Network Infrastructure

Sangoma Continues to Expand Solutions Portfolio: Schmooze, RockBochs Acquisitions Add to Its Toolbox

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  June 08, 2015

A few years back Sangoma announced its strategy to deliver turnkey solutions in addition to the voice and data boards that have been its traditional bailiwick. The company continues to move forward aggressively on this front, having this year brought both RockBochs Inc. and Schmooze (News - Alert) into the mix via acquisition.

These recent deals have enabled Sangoma to expand its solutions portfolio with a new service called FaxxBochs, which guarantees fax delivery over VoIP connections; FreePBX Distro, an open source platform used to create phone system solutions, which is already in use in hundreds of thousands of deployments in 220 countries and territories; and SIPStation, a SIP trunking service that can be accessed via the FreePBX user interface to get a SIP trunk in service within minutes. The first solution is based on technology from RockBochs; the other two come courtesy of Schmooze.

“We looked at things that were complementary to what Sangoma already had,” Frederic Dickey, Sangoma’s vice president of product management, marketing, and professional services, explains. “Again, it plays into the solutions selling.”

That way, if a carrier or enterprise customer of Sangoma is considering or purchasing one product or service and may be looking for a related offering now or down the road, Sangoma will be ready to help, he says.

RockBochs and Schmooze are just Sangoma’s most recent acquisitions. Sangoma in 2011 bought U.K.-based VegaStream, which contributed what is now Sangoma’s line of VoIP gateways. Back in 2008, it purchased a company called Paraxip Technologies, which developed IP connectivity software used in IP telephony applications, setting in motion Sangoma’s move into the solutions arena.

In addition to the solutions already mentioned, Sangoma offers Call Progress Analysis software for contact centers, gateways, muxes, transcoding devices, and its traditional line of components.

Sangoma can provide solutions from the cloud, for use on premises, or using a hybrid approach combining the two, says Dickey, adding that each customer has its own preference as to what works best. For example, FreePBX Distro and the SBCs from Sangoma are available both via the cloud and as on-premises solutions, he says, and one of the main use cases of Sangoma’s Express for Lync solution is hybrid. That entails deploying an appliance at the customer premises to provide select Office 365 features, while other features are delivered from the cloud.

Tony Lewis, vice president of Sangoma U.S., adds that the company also has a cloud-based solution called M3, or Multi Machine Management. M3 provides a professional management tool for managing groups and multiple installs of FreePBX or other compatible servers. M3 won the Best of Show award at ITEXPO (News - Alert) 2015 in Miami for the Best Large Enterprise Solution.

"The products and solutions nominated for the ITEXPO Best in Show Awards continue to be cutting-edge, and it's truly exciting to see what new technological developments our exhibitors have for us each year." said Rich Tehrani, TMC (News - Alert) CEO and conference chairman. "We are pleased to honor Sangoma for their efforts and creativity in developing advanced, powerful solutions for the business technology marketplace."

While cloud solutions have seen a lot of lift recently, Dickey notes that the idea of putting communications functionality in the network instead of at the customer premises is something that’s been going on since the great Centrex vs. PBX debate 25 years ago when he was an engineer for Nortel (News - Alert). The good news now, he adds, is the cloud and hosted services are making it possible for a broader swath of companies – both large and small – to have access to the latest and greatest in communications.

Speaking of the latest and greatest in communications, FreePBX already has full support for WebRTC, a real-time communications technology that enables browser-to-browser communications without the need for plugins on the front end and ease of RTC integration for developers on the back end. And speaking of developers, it should be noted that Schmooze has built a large ecosystem around FreePBX, and that the company’s acquisition by Sangoma now brings added strength to the platform by backing it up with the stability of a publicly owned parent company that is more than 30 years old. 




Edited by Dominick Sorrentino