[February 24, 2005]

Know Thy Keynoters: Andy Voss

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

On Friday, February 25 th at 9:00 a.m. Andy Voss will deliver his keynote address to ITEXPO.

Voss is President & CEO of Sansay, Inc. which he co-founded in 2002.  Previously he co-founded Nuera Communications in 1995, serving there as the original VP of marketing and later as VP of strategy and business development.

His prior experiences include product management, business development and sales management at NYNEX/SSI, Network Equipment Technologies and ComDesign. 

Sansay develops, sells and supports carrier VOIP infrastructure products, including core and edge session controllers which allow service providers to interconnect their networks to other VOIP providers' networks and to enterprise and residential subscribers.

It’s a relatively low-profile company, their Web site isn’t even complete yet. According to Light Reading, Voss’s former company, Nuera (“new era,” get it?) in mid-2004 struck an OEM agreement with Nortel Networks Ltd. where Nortel would integrate, sell, and support Nuera’s voice-over-IP gateways as part of its PacketCable-qualified VOIP package.

This was largely seen as a move against Cisco, which had attained PacketCable qualification for its VOIP softswitch and cable modem termination systems, but not for its gateways.

PacketCable is an initiative to ensure interoperability of equipment that uses IP technology on cable networks. To gain PacketCable qualification, equipment makers must submit their products to CableLabs for testing. Getting approval can be costly, but the payoff is increased sales to cable operators, many of which require qualification.

Nuera sells the only VOIP gateway – also known as a media gateway – which at the time had attained PacketCable qualification. By packaging the product with Nortel’s PacketCable-qualified softswitch, Nortel could claim it offered the only integrated gateway and softswitch that have both achieved qualification.

Analysts considered the move an effort to boost Nortel’s position when competing with Cisco for cable VOIP deals.

“We expect most of our traction to be with the Nuera gateway,” said Elaine Smiles, director of cable marketing at Nortel. “Nuera scales well at the low end, which is exactly what the cable operators are looking for now with their market entry strategy.”

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.