper than the sales conversations ever revealed.
The BroadSoft and MetaSwitch stories are not bad luck. The pattern Voiply found is too consistent to be accidental. Acquired UCaaS platforms stop innovating because acquisition fundamentally changes the incentive structure. Pre-acquisition, a platform’s survival depends on winning customers — direct pressure to build, improve, and differentiate. Post-acquisition, survival depends on not losing customers faster than the integration plan requires — pressure to maintain, support, and migrate rather than build.
Here is precisely what Voiply’s evaluation uncovered:
Finding 1 — The Innovation Ceiling: Partial API Access
Both platforms market APIs. Neither exposed complete programmatic control. Developers hit hard restrictions forcing teams back into manual portal operations. You cannot automate what the platform will not expose — and for a development-first business like Voiply, that ceiling is disqualifying.
Finding 2 — Operators Held Hostage: Vendor-Controlled Interfaces
Provisioning steps, device management operations, troubleshooting workflows — locked behind interfaces requiring human navigation. This is not a technical limitation. It is an architectural choice that keeps operators dependent on the vendor’s interface rather than their own code. Every manual step is a competitive disadvantage compounding over time.
Finding 3 — Innovation on Someone Else’s Timeline: Roadmap Dependency
When a platform’s capabilities are governed by a vendor whose strategic priorities lie elsewhere — Webex for Cisco, cloud migration for Alianza — operator innovation becomes contingent on vendor timelines. In a market where APIs and AI are defining competitive differentiation, that dependency compounds with every quarter you wait.
The market reality: As feature parity increases across UCaaS, the differentiator is no longer what capabilities a platform has. It is whether operators can access, automate, and extend those capabilities programmatically — on their own schedule, without waiting for a vendor roadmap shaped by someone else's strategy.
Platform Comparison: NetSapiens vs MetaSwitch vs BroadSoft
Figure 1 · Platform capability comparison (7 dimensions)
| Capability | NetSapiens (Crexendo) | MetaSwitch (Alianza) | BroadSoft (Cisco) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complete API programmability | ✓ Every function | ✗ Partial | ✗ Partial |
| Licensing model | Session-based (concurrent) | Per-seat | Per-seat |
| Unit economics at scale | Highest Margins & Improve With Every New Customer | ✗ Costs rise with seats | ✗ Costs rise with seats |
| Infrastructure | Your Cloud, Crexendo's Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), or Hybrid | On-prem / hybrid | On-prem / hybrid |
| AI-ready architecture | ✓ App-layer + systems-layer AI | Limited | Limited |
| Ownership & strategic focus | Single Platform of Innovation | Alianza — migration goal | Cisco — Webex priority |
| Active platform development | ✓ Ongoing investment | ↓ Post-layoff transition | ↓ Webex-focused |
What the NetSapiens Platform Does Differently
Crexendo built NetSapiens on a design philosophy that is the direct inverse of what Voiply found on MetaSwitch and BroadSoft: if you can do something in the portal, you can do it via API. Everything. Without exception.
"What stood out immediately was API freedom. Anything you can do in the portal, you can do via API. That sounds simple, but it's a game changer."
— Shea Georgetti, Co-Founder & CEO, Voiply
With NetSapiens, every operational function is automatable:
- Provisioning, onboarding, and device management — triggered and completed via API without portal intervention
- Call control, user lifecycle management, and troubleshooting diagnostics — all programmatically accessible
- Ecosystem integrations connecting the platform to CRM, billing, ticketing, and business systems via API
- Application-layer AI delivering value directly to end users: AI receptionists, intelligent call routing, predictive customer experience, real-time analytics
- Systems-layer AI operating beneath the surface: automated provisioning, anomaly detection, real-time remediation without human intervention
- Custom workflows and white-label experiences built on operator timelines, not vendor roadmaps
Voiply scaled from 50 to 600 concurrent sessions supporting 40,000+ subscribers — with improving unit economics throughout. That outcome requires a platform where automation has no ceiling.
"NetSapiens took the handcuffs off. We stopped working around limitations and started building without them. That's the difference between consuming a platform and owning one."
— Shea Georgetti, Co-Founder & CEO, Voiply
Why This Gap Gets Wider in the AI Era
The innovation capability gap between legacy platforms and NetSapiens is significant today. In the AI era, it becomes disqualifying.
Most AI in UCaaS today operates at the interface layer — chatbots, transcription overlays, copilot features. That level of AI is compatible with legacy platforms because it requires no deep API access. It changes nothing operationally.
The AI reshaping the UCaaS landscape is operational AI — and it operates at two levels. At the application layer, it delivers value-driven intelligence directly to end users and service teams: AI receptionists, intelligent call routing, predictive customer experience, and real-time analytics that turn communications data into business decisions. At the systems layer, it operates beneath the surface: monitoring platform health, detecting provisioning anomalies, automatically remediating device issues, and orchestrating multi-step workflows in real time — without human intervention.
