Breaking News
June 2001

 

Headlines


General Micro Systems Announces Navigator
General Micro Systems has announced the Navigator, a hot-swapable CompactPCI CPU board for high-availability telecommunications applications. Combining a 1 GHz Pentium III CPU with up to 256 KB of no-wait-state cache and 1 GB of main memory, the Navigator features two Fast Ethernet ports, integrated mass storage options for both rotating and diskless media, dual Ultra DMA-33 IDE interfaces, a pair of USB ports, and up to five PMC slots. It is available with a choice of field-upgradeable Pentium III Celeron or Coppermine-256 processors. The Celeron processor features a clock speed of 366-500 MHz, and is equipped with 128 KB of on-die, no-wait-state cache. Featuring a clock speed of 500 MHz to 1 GHz, the Coppermine-256 is equipped with 256 KB of on-die, no-wait-state cache. Both processors are equipped with up to 1 GB of main memory, which they access via a high-speed Front Side Bus (66 MHz for Celeron; 100 MHz for Coppermine). This field-upgradeable memory is packaged as a pair of SO-DIMM modules.
www.general-micro-systems.co; 800-307-4863

Voyant And Pingtel Deliver Integrated SIP Phone
Pingtel and Voyant Technologies have announced a scalable IP telephony solution that will enable hosted IP voice service providers, carriers, and CASPs to provide enterprise customers with an integrated IP phone and IP voice conferencing service. The integrated solution combines the Pingtel xpressa IP phone, Voyant's native IP conferencing platform, and a Voyant-developed java applet for conference initiation and control. The applet enables moderators to track all in-conference participants, mute and un-mute participants' lines, and bring additional participants into the conference. Additionally, all of these functions can be performed via DTMF commands. The solution utilizes SIP for call set up and tear down, and it supports multiple codecs, including G.711, G.729a, G.726, and G.723.1, within a single media server and within a single conference. The Pingtel xpressa phone gives end users a plug-and-talk device that plugs directly into the Ethernet network, integrates with the PC over the LAN, and permits automated software delivery configuration and updates.
www.pingtel.com; 781-938-5306
www.voyanttech.com; 888-447-1087

PictureTel Announces 600 Series
PictureTel and Sharp have partnered to design and manufacture the PictureTel 600 Series, a comprehensive collaboration solution. The two-part design can be set up as an all-in-one, appliance-type unit, or split into two pieces: a camera/microphone unit and a compact base station. It is based on an Intel Celeron processor and Windows 2000 operating system. Under patent-pending People+Content technology, users interacting "face to face" transmit at the highest frame rate to optimize motion video quality. When sharing content, the systems intelligently switch to a much higher resolution transmission that allows documents to be shared without requiring special preparations. iPower (developed with Intel) solutions also leverage PictureTel's Siren 14 technology to deliver 14 kHz range, low-delay, high-fidelity audio capability.
www.picturetel.com; 800-716-6000

Siemens Intros Multi-Protocol IP Telephone
Siemens Enterprise Networks has introduced the optiPoint 400 standard telephone. The optiPoint 400 supports communication over traditional telephony networks (TDM) as well as IP networks, using the H.323 and H.450 protocols. Features can be changed and customized based on the user's changing needs. By supporting both TDM and IP communications, the new optiPoint 400 standard telephone allows businesses to better protect their investment as they migrate to new IP-based systems. Multi-protocol support (H.323/H.450, Siemens Hicom Feature Access HFA) allows connectivity with the following communications servers: Siemens HiPath 5300, HiPath 5500, Hicom 150, HiPath AllServe, and third party vendors' H.323/H.450-compliant servers. Other features include an integrated 10/100Base-T switch, QoS (DiffServ, 802.1D), inline power (IEEE 802.3af/unused pairs), CTI (TAPI support), a log on/log off mobility feature, browser-based administration, FTP and SNMP support (upgrade tool allows up to 200 phones to be uprgraded at one time), context-sensitive Siemens optiGuide menu system, and a full duplex speakerphone.
www.siemens.com; +49 89 636-00

