Doug on IP Comm » enterprise VoIP

eZuce launches enterprise open source solution based up SIPfoundry work

Doug Mohney — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:25:42 +0000

Newly launched eZuce (www.ezuce.com) comes with some familiar names in the IP PBX world. Hoping onto the UC bandwagon – ok, so everyone is these days – eZuce openUC is bragging about seven years of development through SIPfoundry efforts.

Founder Steinmann started up SIPfoundry and the sipXecs project in 2004, along with morphing Pingtel from a handset manufacturer into an open source IP PBX software company . He was rolled into Nortel in 2008 with the acquisition of Pingtel from its parking spot at BlueSocket to support its implementation of sipXecs as the Software Communications System (SCS), but you know what happened to Nortel, right? Also onboard is SIPfoundry/sipXecs-er Doug Huber, who is listed as “Lead Architect.”

eZuce openUC is being touted as an enterprise-grade open alternative to Microsoft, and being targeted at firms with anywhere from 200 to 10,000 users. There’s also some positioning to put it as “where Asterisk left off” – uh, guys, do you really want to go there again? – by offering a fully standards-based solution for replacing existing legacy IP PBX systems both as premise-based CPE and through hosted deployments.

Yes, I’m skeptical. If one remembers the snake-bit history of Pingtel – parked at BlueSocket because the cash ran out, then bought by Nortel before it went bankrupt – you might be skeptical as well.

AudioCodes adds more Enterprise SBCs

Doug Mohney — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:34:03 +0000

AudioCodes (www.audiocodes.com) has rolled out Enterprise Session Border Controller (SBC) capabilities for its Mediant platforms.

The company says the new capabilities target a growing market for a range of IP-enabled services at the enterprise, including SIP trunking, Hosted IP-PBX, remote extension, and contact center and conferencing services.

AudioCodes says the solution addresses the needs of users seeking a combination of media gateway with SBC, as well as users who want stand-alone SBCS.

Avaya, Aastra jump into the Nortel bankruptcy circus

Doug Mohney — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:51:29 +0000

Avaya and Aastra have made separate moves to get into the Nortel bankruptcy circus. Avaya is offering cash for assets, while Aastra will offer migration incentives (i.e. a sale) to get customers to switch.

In a press release today, Avaya announced it has signed agreements to pick up Nortel’s enterprise solution business for $475 million. The acquisition includes Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions voice, data and government systems businesses, but the transaction awaits clearing a competitive bidding process and approval by bankruptcy courts in Delaware and Ontario.

Avaya gets to scale a bit, expand its channel partner network, and add to its portfolio of products and services. Nortel gets cash to pay off its creditors and some of its employees will land as Avaya employees. Bell Canada and BT praised the move and BT went so far as to say it would “expand” its engagement with Avaya over the next year to offer a full unified communications portfolio.

Aastra’s move is less concrete, more ambulance-chasing. For “a limited time” Aastra says it will offer “extraordinary incentives” to get Nortel large enterprise customers to move to its Clearspan UC solution. Discounts include free unlimited numbers of SIP integration trunks, “significant” discounts on Aastra 67ix SIP phones, free instructor-lead training for admins during the first year of deployment (up to 2 students per class) and free end user, web-based training for an unlimited number of users during the first two years of deployment.

Aastra says that a 3,000 user enterprise deploying 300 SIP integration trunks and 1500 new SIP phones to users can save $500,000.

Billy Mays, you passed too soon, my friend. You could have made some serious coin off someone looking to rob Nortel of its customer base…

HD Communications Summit: Pulver announces HD marketing association, FCC petition, fall event

Doug Mohney — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:59:47 +0000

New York City – VoIP’s purple pundit wasted no time at the HD Communications Summit in declaring his intentions. Jeff Pulver, founder of the original VON franchise in 1997, announced the creation of the “HD Connect” HD voice marketing association and a plan to put a petition before the FCC to convert the country’s phone system to HD. He also plans to hold a two day follow-up event in September with a wider discussion agenda.

Part of Pulver’s proclaimed mission is to make the rounds of the investment community and “raise the value” of telecommunications firms by explaining the value of HD voice technology to Wall Street analysts and venture capitalists. His core message will differ from his travels in the late ‘90s, when Pulver and colleague Daniel Berringer predicted that the power of VoIP would hammer the cost of long-distance phone calls and that landlines would be subsumed by cellular.

Speakers at the event seemed to agree that a universal and recognizable HD voice logo would be a good thing even as they presented reports on the state of HD technology, deployment and the challenges ahead to make HD voice a ubiquitous service across broadband and wireless networks and consumer and enterprise markets.

Pulver was short on details for his plans to submit a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move the United States to an HD voice infrastructure, but attendees seems to latch onto the fact that the basic technology defining a “phone call” hadn’t fundamentally changed since the 1930s, with FM radio providing better sound fidelity. Broadcast television’s migration from analog to digital provides both a precedent and a template of sorts for government intervention.

An expanded HD Communications event is planned for September 15 and 16, with additional time available to accommodate more topics of interest.