Harman Connected Services, often abbreviated to HCS, is an American software company which is a subsidiary of

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

through

Harman International Industries Harman International Industries, Inc., commonly known as Harman, is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been operating as an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut ...

. The Connected Services Division supplies software services to the mobile communications industry. Harman has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across

the Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.'' Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sin ...

, Europe, and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

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

Symphony Technology Group STG Partners, LLC (STG) is an American private equity firm and based in Menlo Park, California. Its predecessor, Symphony Technology Group ("Symphony") was founded in 2002Dorbian, Iris (July 1, 2024) STG Rising: Hailing the Newcomer on the 100. ...

. 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 completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

of Samsung Electronics.

History

Early history

Teleca was founded in 1992 by a team of

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

engineers, based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

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

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

, Racal, Digital, GEC,

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

, Psion, and

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

. The presence in the market led to a number of major

mobile device A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

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

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

and SonyEricsson. In early 2000, it was acquired by Sigma AB, 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

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

, Poland and

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

, South Korea. Teleca then acquired Telma Soft in 2006, a Russian-based software company. Over the next two years, Teleca opened a number of different locations up in both India 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 (), is a stock exchange located in Frihamnen, Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in 1863, it has become the primary securities exchange of the Nordic countries. As of March 2021, a total ...

. 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 Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

Gurgaon Gurgaon (), officially named Gurugram (), is a satellite city of Delhi and administrative headquarters of Gurgaon district, located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest ...

and

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

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. In 2010, Symphony Services 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, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

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

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

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

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. 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. Following the purchase of Teleca, Symphony 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 language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, 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 many U ...

level 3. On 10 April 2014, Symphony Teleca announced 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. 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 (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

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 Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

was acquired in 2016 for US$8 billion by

Global locations

File:Teleca_Chengdu.jpg, Teleca

Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...

File:Teleca Espoo.jpg, Teleca

Espoo Espoo (, ; ) is a city in Finland. It is located to the west of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. The population is approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. Espoo is part of the Helsi ...

(

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

) File:Teleca_Oulu.jpg, Teleca

Oulu Oulu ( , ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of North Ostrobothnia. It is located on the northwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Oulujoki, River Oulu. The population of Oulu is approximately , while the Oulu sub-regio ...

(

)

Certifications

* ISO 9001:2008

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