|
News Round-Up From Astricon Dallas |
|
|
|
Written by Adam Gosling
|
|
Tuesday, 07 November 2006 |
If, like me, you weren't able to attend this year's Astricon
2006 in Dallas,
the organisers say the Asterisk Conference and Exhibition was a success and
they are already taking bookings for the 2007 event.
Since, VoIP News coiuldn't be there the organisers have kindly
provided a quick outline of the major announcements at the show. You will find
them listed (unedited) at the bottom here.
And if you really feel left out you can find a link that
will take you to a place you can download all the presentations.
Apart from the Digium Party, it sounds as though the show highlight
was a keynote by Asterisk creator and Digium president and CEO, Mark Spencer
wearing a T-Shirt, that read, "I'm trying to change the world, but they
won't give me the source code".
The organisers explain that Asterisk continues to attract
attention in the SMB market, but has also penetrated the enterprise, service
provider and carrier markets.
That in large part to a bevy of new high availability
offerings recently launched. High availability was a recurring theme among
vendors and speakers.
Vendors such as Ranch Networks and RedFone (see summary of
vendor announcements below) showcased high availability solutions.
More experienced and savvy resellers are fuelling Asterisk's
growth in the SMB market.
SIPBox, a reseller who left the hallowed ground as a Cisco
reseller is finding more (and larger) customers with substantially higher
margins. They have already doubled in size and were at the show to recruit more
talent.
According to Bill Miller, VP of Marketing at Digium,
"The reseller channels get to make higher margins and a better chance to
win deals. Here's why over the next 18 to 24 months the market share for
Asterisk-based solutions is going to skyrocket.
"We are now at the point where the products are stable and
applications are driving the solution. Contact centers are just one of many
driving the solution in higher end system. Newer technology and newer
solutions, competing against the top tier, Asterisk and Digium are now ready to
do that."
You will find the presentations From AstriCon 2006 here (the organisers apologise for
not making this look pretty yet).
Attractel
Attractel, developer of state-of-the-art VoIP solutions,
exhibited a suite of Attractel family products at AstriCon. Zoiper is their
SIP/IAX support softphone that is packed with a variety of conventional and
advanced features for Windows/Linux/Mac OS systems.Comes in Free and Biz
version. Their Predilux has more to offer than just a predictive dialer with
different modes to best fit Call Centre needs, the Service Line Platform offers
service line providers a versatile tool to easily manage their core business
and their Rate Engine is a real-time application for ITSPs to flexibly
delineate and maintain their rate and markdown plans.
AudioCodes
AudioCodes successfully completed certification testing with
Digium's Asterisk Business Edition Software for AudioCodes' media gateway
platforms. Some AudioCodes SIP Gateway products that completed certification testing
are the TP260/SIP, Mediant(TM) 1000 and the MediaPack(TM) to ensure
interoperability and compatibility when integrated with Digium's Asterisk
Business Edition software. AudioCodes and Digium's collaboration will offer
better design options for telephony developers and enable rapid deployment of
high quality and scalable SIP-based solutions.
Digium
Digium partnered with Polycom and AudioCodes for added
conveniences and benefits such as rapid feature development for SIP-based
telephony solutions with Polycom and rapid deployment of high quality and
scalable SIP-based solutions with AudioCodes. See Polycom and AudioCodes
summaries for more information.
LumenVox
LumenVox provides speech recognition for Fonality's trixbox
Application Platform, through integration into the platform. The Lumenvox
Speech Engine, which recognizes words and phrases, will be part of trixbox 2.0.
The partnership brings point-and-click installation and management of the
LumenVox speech recognition to the trixbox community.
Mexuar
Mexuar launched its Corraleta Technology SDK for seamless
VoIP Click-to-talk applications. This new solution will enable rapid
development and deployment of VoIP click-to-talk apps for online businesses so
that any website visitor can use the company's web browser and PC to make free
calls and talk with sales or support in the company's contact center within ten
seconds. The Corraleta-developed application can be used to initiate calls to
the contact center via a button on a web page, or can trigger a callback from
the contact center to the user's chosen telephone. In addition to enabling IP
calls, the Corraleta SDK can also provide information about the user's online
experience to the merchant's customer service agent when the call is initiated.
The agent software can display this information directly or use it to trigger
lookups in company databases to retrieve details such as customer records,
purchase histories and so on.
MIX Networks
MIX Networks, a service provider, offering a full suite of
high-value next-generation VoIP solutions to residential, business and reseller
customers has recent implemented DUNDi (a peer to peer system for locating
Internet gateways to telephony services created by Digium) to ease of network
administration, add stability and flexibility to its already strong network
foundation. In keeping with the goal of delivering quality VoIP services to end
users, MIX Networks builds a strong, redundant end-to-end MPLS VoIP network.
NetLogic
NetLogic announced "PBX-Preferred" Certification
program that is based on the rigorous testing of application IPBX software and
systems which includes bench testing to ensure proper SIP trunk connectivity
and quality, beta testing in the field with actual business users over NetLogic
SIP trunks and implementing in a "general availability" environment with
NetLogic SIP trunks.
