The words "Synchronoss", "we", "our", "ours", "us" and the "Company" refer to Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. All statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding Synchronoss' "expectations", "beliefs", "hopes", "intentions", "strategies," "plans," "targets," "estimations" or the like. Such statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Synchronoss cautions investors that there can be no assurance that actual results or business conditions will not differ materially from those projected or suggested in such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the risk factors discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Synchronoss expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Synchronoss' expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statements are based.
General
We are a leading provider of on-demand transaction management solutions. Such transactions include device and service procurement, provisioning, activation, intelligent connectivity management and content synchronization that enable communications service providers (CSPs), cable operators/multi-services operators (MSOs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with embedded connectivity (e.g. smartphones, laptops, tablets and mobile Internet devices, among others), e-Tailers/retailers and other customers to accelerate and monetize their go-to-market strategies for connected devices. This includes automating subscriber activation, order management, upgrades, service provisioning and connectivity and content management from any channel (e.g., e-commerce, telesales, enterprise, indirect and other retail outlets, etc.) to any communication service (e.g., wireless (2G, 3G, (EV-DO and HSPA), 4G, (LTE and WiMAX)), high speed access, local access, IPTV, cable, satellite TV, etc.) across any connected device type and content transfer. Our global solutions touch all aspects of connected devices on the mobile Internet.
Our ConvergenceNow®, ConvergenceNow® Plus+TM and InterconnectNowTM platforms provide end-to-end seamless integration between customer-facing channels/applications, communication services, or devices and "back-office" infrastructure-related systems and processes. Our customers rely on our solutions and technology to automate the process of activation and content management for their customer's devices while delivering additional communication services. Our platforms are designed to be flexible and scalable to enable multiple converged communication services to be managed across multiple distribution channels, including e-commerce, m-commerce, telesales, customer stores, indirect and other retail outlets, etc., allowing us to meet the rapidly changing and converging services and connected devices offered by our customers. We enable our customers to acquire, retain and service subscribers quickly, reliably and cost-effectively by simplifying the processes associated with managing the customer experience for procuring, activating, connecting and synchronizing connected devices and services through the use of our platforms. The extensibility, scalability and relevance of our platforms enable new revenue streams for our customers through new subscriber acquisitions, sale of new devices, accessories and new value-added service offerings in the cloud, while optimizing their cost of operations and enhancing customer experience.
We currently have operations in North America, Europe and Asia. We market our solutions and services directly through our sales organizations in North America and Europe.
Our industry-leading customers include tier 1 service providers such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, tier 1 cable operators/MSOs like Cablevision, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable and large OEMs/e-Tailers such as Apple, Dell, Panasonic, Sony and Nokia. These customers utilize our platforms, technology and services to service both consumer and business customers, including over 300 of the Fortune 500 companies.
We were incorporated in Delaware in 2000. Our Web address is www.synchronoss.com. On this Web site, we post the following filings as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, our current reports on Form 8-K, our proxy statement on Form 14A related to our annual stockholders' meeting and any amendment to those reports or statements filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All such filings are available on the Investor Relations portion of our Web site free of charge. The contents of our Web site are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file.
Synchronoss' Platforms
Our ConvergenceNow®, ConvergenceNow® Plus+TM and InterconnectNowTM platforms provide highly scalable on-demand, end-to-end order processing, transaction management, service provisioning, device activation, intelligent connectivity and content transfer and synchronization through multiple channels including e-commerce, m-commerce, telesales, enterprise, indirect, and retail outlets. Our global platforms are designed to be flexible and scalable across a wide range of existing communication services and connected devices, while offering a best-in-class experience for our customers. The extensible nature of our platforms enables our customers to rapidly respond to the ever changing and competitive nature of the telecommunications business.
Our ConvergenceNow® platform orchestrates the complex and different back-end systems of communication service providers to provide a best-in-class ordering and content management system by orchestrating the workflow and consolidated customer care services. This allows CSPs using ConvergenceNow® to realize the full benefits of their offerings and analyze customer buying behavior.
Our ConvergenceNow® Plus+TM platform offers all of the features of our core ConvergenceNow® platform and extends those features into more transaction areas required to enable subscriber management for connected devices including directly on the device itself. In addition, ConvergenceNow® Plus+TM is specifically designed to support connected devices, such as smartphones, mobile Internet devices (MIDS), laptops, tablets and wirelessly enabled consumer electronics such as cameras, tablets, e-readers, personal navigation devices, global positioning system (GPS) enabled devices, etc. Specifically, ConvergenceNow® Plus+TM supports, among other automated transaction areas, credit card billing, inventory management, and trouble ticketing.
Our ConvergenceNow® Plus+™ platform consists of three key solutions: Automated Channel Enablement, Cloud Enablement and Smart Mobility. A key element of the ConvergenceNow® Plus+™ platform is that it extends a carrier's and OEM's visibility and reach into all aspects of a subscriber's use of a connected device. It introduces the notion of Connect-Sync-Activate for all devices. Channel Enablement activates a device through a variety of different channels; once activated, Smart Mobility enables the device to be connected to the best available network by enforcing policies that are managed from the cloud by a carrier. Once connected, most mobile devices avail of content synchronization from the cloud using policies that are appropriate and applicable to each specific device.
