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Number of results 15 for Server

15/09/2010 - Microsoft Lync: A New Name for a New Generation of UC Solutions

Microsoft announced the release candidate of Microsoft Lync, the next generation of Microsoft’s unified communications software. Lync is the new family brand for the products formerly known as Communications Server, Communications Online and Communicator, and it also now includes Lync Web App, and Lync Online.

13/09/2010 - Microsoft Communications Server "14" emerges as Lync

Well, let's throw out this morning's rumor mill because we now have some real news! Microsoft has announced the release candidate of Microsoft Lync, the next gen version of the software company's unified communications software MS Communications Server "14".

Lync will be the brand name for the family of products previously under the title Communications Server, Communications Online and Communicator. The offering also adds Lync Web App, and Lync Online. Microsoft Lync is being billed as providing face-to-face communication service for every engagement with video and audio conferencing, application and desktop sharing, instant messaging, and telephony. The system has also been designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft Office, SharePoint, and Exchange.

"Over the past five years we have been on a journey to transform communications with the power of software," said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Unified Communications at Microsoft in a release. "Lync delivers on this vision by unifying enterprise voice, instant messaging and web-, audio- and videoconferencing into a new, connected communications experience."

Over 100 customers and nearly two dozen partners have enrolled in the early adoption program of Lync and more than 20,000 seats will be active before the final product launches by the end of this year. Lync should be generally available before the end of 2010.

For more:
- read the release

16/08/2010 - Sonus Enables Cable Customers to Make and Receive Calls on Their Smartphone Using Their Home Phone Number

Sonus Networks has introduced a new solution for cable operators to add value to their existing home line services. Dubbed "Fixed – Smartphone Convergence," cable operators can use new capabilities in the company’s ASX Telephony Application Server to allow cable subscribers with home phone service to combine their existing phone line with up to five additional SIP-enabled devices including 3G/Wi-Fi enabled smartphones.

21/09/2009 - Nortel Carrier VoIP still strong despite the company's Chaper 11 status

Nortel's Carrier VoIP and Application Server (CVAS) division is "still very much alive and kicking" despite the parent company's ongoing bankruptcy procedure, according to Sita Lowman, leader of marketing for the group.

"Our part of the organization is still number 1 in the world, even while under Chapter 11," Lowman said. "We haven't stopped anything under R&D, and we're ready for the divestiture to be behind us, so that we can provide the confidence to the customer," Lowman said. She added that Nortel CVAS would be launching new products at Supercomm in October, as the unit prepares to be auctioned like Nortel's wireless technology and Enterprise Solutions divisions.

How much will Nortel get for the CVAS group?

17/09/2009 - Cavalier upgrading network with MetaSwitch gear

MetaSwitch has begun another significant carrier customer rollout, as it is assisting operator Cavalier as it upgrades its network with media gateways and application server deployments, according to the companies. Cavalier is offering hosted VoIP and other IP communications technology to the SMB market in its Mid-Atlantic market, including areas in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C., according to Senior Vice President of Marketing Lou Sommi.

Sommi said in an interview that the MetaSwitch gear allows for flexibility in deployments and is helping Cavalier sell more hosted offerings, which Sommi said are lucrative for the company and allow Cavalier's sales staff to sell to smaller clients. Sommi said the unified communications features made possible by the MetaSwitch platform have been very popular with SMBs, as they can now support mobile workers and enable advanced emergency continuity procedures, functions not possible with legacy TDM gear.

For more:
- see the press release here

27/08/2009 - Carrier VoIP revs down 32% in Q2

A new Infonetics research report on second-quarter carrier VoIP spending shows some signs of life for the industry, which has been battered due to reduced carrier capex amid the recession. Global carrier VoIP equipment revenues totaled $598 million in Q2, and while the market segment revenues were off 32 percent year-over-year, they did show slight improvement of 0.8 percent from Q1.

Diane Myers, author of the report and directing analyst for carrier VoIP for Infonetics, said voice application servers, media gateways and Class 5 softswitches were the strongest equipment categories for the quarter, while EMEA and North America showed the best regional sales performance.

The report said AudioCodes, Cisco, MetaSwitch, Sonus, Alca-Lu, Italtel, Broadsoft, and Nortel (hard to believe, but true) stood out with strong revenue increases for the quarter.

For more:
- see the report press release here

26/08/2009 - JAJAH Brings SIP Trunking Services to the Enterprise

JAJAH, the IP communications company, is working with Microsoft to provide SIP Trunking services to Microsoft enterprise customers globally. According to the firm this will allow companies to make high quality voice calls over JAJAH's IP Platform in the cloud, without requiring an infrastructure upgrade.

29/06/2009 - BroadSoft-Sylantro: 6 months later

BroadSoft's December 2008 acquisition of fellow VoIP application server company Sylantro gave BroadSoft an even more commanding lead in market share in the space. But integrating another unique company into the buyer's corporate culture can be quite a challenge, so, six months after the formal announcement, here's a look at how the integration has progressed.

