REDWOOD CITY, Calif.- Bill Nguyen, the entrepreneur who sold Onebox.com (now Openwave Systems Inc.) to Phone.com for $850 million, is back at the head of wireless e-mail company Seven, just in time to see the company score European wireless giant Orange plc as a customer.
Nguyen’s return to the helm of Seven, which he founded three years ago, caps the end of the company’s restructuring effort. Seven in September said it would cut 30 percent of its work force in a move to better manage cash flow and focus on current customers. Part of the restructuring included Mark Biestman’s removal as CEO. He was a former Commerce One executive who was hired a year ago to manage the company’s day-to-day operations.
Nguyen is founder and president and Cam Mhyrbold will be acting chief executive officer and chairman. Now, with the restructuring complete, Nguyen said Seven is back in a growth stage and is looking for new customers. The company now employs about 85 people.
“We just went from left to right to find what the sweet spot was,” Nguyen said of the restructuring.
In conjunction with the 3GSM World Congress, Orange said it will use Seven’s network-based corporate information product to offer wireless e-mail services in the United Kingdom. Seven’s service, dubbed Office Freedom by Orange, gives mobile workers wireless access to Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino e-mail, calendar, personal contacts, corporate directories and tasks.
Seven also counts Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Sprint PCS and MmO2 as customers, as well as additional unnamed carriers in Asia. The company, which is positioning its service as an alternative to Research In Motion Ltd.’s e-mail service and BlackBerry device, said it will soon reveal carrier sales statistics to illustrate the benefits of its product.
