Harman Connected Services, often abbreviated to HCS, is an American subsidiary of

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, a ...

through

Harman International Industries Harman International Industries, commonly known as Harman (stylized in all-uppercase as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Headquartered in Sta ...

. The Connected Services Division supplies software services to the mobile communications industry. HCS is a technologies company leader in Cloud, Mobile, Analytics Capabilities, Design, and Software Services. Harman has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

, Europe, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

. On January 22, 2015, Harman acquired Symphony Teleca from the

Symphony Technology Group Symphony Technology Group (STG) is an American private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California. Its Chairman and CEO is Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, who founded the firm in 2002. Investments The company has investments in the following companies: ...

. The deal was valued at US$780 million. Symphony Telca was subsequently integrated and rebranded as Harman Connected Services and, in March 2017, Harman became a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sam ...

of Samsung Electronics.

History

Early history

Teleca was founded in 1992 by a team of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

engineers, based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. Over the coming years, Teleca's telecom software was utilized by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

, Racal, Digital, GEC, Hewlett-Packard, Psion, and Siemens. The presence in the market led to a number of major

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

partnerships, which led them to expand their offering into the mobile phone market. These vendors included

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finlan ...

and

SonyEricsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

. In early 2000, it was acquired by

Sigma AB Sigma AB (or Sigma Group) is a group of companies carrying out consultancy operations within IT, information logistics, engineering services, technical R&D, industry and social structure. The company was founded in 1986 by Dan Olofsson, who is now ...

, a leading Swedish engineering services business, and became its UK subsidiary. Following the takeover, Teleca expanded their workforce from 2,500 across Europe into a number of countries including Łodz,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

and

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. Teleca then acquired Telma Soft in 2006, a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

n-based software company. Over the next two years, Teleca opened a number of different locations up in both

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and China.

announced in 2008 that they had acquired Teleca and delisted it from the

Stockholm stock exchange Nasdaq Stockholm, formerly known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange ( sv, Stockholmsbörsen), is a stock exchange located in Frihamnen, Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in 1863, it has become the primary securities exchange of the Nordic countries. ...

. Later that year, Telma Soft was then rebranded to become the Russian Teleca operation. In 2013, the company had 9000+ employees in 35 countries with the largest number of employees in India spread across many locations, including

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, Gurgaon and

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of ...

Symphony ownership

Symphony services was founded in 2002 with initial financial support from Romesh T. Wadhwani, Chairman, CEO and founder of Symphony Technology Group. In 2003, Symphony raised growth capital from TH Lee Putnam Ventures. In 2004, Symphony Services purchased Stonehouse Technologies for $6.7 million. Following the purchase of Teleca, it became Symphony Teleca and part of the Symphony Services division. The new services division focused on software product engineering outsourcing services and was headquartered in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was ...

, with major global operations centers in the U.S., India and China. The company was assessed as

CMMI Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process level improvement training and appraisal program. Administered by the CMMI Institute, a subsidiary of ISACA, it was developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). It is required by man ...

level 3. In 2010, Symphony acquired ''Proteans Software Solutions'', an Indian company engaged in providing software engineering services to the small and medium ISV space; followed by ''CoreObjects Software Inc'', a

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

-based company specializes in embedded product development for technology companies. In 2011, Symphony Services acquired ''JPC Software'', an

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

entity that offers IT solutions, consulting and support services based in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the Capital city, capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata ...

. In 2012, Symphony Services Corporation merged with Teleca, creating Symphony Teleca Corporation with a focus to help clients manage the global convergence of software, the cloud, and mobility. Symphony Teleca announced on 10 April 2014 that they would be acquiring Aditi Technologies for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Sanjay Dhawan took over as CEO and Pradeep Rathinam was appointed as Aditi's president. Aditi subsequently became an independent business unit of Symphony Teleca.

Harman Connected Services

In 2015, it was announced that

were interested in acquiring Symphony Teleca. Harman and

agreed on a deal worth US$780 million. Teleca was rebranded Harman Connected Services, with a focus on producing software for all Harman-related products. As well as Symphony Teleca, Harman also acquired

Red Bend Software Red Bend Software is a software company providing mobile software management technology to mobile phone manufacturers and operators. Its software has been deployed by handset manufacturers including Kyocera, LG Electronics, Motorola, Sharp, Sony ...

. The total price for the acquisition was $200 million, with $170 million in shares and $30 million in cash once certain milestones were reached. The Red Bend software remote revision by cellular operators of both software and physical components installed in cellular devices and its software is used on more than 2 billion mobile phones globally. TowerSec was another company acquired by HARMAN in 2016. The Israel-based

cyber security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, th ...

company focused on security for the automotive industry. Collectively, the acquired companies were merged to form Harman Connected Services. Its

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

was acquired in 2016 for US$8 billion by

Global locations

File:Teleca_Chengdu.jpg, Teleca

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese provin ...

File:Teleca Espoo.jpg, Teleca

Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...

(

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

) File:Teleca_Oulu.jpg, Teleca

Oulu Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after ...

(

)

Certifications

* ISO 9001:2008Case Study from WGSigma
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References

External links

Symphony SMS - Telecom Expense Management - TEMS.

EFYTimes.com, May 27, 2010 - Inauguration of Teleca India's new premises

February 15, 2010 - Teleca's collaboration with Imagination Technologies to bring optimized technology for Adobe Flash and Flash Lite

February 10, 2010 - Teleca's partner SVOX and what they exhibited in Teleca's stand at Mobile World Congress

* ttp://www.ddj.com/linux-open-source/222002070 Dr. Dobb's, December 19, 2009 - Article by Teleca's Andrew Till about avoiding open source pitfalls
February 13, 2009 - Article about Teleca's partnership with TAT in Swedish daily

SOA World Magazine, February 10, 2009 - Article about Teleca's work to enable Android for CDMA phone market
{{Authority control Outsourcing companies Software companies based in California Harman International Software companies of the United States 2001 establishments in California