Natural MicroSystems, Ridgeway Demo Guaranteed QoS
Natural MicroSystems has announced the completion of product interoperability testing with Ridgeway that demonstrates secure, end-to-end IP video and voice communications with guaranteed QoS. The evaluation conducted by the two companies included NMS' PolicyPoint IP Multi-Service Unit (IP MSU), which delivers traffic classification, bandwidth management, and traffic shaping capable of delivering tiered classes of IP service (CoS) and application-specific quality of service (QoS) to the customer premise. Ridgeway supplied its VX Communication System hardware and software, which enables service providers to supply broadband video and voice media over existing network infrastructure and into private IP environments. The joint solution will provide managed, dedicated, and secure virtual connections between the enterprise and the service provider, along with quality of service capability.
www.nmss.com; 508-620-9300
www.ridgewaysystems.com; 512-231-7300

Cisco Announces New IP Telephony Solutions
Cisco Systems has announced seven new software and hardware IP telephony products. The new software solutions include Cisco Personal Assistant, Cisco Unity 2.46 unified messaging, Cisco IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP-ICD), the Cisco IP Phone Productivity Services (PPS) applications suite, the Cisco CallManager 3.1 call processing system, and an innovative Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRS Telephony) feature that is now part of the Cisco IOS Software. On the hardware side, Cisco is introducing the Catalyst 4224 Voice Gateway Switch platform. All of the IP telephony components fit within Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data), an enterprise architecture that provides an intelligent network infrastructure.
www.cisco.com; 800-553-NETS

alexis Integrates With Cisco
alexis communications/COM2001.com have announced the alexis Workgroup for Cisco Call Manager. alexis Workgroup is a version of its unified communications software optimized specifically for the VoIP market as envisioned by Cisco's AVVID architecture. The Cisco Call Manager is typically used as a PBX replacement in LAN telephony applications. The alexis Workgroup adds advanced conferencing, Microsoft Exchange integration, remote workforce connectivity, Web-based call control, and a personal assistant. The alexis Workgroup for Cisco Call Manager was implemented using Telephony Application Protocol Interface (TAPI). alexis has also announced the availability of their Software Developers Kit (SDK). Qualified system integrators who participate in this program will be provided with the ability to purchase the core alexis software and voice boards in kit packages.
www.alexis.com; 858-314-2100

eYak Acquires Brooktrout Software
eYak has acquired Brooktrout Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brooktrout. The acquisition allows eYak to deliver voice technologies, products, and services to customers, including channel partners, enterprises, and service providers. The combined offerings will enable these customers to develop and deploy scalable and robust converged communications solutions. The acquisition also couples eYak's SoftTelephony technology with Brooktrout's graphical application development environments -- Show N Tel and ActiveCall -- and consulting services.
www.eyak.com; 617-531-2100
www.brooksoft.com; 508-229-7777

Vpacket Ships Voice/Data Router
Vpacket Communications is shipping its initial product, the 6100 Series voice/data router (VDR) for business and enterprise communications over packet networks. Vpacket's 6100 Series features a high level of Quality of Service management for converged networks, as well as auto-provisioning, configuration, and multi-level device management. It enables service providers to offer voice and data services over a single broadband connection to mid-size businesses, branch offices, multi-tenant units, and campus environments.
www.vpacket.com; 408-571-7900

BackWeb Unveils e-Accelerator
BackWeb Technologies has unveiled e-Accelerator for Enterprise Video Communications. The new solution enables companies to deliver audio/video communications across both high-bandwidth (LAN) and low-bandwidth (dial-up and WAN) connections. BackWeb e-Accelerator for Enterprise Video Communications allows corporations to integrate the Polite delivery capabilities of BackWeb with streaming servers from Microsoft or RealNetworks. This dual video delivery capability allows users to cache video content directly on the BackWeb client for playback later, or to instantly stream the video at the desktop. BackWeb's closed-loop reporting can track the delivery of video files and notifications to measure user interaction.
www.backweb.com; 800-863-0100

