Unified Communications

Mitel Acquires Inter-Tel

April 26, 2007

In a $723 Million transaction two of the leaders in the mid-market communications space have teamed up as Mitel has just acquired Inter-Tel. Both companies were very strong players in the mid-size PBX space and both were leaders in staying ahead of the technology curve Going back to the days of CTI over a decade ago, Mitel and Inter-Tel are established players in IP communications and unified communications. “We believe this is an outstanding transaction for our stakeholders,” said Inter-Tel CEO Norman Stout. “Mitel and Inter-Tel have state-of-the-art products and complementary channels to market. In particular, we are excited about the opportunities this partnership represents for Inter-Tel’s associates and partners, who we believe will benefit from being part of a larger, growing and dynamic organization that can compete more effectively in the marketplace. We look forward to working with the Mitel team to ensure a rapid and seamless transition.”

The combined company, including Inter-Tel international subsidiaries such as Inter-Tel Europe, Swan Solutions and Lake Communications, will have solutions to address the needs of very small to large businesses globally.

Posted in Call Center, Conferencing, IP Communications, Microsoft, SIP, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP

TMC Beta Tests 3D stereo HD VoIP

April 26, 2007

TMC has just started beta testing the Diamondware 3D stereo HD VoIP platform. You may remember I have written about the company recently and Tom Keating had a write up on them as well. As I have mentioned before I believe the biggest barrier to widespread use of such a system here at TMC and in general will be the pain in the rear associated with hooking up and wearing corded stereo headsets. When bluetooth stereo headsets become common this barrier will be significantly lowered. Thank you to Plantronics for supplying us stereo headsets for this test. I will keep you updated on our progress.

Posted in Consumer Electronics, Microsoft, TMC Team, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP

EQO Funding

April 25, 2007

The investment environment for VoIP is pretty hot with news of funding two days in a row. Of course two data points a trend does not make but there seems to be lots of optimism left in certain segments of IP communications. Yesterday there was a VoIP peering funding announcement and today it is about mobile VoIP. EQO is a mobile solution for users of Skype, AIM, MSN Messenger and a number of other IP communications platforms. The company received $9 million in series B funding. The financing round was led by Ventures West and included investments from existing investors GrowthWorks and BDC Capital. See Gigaom’s take. See MapleLeaf 2.0.

Posted in Consumer Electronics, Google, IP Communications, JITC, Microsoft, SIP, Skype, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Jajah and Iotum

April 24, 2007

Blackberry users are having a banner day as fist they are able to run their programs on Windows Mobile computers and now Iotum and JaJah are collaborating to allow the power of Jajah’s calling network to be combined with Iotum’s Talk-Now application. "We saw a clear opportunity to enhance the experience for mobile users by partnering with JAJAH," said Iotum CEO Alec Saunders. "Initially, our collaboration means that Iotum Talk-Now users will have one-click access to JAJAH for all their contacts. In the future, Iotum will release other 'New Presence'-enabled applications in conjunction with JAJAH, such as PIN-less, mobile conferencing." What are the benefits? Blackberry users now can have access to all the presence applications Iotum offers and at the same time collaborate seamlessly with their Jajah contacts.

Posted in Conferencing, Consumer Electronics, IP Communications, SIP, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Interactive Intelligence and Alliance Systems

April 23, 2007

Interactive Intelligence announced today it has purchased the professional services group of Alliance Systems and I had a chance to speak with the president of Alliance Systems Rusty Cone about this deal. Rusty deferred to Alliance Systems chairman Jon Shapiro about the reason for this transaction. According to Jon: “Our core server and infrastructure business has been growing very rapidly and we wanted to focus our resources on increasing our manufacturing capacity, engineering resources and our global logistics and support business.” I did get a chance to find out a bit more about the transaction however. Rusty explained he is happy for the 14 people who will now be part of Interactive Intelligence as they now have more opportunity to move up in the organization.

Posted in Broadband, Call Center, IP Communications, SIP, Speech Technologies, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Hosted Communications for the SMB

April 23, 2007

We hear about hosted solutions from so many vendors these days. This area of the market is certainly experiencing tremendous growth. Companies like Covad, AccessLine and 8x8/Packet8 are doing well selling services to customers who are giving up their small phone system for a hosted solution. In many cases the smaller companies are familiar with and more comfortable with key systems and are not happy to lose some of these features when they migrate to a hosted solution which is designed for companies the size of major auto manufacturers. The way to get around this dilemma is to sell these companies hosted key system replacements. How can a service provider interested in deploying such solutions learn more?

Posted in Broadband, CRM, IP Communications, Microsoft, SIP, Speech Technologies, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Vonage Voicemail Transcription

April 21, 2007

At CTIA a few weeks back I heard Vonage will offer a voicemail transcribing service soon but I was sworn to secrecy. As you may know I have been writing about voicemail transcription a great deal lately. I thought I blogged a hint about this news but to be honest I have been doing so much writing lately I can’t find it if I did. Anyway, I just heard from a little e-mail bird Vonage will offer voicemail transcription for $.25/voicemail. I cannot verify this cost but I did find a link on the company’s site to Vonage Text which is a voicemail transcription service.

Posted in Consumer Electronics, IP Communications, Microsoft, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Vonage

InfoWorld on Patent Reform

April 20, 2007

Let’s hope patent reform gets a great amount of momentum in our government and it actually happens. Large companies are indeed hoarding patents and using them as weapons to crush smaller companies. Patent litigation seems to be increasing by the day and reforming the system would allow companies to spend more time developing products for the good of markets and less time meeting with lawyers and in the courts. Read: New legislation would overhaul U.S. patent system.

Posted in Apple, Broadband, CRM, Call Center, Conferencing, Consumer Electronics, FCC, Google, IMS, IP Communications, Microsoft, Musings, Patent, Rates Technology, SIP, Science, Security, Technology, Unified Communications, Video, VoIP

Microsoft Gives Away Exchange 2007

April 20, 2007

In the last seven years or so the adoption of open-source solutions has been breathtaking and Microsoft is not sitting on the sidelines watching this happen from afar. They have to be concerned about Linux and myriad open-source software products as well as web-based solutions from companies like Google. One of the beautiful things about open-source software is you can download it and try it for free. If you like it you can buy a business-class version of the solution or you can pay for support. This approach of giving it away for a while before your customers have to pay for it is not unprecedented in tech. I remember years back when 3COM was trying to get the small business market to implement computer networks, they gave away network cards on the cheap hoping companies would se the benefits of networking and buy more cards at retail prices.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP

Voicemail Transcription

April 18, 2007

I am not sure what the category of product is that converts voicemail to e-mail but I suppose voicemail transcription covers it nicely. Recently wrote about SpinVox and how the company converts voicemail to e-mail automatically. I am in a conference today where I cannot take calls. I did however receive an e-mail just now: --------------- Daddy. I want Daddy to talk.

Posted in IP Communications, Microsoft, Speech Technologies, Unified Communications

Previous 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Next

Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Unified Communications