 The early 2000s recession led to some struggles for Comverse Technology, with the global economic downturn leading to publicly announced profit warnings and a plunge in the stock price in July 2001. Over 3,000 jobs were cut during the period as part of several restructuring efforts. The company still made some acquisitions, such as buying the instant messaging specialist Odigo for $ 20 million in 2002, after having previously purchased a 12 percent stake in it in 2001. The image of Comverse Technology as Israel's blue-chip hi-tech stock suffered, and led to a slide in several other large Israeli technology firms. Comverse's management was criticized by analysts for having issued over-optimistic forecasts, although many other Israeli firms in the industry did even worse or failed completely during this period. In addition, the European market for mobile voicemail management was already saturated by 2002 and the prepaid wireless market was in decline. In 2002, Comverse Infosys changed its name to Verint, partly to separate its more thriving business from Comverse's struggles, and staged a modestly successful IPO of a minority portion of its stock. By 2002, Comverse Technology had more than 5,000 employees across nearly 40 countries; due to the partial spinoffs and economic difficulties, revenues were down to $ 735 million.