One Stop Intros 2U High CompactPCI Enclosure
One Stop Systems has announced its 2U high CompactPCI enclosure with rear I/O. A typical configuration for datacom applications includes a single slot system CPU board and three peripheral CPU boards. It includes a 4-slot width, horizontally mounted, 6U CompactPCI backplane with rear I/O on all four slots. The backplane has a left hand system slot with power lugs on the rear. The power supply voltage outputs are 5V at 14A, 3.3V 16A, +12V at 1.5A, and -12V at 1.5A. It also includes overvoltage, overload, and short circuit protection. Three cooling fans provide side-to-side ventilation. An A/C input filter and on/off switch are located on the rear panel.
www.onestopsystems.com; 760-745-9883

Tundo Launches IP Contact Center Initiative
Tundo has launched a company strategy to aggressively target the IP contact center market. Tundo's IP Contact Center initiative builds upon its carrier-grade media control platform, the Tundo DOT Server. Tundo's solutions for call center customers include Tundo Boundless Call Center and the Tundo HomePort. Tundo's Boundless Call Center allows enterprise and outsourced contact centers to migrate to a full-featured IP contact center architecture; customers can extend their core capabilities (specifically, PBX, ACD, and CTI applications) to anywhere in the world using IP technology. Tundo's HomePort solution allows customers to extend the voice and media from a contact center to remote agents working from their homes.
www.tundo.com; 508-836-4333

VoiceGenie Announces GenieTracer
VoiceGenie Technologies has announced the VoiceGenie GenieTracer, a PC-based run-time environment based on VoiceGenie's VoiceXML platform. GenieTracer provides developers with a stand-alone PC-based tool to run and debug any VoiceXML application without the need for TTS or ASR software. Running in the Windows environment and 100 percent compliant to VoiceXML 1.0, GenieTracer consists of a GUI, LogChecker, Tracer, the VoiceGenie VoiceXML Interpreter, and related components. Future enhancements will allow for the optional use of ASR, TTS, VoIP, and a voice modem interface.
www.voicegenie.com; 416-736-0905

Witness Completes Avaya Integration
Witness Systems has announced a new software integration with Avaya. The eQuality Response recording solution from Witness Systems integrates with e-mail response management applications, such as the e-mail component of Avaya's CentreVu Internet Solutions, to monitor the quality of electronic mail interactions between a company's CSRs and its customers. The solution is architected specifically to address the growing number of interactions contact centers receive via e-mail.
www.witness.com; 770-754-1900
www.avaya.com; 800-784-6104

SpeechWorks Enhances TTS Product
SpeechWorks has announced that it has made enhancements to its Speechify text-to-speech (TTS) engine, which relays text-based content to callers. The major enhancements to the Speechify engine include a male voice option, e-mail pre-processing to make e-mails sound more natural when read over the phone, and increased efficiency, allowing 50 percent more concurrent users to call into a service at any time.
www.speechworks.com; 617-428-4444

Artesyn Announces VoPware
Artesyn Communication Products has introduced VoPware software for media processing and voice over packet conferencing. VoPware speeds application development by providing extensive functions for toll-quality conferencing and media server applications. It is designed to support Artesyn's DSP media processing cards and is ready to integrate into the user's environment. A native API gives low-level access to media services and Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) libraries. The distributed CORBA API allows applications to be deployed across multiple hardware platforms on the same network or sub-networks. The optimized RTP library available with VoPware exploits the unicast telephony call model implemented by most carrier-class, voice over packet soft-switching architectures. VoPware's unique RTP packet handling technique transparently optimizes a customer's voice over packet application.
www.artesyncp.com; 800-356-9602

Alliance Systems Enhances I-Series
Alliance Systems has announced a new enhancement to its I-Series communication platforms: Alliance-designed and manufactured hot swap drive bays. Created specifically for its I-Series, the new bays provide customers increased connection reliability and easier access to the drives while maintaining hot swap functionality. The new bay carriers were tested by Seagate and Adaptec independent testing labs for dependability and performance. Both the two and three-drive models passed the rigorous testing process, including shock, vibration, temperature, and performance testing.
www.alliancesystems.com; 800-977-1010

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