May 2000

BY CAROL DRZEWIANOWSKI

According to Cahners In-Stat Group, LAN telephony will be the dominant enterprise architecture by 2004. In-Stat believes that the features, applications, and ultimately the pricing of LAN telephony will ultimately result in the demise of PBX systems. It also believes that IP packets will rise over Ethernet technology due to their openness and ubiquity, and the benefits will include: complete handset and extension portability to remote locations, integration with contact management software and worldwide IP-based contact centers. Furthermore, following interoperability between vendors, eventual retail of packet handsets to consumers will occur, and the industry will ignite.

3Com is certainly helping to prove In-Stat's point. Following Palm's IPO, 3Com announced that it plans to sharpen its focus on high-growth markets, technologies, and products. 3Com will now concentrate its resources on three distinct networking markets: consumers, commercial customers (particularly small and medium-sized locations), and network service providers. It will focus on products that incorporate Web, IP telephony, wireless, broadband and Gigabit Ethernet technologies. For business, this will include Web caching and firewalling, LAN telephony, wireless networking, and high-speed LAN products.

"3Com has earned an early lead in these emerging technologies with number one positions in residential broadband products, small business networking, LAN telephony, total Ethernet connectivity, remote access and wireless CDMA solutions for network service providers," said Eric Benhamou, 3Com's chairman and CEO.

3Com recently announced a partnership with Symbol Technologies to jointly develop wireless LAN telephony solutions. The companies have made plans to integrate 3Com's NBX 100 Communications System with Symbol's NetVision family of wireless mobile communications devices. 3Com will provide multi-line business communications capabilities to Symbol's 802.11 hand-held devices to bring full multimedia capabilities to business phones. The joint development effort will extend Symbol's wireless technology to a variety of voice, video, and data communications devices from 3Com, including the NBX 100 Communications System business phones to bring advanced mobility to business environments.

Is LAN telephony really living in a powder keg and giving off sparks (to quote Bonnie Tyler)? Over the next few months, I'm sure we'll find out.
--Carol Drzewianowski

Corporate Solutions News

• Shoreline Announces IP Voice Communications System
• Unisys Integrates SpeechWorks 6 With e-@ction NLSA Toolkit
• AltiGen, Quicknet To Deliver VoIP Solutions
• Equant Launches Voice And Data Over IP
• Clariti, AltiGen To Co-Develop Wireless Voice Mail Solutions
• Linx Targets One-Number Services for SMB Market
• Marconi Debuts E*NABLE Services Program For Service Providers
• 3Com Corporation Acquires Leading Unified Messaging Vendor, Call Technologies
• Intel Acquires Picazo Communications

Shoreline Announces IP Voice Communications System
Shoreline Communications, formerly known as Shoreline Teleworks, announced a new release of its enterprise-class IP voice communications system. Based on the company's Distributed Internet Voice Architecture (DIVA) software, the new Shoreline IP Voice Communications System 2.0 delivers enterprise-class scalability, support for remote teleworkers and SOHO environments, unified messaging through Microsoft Outlook, and cost savings through toll bypass, enabling voice to "ride free" across the IP network.
No. 522, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Unisys Integrates SpeechWorks 6 With e-@ction NLSA Toolkit
Unisys and SpeechWorks announced an agreement to deliver a complete, integrated speech solution for companies seeking a competitive edge in the global e-business marketplace. Unisys will integrate SpeechWorks 6 with its Unisys e-@ction Natural Language Speech Assistant (NLSA) toolkit and resell SpeechWorks 6 through its sales force and on the SpeechDepot Web portal that Unisys sponsors. The integrated solution from Unisys and SpeechWorks will allow companies to quickly and easily build and deploy large-scale speech solutions to automate customer service capabilities including speech-enabled e-business. The partnership will leverage both companies' extensive business relationships to drive the adoption of speech applications among companies seeking to offer their customers voice-access to information, voice-enabled messaging, and other revenue-generating enhanced services.
No. 523, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