In the first quarter, BroadSoft's executive team spent a lot of time on the road talking with Sylantro and BroadSoft customers alike about the implications of the buy, according to Leslie Ferry, vice president of marketing for BroadSoft. But Ferry said the integration of the back office systems and personnel is now complete, and BroadSoft's customers have benefited from the product set and engineering muscle BroadSoft picked up from Sylantro.

"The integration of talent has gone incredibly smoothly, and we knew from due diligence and competing with them that they had a good product and smart, talented people working on it," Ferry said. "It's always a challenge when you integrate two companies, but we've been more than pleased with the results."

Ferry said the integration went smoothly because Sylantro had a similar culture of innovation and research. She also noted that "getting out the message" to Sylantro customers about the level of support they would receive from BroadSoft was the major challenge in the integration.

Ferry said portions of Sylantro's Synergy platform are being integrated into the BroadWorks offering, and portions of Sylantro's web-based client SynApps are also being evaluated for eventual inclusion in BroadSoft's products.

25/06/2009 - Toshiba announces bundled UC product

Toshiba America Information Systems, a wholly-owned Toshiba subsidiary, announced the availability of a bundled unified communications product that ships in a single software load and runs on one server. Toshiba's Unified Communications Suite bundles the usual UC suspects such as presence, IM, click-to-call in applications, find-me follow-me dialing and FMC utility, and the applications all run over Toshiba's Media Application Server.

Toshiba Information Systems said the UC bundle will deliver cost savings and productivity gains to enterprises, while the single software load will keep installation simple. The product is immediately available through Toshiba resellers nationwide.

A recent report on unified communications deployments and market share by Synergy Research Group said Toshiba was struggling in addressing significant industry issues and maintaining market share in this area. Perhaps the new bundled offering can help the company increase traction in this segment.

For more:
- see the press release here
- see the Synergy report here

09/06/2009 - VoIP Equipment Sales Plummet, IMS Revenues Grow

VoIP equipment purchases are decreasing at the expense of spending on the deployment of IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) technology, according to Infonetics Research.
Worldwide sales of IMS equipment, including HSS (home subscriber servers), CSCF servers, and voice application servers, are forecast to jump 74 per cent in 2009 over 2008.

28/04/2009 - Unison offers free UC solutions to 10 NY SMBs

Unison Technologies, a New York.-based unified communications software company, announced a unique marketing ploy Tuesday to attract business in the New York metro area. The company launched its Unison Business Technology Advancement Program, which will give its unified communications software package and a server setup for free to 10 SMBs in the area.

Interested companies can apply at http://ubtap.unison.com until May 22 at 10 p.m. EST.

Unison Chief Marketing Officer Rurik Bradbury said the program will target business that may not have the technical know how or budget to implement a larger, more expensive UC system.

"We will install and manage deployments of the Unison solution for free for one year," Bradbury said. "We'd like to get some reference customers in the U.S. who we work closely with to figure out the best processes for deploying Unison in the small business."

Bradbury said each package Unison will provide for free normally could cost several thousand dollars. The package comes with server software, desktop clients for each seat, networking hardware, a new desktop phone for each seat, and support services, according to the company.

Unison Server is the company's unified communications server software, which includes fully-integrated email, instant message and presence, an IP-PBX, calendar server and LDAP directory with contacts.

For more:
- see the Unison page for the program here

23/04/2009 - Upon further review, Nortel softswitch wins not so impressive

Last week Nortel announced it had sold its CS 1500 softswitch - the replacement to its legacy DMS platform -- to more than 135 customers globally. A deeper look at press release numbers between the initial product launch and last week's announcement, however, indicates initial momentum from the product's introduction has died out over the past year.

A May 27, 2008, release by Innovative Systems - supplier of the APMAX application server OEMed to Nortel's CS 1500 - celebrates the 100^th sale of the CS 1500 and notes the product was announced in March 2007.

By Nov. 20, 2008, Nortel had managed to sell the CS 1500 to "more than" 120 regional service providers throughout North America, so that equates to 20 sales over a six-month span and an average of around three sales per month.

Last week's announcement cites "more than" 135 service providers globally - so Nortel has expanded their pool beyond North America, so 135-120 units = 15 net, which leads to 15 units/5 months to deliver precisely three sales per month.

What does it all mean? "Nortel had some initial momentum, some service providers waiting for replacing DMS-10, the initial sales came from pent up demand," said Andy Randall, VP of marketing for MetaSwitch. "As people have looked at product capability more closely and looked at financial capability, there's been a very strong demand on [our] side, and a slowing down on Nortel and others....I think in general market terms, what we're seeing is quite a lot of nervousness about vendor stability, not just in switching, but in every area."

In comparison, MetaSwitch has sold more than 300 softswitches in the past year, and about 30 in the last five months. Randle believes presenting a single platform for legacy switch replacement and applications is winning over many carriers.

For more:
- Innovate Systems marks 100 CS 1500 softswitch sale in 2008. Post.
- Nortel posts 120 wins in November 2008. Release.
- Nortel soldiers on with carrier VoIP

Related articles
The death and life of Nortel - FierceTelecom

02/01/2009 - BroadSoft CEO: "Bullish" on 2009

This week FierceVoIP talked to BroadSoft CEO Michael Tessler about the Sylantro acquisition, managing three distinct product lines, competitors in the VoIP applications space, and what prospects for 2009 look like.