Our InterconnectNowTM platform supports the physical transactions involved in customer activation and service such as managing access service requests, local service requests, local number portability, and directory listings.
In addition to handling large volumes of customer transactions quickly and efficiently, our platforms are designed to recognize, isolate and address transactions when there is insufficient information or other erroneous process elements. This knowledge enables us to adapt our solutions to automate a higher percentage of transactions over time, further improving the value of our solutions to our customers. Our platforms also offer a centralized reporting platform that provides intelligent, real-time analytics around the entire workflow related to any transaction. This reporting allows our customers to appropriately identify buying behaviors and trends, define their subscriber's segments and pin point areas where their business has increased or could be improved. These analytics enable our customers to upsell new and additional products and services in a targeted fashion that helps increase their consumption of our product offerings. The automation and ease of integration of our platforms were designed to enable our customers to lower the cost of new subscriber acquisitions, enhance the accuracy and reliability of customer transactions thus reducing the inbound service call volumes, and responding rapidly to competitive market conditions to create new revenue streams. Our platforms offer flexible, scalable, extensible and relevant solutions backed by service level agreements (SLAs) and exception handling.
Our platforms manage transactions relating to a wide range of existing communications and digital content services across the different segments of our customers. For example, we enable wireless providers to conduct business-to-consumer, or B2C, business-to-business, or B2B, enterprise and indirect channel (i.e.: resellers/dealers) transactions. The capabilities of our platforms are designed to provide our customers with the opportunity to improve operational performance and efficiencies, dynamically identify new revenue opportunities and rapidly deploy new services. They are also designed to provide customers the opportunity to improve performance and efficiencies for activation, content migration and connectivity management for connected devices.
Our platforms are designed to be:
Highly Automated: We designed our platforms to eliminate manual processes and to automate otherwise labor-intensive tasks, thus improving operating efficiencies and order accuracy and reducing costs. By tracking every order and identifying those that are not provisioned properly, our platforms were designed to substantially reduce the need for manual intervention and reduce unnecessary customer service center calls. The technology of our platforms automatically guides a customer's request for service through the entire series of required steps.
Predictable and Reliable: We are committed to providing high-quality, dependable services to our customers. To ensure reliability, system uptime and other service offerings, our transaction management is guaranteed through SLAs. Our platforms offer a complete customer management solution, including exception handling, which we believe is one of the main factors that differentiates us from our competitors. In performing exception handling, our platforms recognize and isolate transaction orders that are not configured to specifications, process them in a timely manner and communicate these orders back to our customers, thereby improving efficiency and reducing backlog. If manual intervention is required, our exception handling is outsourced to centers located in Canada and the United States and, where applicable, to other cost-effective geographies. Additionally, our database design preserves data integrity while ensuring fast, efficient, transaction-oriented data retrieval methods.
Seamless: Our platforms integrate information across our customers' entire operation, including subscriber information, order information, delivery status, installation scheduling and content stored on the device to allow for the seamless activation and content transfer during the device purchase flow. Through our solution, the device is automatically activated and consumer's content is available for use via the cloud, ensuring continuity of service and eliminating subscriber churn propensity. CSPs and e-Tailers/retailers can bundle additional applications during retail phone purchases, and also provide live updates to support new features and new devices. We have built our platforms using an open design with fully-documented software interfaces, commonly referred to as application programming interfaces,
or APIs. Our APIs enable our customers, strategic partners and other third parties to integrate our platforms with other software applications and to build best-in-class cloud-based applications incorporating third-party or customer-designed capabilities. Through our open design and alliance program, we believe we provide our customers with superior solutions that combine our technology with best-of-breed applications with the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of commercial, packaged interfaces.
Scalable: Our platforms are designed to process expanding transaction volumes reliably and cost effectively. While our transaction volume has increased rapidly since our inception, we anticipate substantial future growth in transaction volumes, and we believe our platforms are capable of scaling their output commensurately, requiring principally routine computer hardware and software updates. Our synchronization and activation platforms routinely support our customers' transactions at the highest level of demands when needed with our current production deployments. We saw the number of transactions for connected devices, such as smartphones, mobile Internet devices, netbooks, laptops and other connected consumer electronics, grow to become one of the fastest growing transaction types across all our platforms, products and services in 2011. Our Cloud Synchronization solution is deployed across millions of devices, managing in the cloud and performing more than 7 million synchronizations per day.
Value-add Reporting Tools: Our platforms' attributes are tightly integrated into the critical workflows of our customers and have analytical reporting capabilities that provide near real-time information for every step of the relevant transaction processes. In addition to improving end-user customer satisfaction, these capabilities are designed to provide our customers with value-added insights into historical and current transaction trends. We also offer mobile reporting capabilities for users to receive critical data about their transactions on connected devices.