Lightning Strikes: Alianza Introduces Intelligent Communications Fabric

At their inaugural customer conference, Navigate 2025, Alianza didn’t just launch a product they declared a new category. Over 650 telco leaders from more than 20 countries gathered to witness the birth of Intelligent Communications Fabric (ICF).

From Industry Innovator to Category Creator

When Alianza founder and CEO, Brian Beutler and his team first came to us, Alianza was already a force in cloud communications, helping Communications Service Providers (CSPs) overcome legacy network challenges by moving to cloud-native capabilities. But they knew their next move had to be far bolder.

They were in the early stages of acquiring Metaswitch (formerly part of Microsoft), a longtime provider of network functions to CSPs. But it was clear early on this was more than a bolt-on product play. Married with their cloud-native platform, it not only gave them full-stack capabilities – softswitch, SBCs, core network functions – but the tectonic tools to reshape how CSPs deliver services and experiences in the era of AI.

Over the last 9 months they…

• Closed the acquisition.
  
  
• Embarked on a customer tour—meeting every existing Metaswitch and Alianza customer to hear nuances, fears, aspirations.
  
  
• Fused two distinct engineering cultures and product roadmaps.
  
  
• Worked through the hardest decisions to name, frame, blueprint the solution, and lock in a POV that could scale beyond enhanced features to total category-defining package..
  
  

When the day came, they didn’t just show a product, they told the story of a massive problem (The Network Monetization Gap) and laid out a visionary solution in full. 

Navigate 25: Category Launch Redefines the Game

Navigate 25 was more than an industry event. It was a moment. A line-in-the-sand for the next era of telecom.

• Brian’s keynote painted the $3.6 trillion problem (that’s right, trillion!), and exposed how CSPs spent decades building the highways others now monetize. And then he laid out a vision that will enable CSPs to move from spectators to innovators in the era of AI-powered communications.
  
  
• CPO, Dag Peak’s deep dive through the three-layer architecture (Infrastructure, Orchestration, Experience) grounded what “ICF” actually means and how it works. From the DNA of media interworking to how AI-enhanced experiences live on top.
  
  
• Multiple event sessions detailed migration paths, orchestration opportunities, AI-powered services, and how to switch from legacy maintenance to real-time innovation.

The response was immediate. Industry press called the ICF unveiling “category-shifting,” and even “a blueprint for how service providers will compete and win.”  Analysts praised the architecture’s ability to unify communication infrastructure, orchestration, and application layers. 

Creating a Market, Not Chasing a Market

What sets this apart from your typical “product launches” is that Alianza is not chasing market share, they’re creating the market.

• Full-stack ownership: With Metaswitch integrated, they’re no longer simply a cloud overlay; they now offer carriers all the pieces, under a unified vision. A way for them to buy what’s needed to modernize infrastructure today while accelerating the journey to AI-driven transformation.
  
  
• Category-level framing: Rather than talking about “cloud voice” vs. “UC,” they’re claiming Intelligent Communications Fabric. Going beyond features and functionality comparisons to owning a point-of-view on how communication systems must now be architected in an AI-first world.
  
  
• Blueprint clarity: From infrastructure to orchestration to experience, Alianza delivered the “how it works” in schematic form, not just marketing fluff.
  
  
• Mass belief building: The customer event wasn’t just about launch, it was a unifying moment, aligning customers, partners, press, and engineering behind the vision.

Watching Brian and the whole Alianza team work through the choreography of the category vision and launch these past months has been a distinct privilege. The consistency of the commitment to the process from the start, and the level of precision, speed, and alignment they’ve pulled off in mere months is nothing short of astonishing. To take two product stacks, weld them and emerge with a bold, defensible category claim – it’s a rare feat.

The first strike at a first-time customer event in Navigate was exemplary of how to get out of the gate with a truly unique and massive idea. Now the race is on: who will build the future of communications on top of ICF? Who will follow? We couldn’t be more excited or bullish on what comes next.

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