Just before the New Year snom officials announced that its endpoints passed a battery of interoperability tests with ZyXEL Communications’ Ethernet switches, “adding a new partner and combining the efforts of both companies to offer end-to-end Ethernet IP solutions for SMBs.”

The way company officials explain it, ZyXEL’s Power-over-Ethernet-enabled Ethernet switches are well-regarded in the industry for their “stable and consistent” data transmission for such apps as voice and video.

snom officials were understandably pleased by the results. One remarked that when combined with snom’s product portfolio, including the snom 3xx series, the touchscreen snom 870 and the standards-based SIP phones qualified by Microsoft (News - Alert) for use with Microsoft Lync 2010 -- the snom 300 UC edition and the snom 821 UC edition -- “the tandem of snom and ZyXEL provides an optimal, end-to-end VoIP for small and medium-sized businesses.”

Mike Storella (News - Alert), COO, snom technology, recently shared some thoughts on the year just gone, recapping snom’s highlights. Assuming that the Mayans weren’t correct, and that there will be a 2012, he looks forward to that as well.

Storella notes the proliferation of Microsoft Lync in 2011, as well as a “significant leap in snom’s ongoing maturation” as a VoIP provider in both Microsoft Lync and IP PBX (News - Alert) environments, including their status as “the first and only desktop phone maker to offer standards-based SIP desktop phones qualified for use with Lync.”

He recalls that snom launched what he calls “the industry’s broadest portfolio of Lync qualified and compatible IP phones with the introduction of snom UC, a portfolio of unified communications-ready desktop phones.”

Look at most any industry publication recapping 2011, he says, “and you will surely see a reference to the rise of Microsoft Lync 2010.” 2011 showed that the market is beginning to heat up, according to Storella, and heading into 2012, as one of first members of the Microsoft Compatible Devices Program, snom is “leading the way.”