Zultys Technologies and Computer Telephony Distributing (CTD) of Greenville, S.C., today announced they have broadened relations with the appointment of CTD as a major distributor and authorized trainer for channel partners in select U.S. markets.   CTD, which specializes in VoIP SMB and enterprise-class solutions, has become a main distribution point in the United States to help value-added resellers (VARs) take full advantage of the features and functionality built into  MX30 and MX250 Enterprise Media Exchange systems from Zultys. As part of the channel distribution arrangement, Zultys has also appointed CTD to be an authorized trainer for Zultys Certified Systems Engineers (ZCSE) courses, enabling CTD to train and certify business partners, effective immediately.

I had a great meeting with a number of folks who are participating in the InGate-sponsored seminar on SIP Trunking that is taking pace here at ITEXPO in Ft. Lauderdale.   Among the panelists I had the chance to interview in a round table format were Olle Westerberg and Steve Johnson of InGate; Chris Sibley and Greg Rothman of CBeyond; Jeff Wissing of ObjectWorld; John Casselman of ShoreTel; Richard Shockey of NeuStar; and Todd Landry of Sphere Communications.   The overall feeling, summed up by Richard Shockey, is that “SIP Trunking is THE story of 2007.”   The conversation ranged widely to include fixed-mobile convergence, security, standards, partnerships, the channel… we covered a lot in the short time allotted to us.   I’ll have much more on this in the coming days.   In the meantime, if you are already at ITEXPO in Ft. Lauderdale or if you’re planning to come down tomorrow or Friday, I urge you to check out the Ingate SIP Trunking seminar in room 114 of the Broward County Convention Center.  

Allworx has chosen Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO to share with me the details of their latest software release, Allworx 6.5. The software upgrade affects the whole family of products, including the 6x, 10x, and 24x platforms.   The new functionality includes the following:  

• Enhanced T1 Provisioning Capabilities
• New Multisite Extensions
• IMAP4 Support
• Enhanced Conference Call Support, and
• New Presence-Specific Messaging

 Allworx continues to serve the SMB market in a variety of interesting ways. Sandra Gault of Allworx told me of a dealer that is combining the Allworx platform with service from Bandwidth.com to offer a hosted SMB VoIP service to customers. So far the take-up has apparently been good, and the recurring revenue stream makes it a win-win for the dealer as well.  

ITEXPO has begun.   Rich Tehrani, President of TMC and ITEXPO Conference Chairman, kicked off the conference with some words about what is driving our industry.   But first, in what has become sort of an ITEXPO kickoff tradition, Rich polled the audience to find out who traveled the furthest to attend. Responses showcased a truly international presence as attendees sounded off from destinations as diverse as Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Midwestern Canada, and other far-flung places.   Addressing the industry drivers, Rich pointed to the fact that there is more money flowing around the telecom space since any time since 2000. Private equity is funding acquisitions, and these acquisitions are changing the landscape of telecom.   Rich also cited several recent high-profile events, and noted that these too would have far-reaching consequences in the coming year.

• AT&T’s promises to support net neutrality might spur other carriers to act accordingly and hold off on making any incursions on people’s ‘net freedoms.
• Cable companies and the FCC. Will regulations hamper cables growth?
• iPhone.

I'm here in Ft. Lauderdale, and I'm taking a bit of a break from the set-up to draw some attention to a recent post on Mark Collier's VoIP Security Blog.   Mark Collier knows a thing or two about security. As CTO of SecureLogix Corporation, an enterprise telephony management and security company, Collier is responsible for technology research, development, and related intellectual property, including a special focus on VoIP security solutions. Mr. Collier is also a founding member of the VoIP Security Alliance (www.voipsa.com), an industry group focused on VoIP security education.   Back to the point, Collier has posted a series of predictions regarding VoIP security on his blog.   According to Collier, “Enterprise VoIP deployments will continue to ramp in 2007, and the frequency and severity of VoIP-specific attacks will increase as well.” He also believes that Denial of Service (DoS) will continue to be the most significant threat to VoIP. Here are the Top 10 predictions, according to Collier:   1) There is no doubt that VoIP security attacks have taken place, but very few have been widely publicized. I predict that in 2007, we will see enterprise VoIP systems attacked and the results publicized.

