Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog

And the acquisitions keep piling up!

Artisoft, Inc., announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire privately held Vertical Networks, Inc. Vertical Networks makes distributed IP-PBX software and communications solutions for large enterprises. With the acquisition, Artisoft is looking to increase its customer base and market, including the addition of several large enterprise customers in the retail, financial services, and healthcare verticals, as well as expand the breadth and scope of its technology and product offerings to include distributed enterprise solutions.

Building on recent distributions deals with Ingram Micro and Navarre, Packet8 has announced that Internet shoppers can now find Packet8 VoIP products and services online at Amazon.com.

The Packet8 offerings currently featured at Amazon.com include the recently introduced DV326 Broadband VideoPhone, which is designed to work like a regular telephone and delivers video calls over a high-speed Internet connection, and the DTA Broadband Phone Adapter, which is designed to allow a regular phone to make and receive calls worldwide over the Internet, with accompanying VoIP service plans.

Both Packet8 offerings at Amazon.com are accompanied by special promotional incentives including a mail-in rebate on the DTA adapter of $60 until along with free activation and two months of free service and a $200 mail-in rebate on one Packet8 VideoPhone, $500 mail in rebate for two, along with free activations and one free month of service.

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Weekend recap: The Mets won 2 out of 3 from the Cubbies this weekend, unfortunately, the home team decided to lose in front of me.

Frost & Sullivan has released a report covering the World Session Border Controller Market. Prepared by Jon Arnold, program leader, VoIP Equipment at Frost, the report defines what Session Border Controllers (SBC) are, why they are important, and outlines a market forecast pegging the growth of the market at a rate of nearly 60% by 2008.

The report details a complex vendor landscape, and Frost expects the market to continue to evolve significantly over the next 2–3 years. Arnold profiles 12 SBC vendors, and has created a unique strategic matrix that plots the market positioning for 18 vendors based on their function set and markets served.

Often overlooked in favor of the flashier cellular handset side of the family, Nokia’s network division has announced some interesting news at the Broadband World Forum in Venice, Italy. Nokia has launched a new solution for broadband operators, which — according to the company — will enable VoIP services to be combined with broadband. The Nokia Voice solution brings POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) compatibility to the Nokia D500 IP DSLAM, connecting traditional voice connections to a packet-based network.

The D500 supports SIP and provides the QoS features for connectivity with WLAN-enabled terminals and PCs.