"We have a strong position in the [VoIP applications server] market," said Tessler. "That position got stronger with the Sylantro customer base... It's a good synergistic fit, not only by adding the customer base, but having the ability for us to work with the customers we've acquired."

Since many of the customers are Tier 1 service providers, they are "pretty demanding," and BroadSoft has to make sure they can support both the existing in-place platforms and the customer. "We've moved over the technology functions, the people who were doing [support] at Sylantro," Tessler said. "We have all the capability Sylantro has, we have those employees. [Sylantro] customers shouldn't be worried, the support lines are there, all the crew is there."

With the acquisition of Sylantro, BroadSoft has three distinct product lines to support: its own, the GENBAND M6 applications server, and Sylantro's. While BroadSoft would like to get everyone onto one platform at some point, "that road is probably long," Tessler stated. "One problem you have in terms of acquiring a like competitor, you can't do a deep dive on integration until you close. Right now, we're matching platform to platform, what is on the roadmaps, what is needed. We've already done outreach to [Sylantro] customers, understanding their needs."

Right now, BroadSoft has to work with Sylantro customers in a "collaborative fashion" to put together a roadmap for additional features, and, ultimately, to move to a consolidated platform. "Clearly as a business, we'd like to converge those platforms, but that is a little early right now," Tessler said.

"One of the good things [we] learned through process of acquiring the GENBAND server, is [working] through [the acquisition] process... working with customers, locking down the roadmap, integrating the teams," said Tessler. "We were able to reuse the learnings in the Sylantro acquisition. We're in day one or two of that now, we're just starting process of collaborating with customers, understand what they were doing, and working with them on the future."

While BroadSoft has bought its most prominent competitor, it doesn't have a free ride ahead. "I wish I could say there's no competition, but there is," said Tessler. "It depends upon the market segment, geography. The Comverse guys are still around with Netcentrix. In the U.S. market, it's MetaSwitch with MetaSphere. On the consumer side we see the softswitch IMS core vendors, all the big switch manufacturers have their feature server platforms. There's a fair amount of competition. You see regional players in Asia, in Europe."

As an independent and pure-play applications server company, Tessler says BroadSoft is in a "pretty strong" position, with manufacturers sometimes competing with them and sometime acting as a channel to resell BroadSoft. "The key message is we've been able to build a very strong brand and use that to consolidate the space," he said. "We're looking forward to integrating the Sylantro team. We'll work with work with customers on their plans."

Looking to the future, Tessler is optimistic for the new year. "We're pretty excited and pretty bullish about 2009," he said. "What we've seen are carriers well underway in TDM projects and they are not going to stop. There's enough economics to make those transitions, and we don't see that changing.

"Will some spending slow down? Clearly, but that doesn't mean that [next generation network purchases] are going to stop. Every carrier is well under way [to NGN]. BroadSoft is active in 60-plus markets and there's a lot of transformation going on. We don't see that going down."

18/12/2008 - BroadSoft acquiring Sylantro - The impact

In a major consolidation of the VoIP application server space, BroadSoft Inc. is expected to publicly announce its acquisition of Sylantro Systems before Christmas -- if not sooner. Multiple sources with insight into BroadSoft and Sylantro say it's a done deal, with former Sylantro employees conducting a privately-held wake on a LinkedIn discussion.

At BroadSoft, the acquisition is being viewed as a major boon with great respect being given to Sylantro's past accomplishments in the marketplace, as well as its current brand strength. The company will gain 50 new customers from Sylantro, including AT&T, Qwest, Swisscom and NuVox. BroadSoft executives describe Sylantro as a "formidable competitor" for the past decade and say they are "fortunate" to be able to acquire such a strong brand.

Terms of the deal appear to have been quite favorable. Sources say BroadSoft believes it will be able to generate positive cash flow from the acquisition in 2009, a feat it attributes to the consideration and terms of the merger.

Others "in the know" on the transaction say that Sylantro was running out of cash with no means to raise additional capital. A shotgun wedding with BroadSoft was a way to save jobs for some employees and spare existing customers the uncertainty of a bankruptcy filing.

Sylantro's R&D office in Bangalore, India, is listed as a "key asset" in the acquisition. In addition, BroadSoft expects to keep a (smaller) office in Sylantro's Silicon Valley HQ and keep parts of the sales organization.

Doug Mohney contributed to this report.

For more:
- We don't think it's a rumor anymore, but we do not have official confirmation from either company. RUMOR MILL: BroadSoft buys Sylantro

05/11/2008 - DIGITALK Now Certified "XConnect-Ready"

XConnect, the world’s largest provider of VoIP federation peering services, has announced that the DIGITALK SIP Application Server has been certified XConnect-Ready.
Eli Katz, XConnect CEO, said the impact for customers would be to make VoIP federation-based routing quick, simple and easy.

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