With much fanfare, and the requisite loud introductory music, the Innovative Communications Alliance — which is the Microsoft/Nortel Unified Communications initiative announced back in July, 2006 — the two companies held a press conference to announce some new developments.   The event had the production values of bona fide television show, which should not be all that startling considering it took place in the cozy confines of Studio 8H in Rockefeller Plaza, — the studio where Saturday Night Live is taped — with an estimated 150–200 media, analysts, and customers in attendance.   The crowd gathered to hear Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer and Nortel’s CEO Mike Zafirovski, together with the first high-profile customer of the unified communications solution, Johan Krebbers, Group IT Architect & Advisor of the Shell CIO Council of Royal Dutch Shell.   According to Ballmer, “The average employee gets over 50 messages a day across up to seven different devices or applications. Software can and will help address the ongoing challenge of managing communications and this challenge is the driving idea behind our alliance with Nortel. Together we will evolve VoIP and unified communications to integrate all the ways we contact each other in a simple environment using a single identity across phones, PCs and other devices.”   “We are executing forcefully on the vision of this alliance and have made tremendous progress,” Zafirovski added. “We completed the planning stages and are now delivering unified communications solutions to businesses around the world.

It’s being reported that Avaya will buy Ubiquity Software Corp. for 74.3 million pounds or about $144 million.   The AP is quoting Mickey Tsui vice president of global communications solutions: “We believe that the addition of Ubiquity’s next-generation software platform to Avaya’s portfolio will help customers and developers enhance the integration of communications technologies and business processes”   Ubiquity provides deployment platforms, applications, development tools and integration technology for converged voice, video and data services. Their flagship SIP Application Server (SIP A/S) is deployed with several the world’s largest telecommunications carriers.   According to Yankee Group, the market for SIP-based Application Servers will reach $4.7 billion by 2009. Yankee Group also believes the advent of IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) within carrier IP core networks will further drive the adoption of such products.

Cisco announced late yesterday that they are suing Apple, to stop them from using the trademark iPhone. By now everyone is aware that back on December 18, Cisco’s Linksys division released a suite of products with the iPhone moniker, which now appears to be the point that negotiations with Apple over the possible sale or licensing of the iPhone name broke down.   (Word is that there was a deal in place which would allow Apple use of the name.)   Early response is mixed between some suggesting that Apple just rename their offering “Apple Phone” or some other such non-offensive label, and others who seem to believe that the market has already decided that this product will forever be known as the iPhone anyway, so why bother with the lawsuit.   I read in the Comments section of Om Malik’s blog that iPhone is only Cisco’s trademark here in the U.S., which spins up a whole ‘nother interesting angle to this whole mess.   What will happen is anyone’s guess, and there are already a number of blogs out there seeking requests from their readers on coming up with new names for the iPhone.   I’ve got a few ideas of my own:  

• iCan’t Believe It’s Not Cisco!
• iCandy?
• iNfringement?
• iBob

  What do you think?      

Apple's stock is currently trading at $91.17, up over 6%. Updating my previous entry, Apple introduced the iPhone today. According to Bloomberg, Apple’s Steve Jobs explained that “…the iPhone will be a widescreen version of the company's iPod, with a touch screen and Internet connection.” TMC's Johanne Torres has the whole rundown here.   In the greatest tradition of Apple, the phone does look pretty cool. In fact Engadget has posted a running timeline of Jobs’ Keynote complete with screenshots aplenty.   Apple also unveiled a sub-$300 video “hub” called Apple TV, which will be available next month.   Jobs said Apple TV will offer 720-pixel high-definition video, an Intel processor, and a 40GB hard drive to store up to 50 hours of video.   The blogosphere is buzzing.   Quoting directly from Slipperybrick, The Apple TV connects directly to a television to allow viewing streamed iTunes content such as movies, photos, TV shows, and music directly on the TV, from up to 5 different PC or Mac computers at a time. There is also a feature to auto-sync the content of the hard drive to one computer which would allow your content to be easily updated.

Pike & Fischer has a report just out that claims that nearly 60 percent of all U.S. homes will be subscribed to broadband by year’s end The report also maintains that cable operators will come close to losing their majority, with their share of the high-speed Internet market falling to slightly more than 50 percent as DSL and fiber (FTTx) deployments by telcos represent the fastest growing number of new broadband customers.

Among the other findings in Pike & Fischer’s Broadband Business Outlook 2007:

• Roughly two million U.S. households will subscribe to the new video services from the major Bell companies in 2007;
• Cablecos will pass Vonage's lead in the voice-over-IP market; and
• Broadband wireless will improve the quality of mobile video services and help drive up adoption rates.

Rich has a great article today on how VoIP is changing the lives of disabled veterans.

Specifically, Rich writes about the excellent work Ken Smith is doing as Program Manager at the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH).

The group will be exhibiting at the upcoming ITEXPO in Ft. Lauderdale this month (January 23–26). Attendees will have a chance to see how the innovations of IP communications have improved the lives of disabled veterans around the world.