AltiGen, Quicknet To Deliver VoIP Solutions
AltiGen Communications and Quicknet Technologies have formed a strategic partnership aimed at delivering VoIP solutions that will enable small to medium-sized enterprises to support remote agents for their call centers and telecommuting workers in a cost-effective manner. AltiGen's standards-based AltiServ platform offers businesses unsurpassed value by integrating a full-featured PBX, voice mail, ACD, and VoIP gateway functionality in a single Windows NT server. Quicknet's Internet PhoneJACK, Internet PhoneCARD, and Internet LineJACK family of products enable users to connect a standard analog phone to a PC with Internet connection and make toll-quality Internet phone calls. The combination of the robust server product from AltiGen with the popular client products from Quicknet will open new doors for customers and enable them to implement a variety of applications including remote agents for call centers and telecommuting.
No. 524, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Equant Launches Voice And Data Over IP
Equant has launched a global, fully integrated voice and data over IP offering with a series of global demonstrations to underline the service's power and affordability, designed to provide corporations with leading-edge applications across all industries. For the first time, businesses can tap the power of a feature-rich, high-quality integrated voice and data service over IP that enables them to make phone calls, fax, transfer files, stream live or stored video, and perform data conferencing -- all simultaneously over the same network connection. The new 50-country service, which uses modular multi-service routers and voice over IP technology from Cisco Systems, is part of Equant's portfolio of integrated voice and data products, and is being launched following a comprehensive 21-city, 11-country trial that was completed in February.
No. 525, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Clariti, AltiGen To Co-Develop Wireless Voice Mail Solutions
Clariti Wireless Messaging, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clariti Telecommunications International, and AltiGen Communications have announced that they are collaborating to develop a seamless, fully integrated, wireless extension to AltiGen's voicemail system using Clariti's Voca Wireless Voicemail Player. This development program is designed to enable AltiGen voice mail users to have their messages automatically forwarded to the Voca Player, a small wireless device about the size of a pager. The Voca Player can play back messages with audio quality comparable to a digital cellular phone, and can store up to 20 minutes of messages in the device.
No. 526, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Linx Targets One-Number Services for SMB Market
Linx Communications has announced it is targeting its LinxConnect one-number service to the small to medium-sized business sector through a new marketing campaign. The campaign will highlight how LinxConnect services can link cell phones, office phones, home phones, pagers, and faxes, enabling busy professionals and individuals to easily keep in touch with clients, customers, prospects, and business associates. Linx's Web-enabled communications services give on-the-go people complete control over their phone calls, faxes, and messages at any time, from any location. Linx services save time and money while eliminating the frustration of "telephone tag." LinxConnect services can work with a customer's existing local phone number or customers can receive a new local or toll-free phone number.
No. 527, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Marconi Debuts E*NABLE Services Program For Service Providers
Marconi, a global supplier of advanced networking solutions, announced the availability of its E*NABLE Services Program for service providers. This comprehensive suite of support offerings is designed to provide today's network service providers with access to Marconi's extensive portfolio of network planning, building, and operations experience, application support expertise, and capital resources.
No. 528, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

3Com Corporation Acquires Leading Unified Messaging Vendor, Call Technologies
Supporting its leadership position in the creation of enhanced IP services for carriers worldwide, 3Com announced a definitive agreement to acquire Call Technologies, a developer of unified messaging and Operational Systems and Support (OSS) software solutions for service providers. Through this acquisition, 3Com continues to add value and competitive advantage through new enhanced services capabilities to its CommWorks architecture and Total Control multi-service access platform.
No. 529, www.comsolmag.com/freeinfo

Intel Acquires Picazo Communications
Intel has acquired CT solutions provider Picazo Communications. Intel and its Dialogic subsidiary will gain engineering talent, channel expertise, and intellectual property which will be applied to speed deployment of CT Media server solutions.
No. 530, www.ctimag.com/freeinfo