Without APIs, AI remains informational. With APIs, AI becomes operational.
Building operational AI at both levels requires exactly what NetSapiens provides and what MetaSwitch and BroadSoft do not: complete, consistent, programmatic access to every platform function. Operators on legacy platforms are not just behind today. They are being structurally excluded from a competitive capability that will define the next decade of UCaaS.
"When AI can directly control the platform through APIs, you stop thinking about just chatbots and start thinking about the art of the possible."
— Shea Georgetti, Co-Founder & CEO, Voiply
Sources & Further Reading
What Does the Alianza Acquisition Mean for Service Providers? — Award Consulting (Jan 2025) Major MetaSwitch Layoffs Reported — Award Consulting (Jun 2024) Analysis: Alianza Acquisition of MetaSwitch — NetSapiens (Apr 2025) Cisco Completes Acquisition of BroadSoft — Cisco Newsroom (Feb 2018) The NetSapiens Platform — Complete Overview Session-Based Pricing Explained Customer Success Stories
Frequently Asked Questions
Voiply, a fast-growing UCaaS provider led by Co-Founder and CEO Shea Georgetti, conducted a thorough platform analysis of MetaSwitch and BroadSoft before selecting the NetSapiens platform from Crexendo. Their analysis found both legacy platforms marketed APIs but did not expose full operational functionality programmatically, forcing engineers into manual workflows. Both used per-seat licensing penalizing growth. Voiply chose NetSapiens for complete API freedom, session-based economics where margins improve with every new customer, and deployment flexibility across their cloud, Crexendo’s OCI, or hybrid. After switching, Voiply scaled from 50 to 600 concurrent sessions supporting 40,000+ subscribers with improving unit economics.
Voiply’s platform evaluation found the same limitation across both MetaSwitch and BroadSoft: partial API access. As CEO Shea Georgetti described it: “We kept hearing, you can do this — but not what you are looking for.” Both platforms restricted programmatic access to key operational functions, forcing developers into manual portal interfaces. Voiply also found per-seat licensing penalizing growth, stalled roadmaps shaped by the acquirer’s priorities, and vendor-controlled interfaces incompatible with the automation and AI Voiply needed to compete.
MetaSwitch was acquired by Microsoft in July 2020. On June 3, 2024, Microsoft announced layoffs covering most of the MetaSwitch workforce. MetaSwitch products would no longer accept new customers, Microsoft would not invest in new features for MetaSwitch products, and Microsoft would continue only support and bug fixes. Alianza completed its acquisition of MetaSwitch from Microsoft on March 4, 2025. As Award Consulting observed, Alianza has promised choice and flexibility but it is clear that they are envisioning a journey that ends in the cloud.
Cisco acquired BroadSoft on February 2, 2018 for approximately $1.9 billion. BroadSoft’s roadmap velocity slowed as Cisco prioritized Webex. The result was reduced engineering investment in BroadSoft-native features, continued partial API access, per-seat licensing penalizing growth, and migration pressure toward Webex. The BroadSoft/Cisco pattern is the documented precedent for what MetaSwitch customers are now experiencing under Alianza.
The NetSapiens platform, delivered by Crexendo (netsapiens.com), is the leading MetaSwitch alternative. NetSapiens offers complete API freedom, session-based economics where margins improve with every new customer, deployment in the operator’s cloud, Crexendo’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), or hybrid, and an AI-ready architecture. Crexendo’s entire business is focused on UCaaS service provider success.
The NetSapiens platform from Crexendo is the leading BroadSoft alternative. Unlike BroadSoft’s per-seat model under Cisco, NetSapiens uses session-based concurrent licensing where margins improve with every new customer. NetSapiens provides complete API programmability enabling full automation, AI integration at both application and systems layers, and platform customization without vendor roadmap dependency.
NetSapiens is a carrier-grade UCaaS platform delivered by Crexendo. It provides complete API freedom, session-based concurrent licensing where margins improve with every new customer, deployment flexibility across the operator’s cloud, Crexendo’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), or hybrid, and an AI-ready architecture with both application-layer AI (AI receptionists, intelligent routing, predictive CX) and systems-layer AI (automated provisioning, anomaly detection, real-time remediation). Learn more at netsapiens.com.
AI requires complete programmatic access to act operationally rather than just conversationally. Without full API access, AI can only surface insights. With NetSapiens complete API access, AI operates at two levels: application-layer AI delivering value to end users, and systems-layer AI automating operations beneath the surface. This distinction between informational AI and operational AI is why API completeness is a prerequisite for meaningful UCaaS AI integration.
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Complete API freedom. Margins that improve with every new customer.
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See exactly how Voiply went from 50 to 600 concurrent sessions — the platform analysis, the decision, and the economics behind it.
