Openet exec gets red-pilled, joins Matrixx

Marc Price, CTO for the Americas at BSS vendor Openet, has decided to find out how deep the rabbit-hole goes by defecting to competitor Matrixx Software.

He will get to travel a bit more in his new role at Global CTO for Matrixx and he had been at Openet for 15 years, so it was probably time for a change. The move will also allow  Matrixx Founder Dave Labuda to step away from the techie side of things and focus his attention entirely on some serious chief execing.

“Marc is a tremendous addition to Matrixx’s executive leadership team,” said Labuda. “His experience will be invaluable as we continue to scale the company. Marc’s vision and vast experience in the telecommunications market is renowned. He has played a leading role across three key eras in the telco market: the rise of competitive carriers; the establishment of the real time charging model; and the current process of digital transformation and subsequent move to hybrid clouds and IoT.”

“Matrixx is poised to lead the digital commerce revolution being ushered in with the advancement of cloud technology and the advent of 5G,” said Price. “I’m excited to join the team at such an important time to help accelerate Matrixx’s global growth. I am looking forward to working with the Matrixx team to help scale the company, driving Matrixx’s innovation to further accelerate our customers’ digital transformations.”

Openet and Matrixx aren’t just competing BSS vendors, they’re both trying to disrupt the market by presenting a more flexible, cloud-based approach to customer engagement for operators. They’re also both fond of buzzwords such as ‘digital transformation’ and like to paint larger BSS competitors as slow and anachronistic. So culturally this should be a straightforward move for Price but, at least until they find his replacement, may mean a fair bit more work for Openet Founder and CTO Joe Hogan.