A Toronto, Canada-based provider of voice and data connectivity components for software-based communication applications and a Roswell, Ga.-based company that helps developers get their products to market quicker and with less investment, have announced a partnership that they say has raised the bar for fax-resource offerings for the enterprise-fax OEM. 

 

According to company officials, the combination of Commetrex’s (News - Alert) "BladeWare HMP" telephony platform and Sangoma’s digital and analog telephony interface boards yields the industry’s broadest product offering for the enterprise-fax OEM.

 

“For years, Commetrex has shipped a limited range of PCI telephony boards, so this announcement marks a major shift in the company’s strategy,” said Tom Ray (News - Alert), vice president of marketing and sales, Commetrex. "We have recently landed significant design wins in the IP-fax market with BladeWare’s value proposition of high function and performance with an unbeatable price. But our customers want the same competitive advantages when a PSTN interface is required."

 

“They have a worldwide customer base, systems range from two to hundreds of ports. Sangoma delivers up to 240 ports on a single board, ISDN PRI and BRI for the EU market, plus global homologations. Sangoma offers it all, moreover, they can sell it to us for less than we can produce it. We were sold,” Ray said. 

 

BladeWare, which has set the standard for IP-fax with support for both terminating T.38 and G.711 pass-through faxes, now, supports the entire Sangoma product line of PCI and PCI Express PSTN interfaces. BladeWare users will be able to terminate to the PSTN using Sangoma’s range of analog, digital T1/E1/J1 with PRI, and BRI boards, as well as send and receive IP-based faxes, all on the same system. 

 

“Another consideration was Sangoma’s support for Windows," Ray said. "There are multiple sources for PCM-interface boards, but many only support Linux. Sangoma’s support for Windows and Linux made the decision even easier."

 

Sangoma’s support in Commetrex’s BladeWare is now available as a beta release for analog boards and digital support is scheduled for later in Q3. 

 

Serge Forest (News - Alert), Sangoma’s vice president of marketing, added: “Regardless of what network or device interface a fax OEM needs, this partnership provides it. As an example of the added value, OEMs can inter-mix station and office interfaces on the same board. So OEMs can now allow their end-user customers to connect existing fax terminals to the fax server. These terminals then become convenient scanners, printers, fax-origination points, and nodes in least-cost-routing solutions.” 

 

Forest posted on his blog today about the significance of these two companies partnering, “First it means Commetrex is letting go of its own TDM interface hardware in favor of Sangoma’s more complete and more cost effective TDM board product line. Second, it means Sangoma now has a reputable solution partner in the fax server space, selling into a market that just wasn’t seriously touched by Sangoma before.”

 

For more information on Sangoma, please visit their Web site. Or check out their VoIP Gateways channel here on TMCnet.