Ingate Systems has unveiled a software version of its E-SBC. Steven Johnson (News - Alert), Ingate president, tells INTERNET TELEPHONY that his company has seen great demand for a software version of its enterprise session border controller solution.

Those asking for this included companies that build other equipment, such as PBXs, that want to run both PBX (News - Alert) and SBC functionality on virtual machines so end customers can manage all of the above through a single user interface. Johnson adds that some companies that wanted to run the Ingate E-SBC on different hardware, or require a server with greater capacity than that offered by the company’s turnkey solution, were also asking for a software-only solution.

“The Ingate software provided a single-box solution for IP-PBX vendors and the channel community, who can now deliver Ingate’s world-class E-SBC functionality fully integrated with their own hardware solutions,” says Johnson. “The industry is moving toward software-based offerings as a means of consolidating existing hardware or maintaining a single hardware platform. The trend will continue given the growing adoption of unified communication. Ingate is pleased to offer a software version of the Ingate SIParator in response to this increasing market demand.”

E-SBCs enable SIP communications such as SIP trunking and unified communications beyond the protected enterprise network. Johnson adds that it’s clear that SIP trunking is here, and it’s here to stay, noting that Infonetics Research (News - Alert) predicts SIP trunking will experience 28 percent growth in new seats per year between 2011 and 2015.

Ingate’s enterprise session border controllers include the Ingate SIParator, the Ingate Firewall and the Intertex (News - Alert) IX78 E-SBC for operator-volume SIP trunking deployments.

In other recent news, Ingate Systems has been pushing what it calls Internet+, which is a model for how service providers can better support, and monetize, for business customers unified communications such as fax and video.