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Tampa's Syniverse expands

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By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: August 26, 2009

TAMPA - Tampa quickly is extending its reign as king of the global text message business.

Tampa's Syniverse Technologies handles almost all text messages that pingpong between cellular carriers around the world, billions of messages each day. Now Syniverse is taking over more of that market.

Syniverse on Tuesday announced a deal to pay $175 million for the messaging business of VeriSign Inc., which techies may recognize as a Mountain View, Calif.-based handler of online payments.
VeriSign had been exiting much of the telecom market, and Syniverse had been scouring that company's operations for things it could acquire, said Tony Holcombe, president and chief executive of Syniverse.

Syniverse will take over VeriSign operations that deliver person-to-person short message service and multimedia messages such as photos, social networking updates and corporate message updates.

Syniverse employs about 1,200 people globally, including about 650 in Tampa. With this deal, Syniverse will take on 300 VeriSign employees located mostly in the United States, with about 100 in India, where Syniverse has a sizeable operation.

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