PBXtra(TM) Standard and PBXtra Call
Center from Fonality;
Switchvox SOHO and Switchvox SMB; and Digium's Asterisk Appliance have earned
PBX-Preferred Certifications. IPBX software earning the NetLogic PBX-Preferred
Certification include: Digium's Asterisk Business Edition; Asterisk; and Free
PBX.
NETXUSA
NETXUSA Inc. has established a West Coast Distribution
center in Henderson Nevada. The new location will provide a
larger window of time to have products shipped while realizing increased
savings on freight charges. As in the South
Carolina corporate office a full compliment of VoIP
products will be available for immediate shipment.
Polycom
Polycom and Digium partner to offer integrated SIP-based
telephony solution for SMB market. This multiyear partnership will cover
development and marketing of the SIP-based telephony solution and will provide
SMBs with a tightly integrated, standards-based solution with simplified provisioning,
broad support for Asterisk telephony features on the Polycom phones and the
delivery of new capabilities. Polycom's SIP desktop and conference phones will
be combined with Digium's Asterisk Business Edition, at a lower price point
than proprietary systems and with added control, rapid feature development and
more. With this agreement, Polycom becomes Digium's preferred VoIP phone
provider.
Ranch Networks
Ranch Networks provides optimal VoIP solution to Intermedi@
Marketing Solutions for 1,000 seat call center, across five facilities.
Intermedi@ Marketing Solutions will now gain access to Ranch Network's unique
features such as VoIP Matrix Technology(TM), 1+1 High Availability and Media
Bridging through RN 40 appliances to ensure call quality and reliability. This
unified VoIP PBX and predictive dialer based on the Asterisk and VICIDAL open
source projects will also provide a more secure network across Asterisk server
farms.
RedFone
RedFone announced their next generation foneBRIDGE (T1 or E1
PRI-to-Ethernet bridge) that provides Asterisk with high availability,
fail-over capabilities and load balancing. Normally offered through partner
dealers, the foneBRIDGE is an integrated black-box "appliance" designed to
streamline installation and enable redundant design of Asterisk based VoIP
systems.
SIPBox
SIPBox appoints Roger Gusloff as new chief financial
officer. Roger brings over 18 years of experience in financial leadership as a
CFO, consultant, and a senior accountant. Most recently, he was CFO of Acme
Refining Company, where he was responsible for the complete management of the
company's financial position. During his tenure, Roger oversaw multiple strategic
acquisitions and managed assets exceeding $40 million. Roger began his career
at KPMG Peat Marwick, where he spent several years as a supervising senior
accountant before starting his own consulting firm, Gusloff & Associates.
Roger was responsible for all facets of the business' operations including the
financial management as well as sales development, and employee and contract
management.
Star2Star
Star2Star gives TAPI dialer back to open source community.
This TAPI (telephony application programming interface) is used for connecting
telephone services to a computer running Windows and can integrate with any
Windows-based product such as ACT and Outlook. Star2Star's TAPI Dialer software
allows users to "click to call" via the Internet and will work with
general Asterisk installations.
T2 Supply
T2 Supply unveils new line of video conferencing products,
the HDX 9000 series. New products include the HDX 9001(TM), HDX 9002(TM) and
HDX 9004(TM). The HDX 9001(TM), HDX 9002(TM) both have four professional high
definition video inputs and three video outputs with standard definition video
at 30 fps; the 9002 has an added feature of 1280x720 (720p) resolution - the
highest quality video resolution available in the market today. The HDX
9004(TM) has five professional high definition video inputs, four video
outputs, standard definition video at 30 fps and 1280x720 (720p) resolution.
Both the 9002 and 9003 can be used with the Polycom Eagle-Eye camera for the
UltimateHD experience.
Trixbox
Fonality introduced trixbox 2.0, the newest version of its
easy to use open source telephony and application platform. This new version
provides the trixbox community with increased reliability and many new features
including a point-and-click, web-based graphical user interface (GUI) and
expanded LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/PERL) stack to LAAMPS by providing
Asterisk telephony and SugarCRM. Additionally, trixbox 2.0 includes FreePBX,
FOP, HUDlite and web-based package manager which allow users to upgrade
individual components of their deployment versus having to reinstall from
scratch with each upgrade.
VoxBone
VoxBone announced support for the Inter-Asterisk exchange
protocol (IAX) from Digium. In addition to IAX, VoxBone already supports SIP
trunking services, providing customers with a choice of standards to meet their
particular needs.
Xorcom
For the first time, Xorcom presented their full suite of
all-FXO Astribanks. Xorcom, creator of Asterisk-aligned hardware, demonstrated
two Astribank-32 FXS connected to a TS-1 unit and also presented the 16 port
and 8 port versions with analog phones. Since all Astribank units are USB
connected to the Asterisk server, implementation is very easy. There is no need
to shut down the machine, open panels or run into Ethernet issues. The
Astribank units are controlled by the Asterisk server and do not have their own
identity like gateways do, which simplifies the maintenance significantly. The
integrator deals with configuring only one unit - the Asterisk Server. The TS-1
is an embedded Asterisk server and has a web interface, one half-size PCI slot
and 2 x USB 2.0 connections. Special features include USB, disk, complete
backup and restore, updates from the internet and more.
www.astricon.net
Related news items Newer news items
Older news items
|
|
|
|
