 The company 's origins date to 1982 ( or 1983 , sources differ ) , when three Israelis , aspiring investment banker Jacob " Kobi " Alexander of Shearson Loeb Rhoades , engineer Boaz Misholi , and Alexander brother @-@ in @-@ law and Columbia University computer science professor Yechiam Yemini , got together and founded an Israeli start @-@ up company , Efrat Future Technologies Ltd . In a meeting in New York , Misholi had the idea of building a business around centralized hardware systems to support voice and fax messaging and selling them to telecommunications companies and other large enterprises , who could then resell the voice and fax services to their customers . The three quickly returned to Israel and started the company , with the goal of securing Israeli government grants to fund the research and development work . 
