News Reviews 8/28/06

Some interesting stories in the new over the past few days -

Dell’Oro Group Reports IP Telephone Sales Top $500 Million in the Second Quarter

Cisco Leaps Forward in Overall PBX Market on Record IP Telephone Sales

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – August 22, 2006 – A recently published report from Dell'Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, reveals that IP Telephone market posted strong results in the second quarter of 2006, growing 42 percent year-over-year to reach over $500 million.

The report shows that Cisco’s strong sales of over 1 million IP telephones in the quarter—phones that are often sold in combination with IP PBXs—not only widened its lead in the IP PBX market, but also enabled Cisco to climb two places in the total PBX market.

“IP Telephony is currently driving PBX market sales as a result of enterprises increasingly adopting Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and retiring their traditional PBX systems,” commented Steve Raab, Director of IP Telephony Research at Dell’Oro Group. “As a major proponent of IP Telephony, Cisco is gaining PBX market share in all major geographic markets around the globe—in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific and rest of the world— and challenging incumbent vendors, Avaya and Nortel, for market leadership,” Raab added.

I'm not sure I'd agree that Cisco has 40% of the phones in the market, but perhaps in the enterprise space only. Certainly a report Cisco would like, but it seems to be skewed a bit.

An interesting post from Jan in Malaysia, a well know Skype blogger

Market for blocking Skype is probably as big (if not bigger) to enable Skype.
Yep, clearly the market for blocking Skype / p2p is probably as big (if not bigger) to enable Skype, p2p. For example Lynanda CS, an independent European IT solutions provider, found yet another Way to Block Skype, so even you are a citizen of the free world, before you buy a WIFI SIP or Skype phone, do check with your hotspot- provider if it will be allowed (any time and all the time) on their hot spot network. If you don’t have the budget for fancy WIFI-phones, well a use on of the many USB flash drives to get to work.

And on the heels of Jan's post, I noticed this -

Mysterious firm offers “extra help” with blocked sites

An Asian organisation operating under the brand 'HeyU' is offering internet users in the UAE what it terms “a little extra help” accessing blocked websites such as Skype.com, whilst claiming that a British firm is working with the UAE authorities to completely block VoIP traffic

Here's more, but unclear whether it's the same company

Lynanda Finds a Way to Block Skype
Lynanda CS, an independent European IT solutions provider, announced a new methodology to detect and block Skype’s traffic. As the increasing use of Skype in corporate environments is raising concerns among security administrators, such technology could see notable commercial application.
PARIS, Aug 26, 2006 --The use of Skype application is constantly increasing in corporate environments and is having a dramatic impact on carriers’ revenue streams. But perhaps more importantly, the very nature of Skype traffic is raising security concerns as Skype’s protocol is proprietary and acts as a complete black box. Security administrators are currently unable to monitor and secure it efficiently.
Skype uses a peer-to-peer technology and several obfuscation techniques, making it challenging for network operators to identify associated traffic. Skype encrypts data transmitted over the Internet between peers and is particularly gifted when it comes to circumvent security limitations. Entering via uncommon channels like https (Web) port, Skype is usually very successful at passing corporate firewalls. Furthermore, Skype designers are making the software even more furtive at every new version.

I've written quite a bit abuot the security threat Skype canpose to the enterprise network. Interesting to see a rise in demand for ways to block it.

Speaking of Skype, they're tightening their relationship with Global IP Sound.

GIPS And Skype To Bring Voice Quality To VOIP-Enabled Hardware Devices

Global IP Sound (GIPS), has extended its relationship with Skype. This relationship will enable hardware manufacturers the ability to offer Skype-compatible IP phones. These hardware solutions will utilize GIPS technology, specifically, GIPS Voice Engine Embedded.

The two companies have enjoyed a long, productive relationship, beginning with Skype’s licensing of GIPS VoiceEngine PC in the summer of 2003. The result was the first PC-to-PC VoIP deployment to reach critical mass, allowing at first hundreds and then millions of users to connect and make free, high-quality phone calls.

GIPS produces what is arguably the best codec available for VoIP services today.

Open source is becoming more and more a part of the enterprise service suite. Digium is making serious moves towards enterprise class respectability and market penetration.

Digium points Asterisk toward enterprise VoIP
Perched on a chair above the VoiceCon show floor, in a dimly lit loft just right for quiet chats, Digium's vice president of product management and marketing was surprised by the vantage point. "Wow, I never knew this place existed," Bill Miller said.
The position above the crowd pretty much represents where Digium is sitting today. The seven-year-old original maker and primary developer of open source PBX, Asterisk, has been profitable since 2002. And the company just received a whopping $13.8 million cash infusion from Matrix Partners, a high-profile venture capital firm that funded open source company JBoss (which was recently acquired by open source Red Hat).

Here's a study from Minacom Labs that claims some pretty significan VoIP service improvements, counter to some other recent studies

New Study Claims VoIP Quality Improvements
Minacom Labs today will release a study that claims VoIP phone service in North America has significantly improved during the past year, in contrast to a recent study by another VoIP testing outfit, Brix Networks, which claimed the opposite.
Minacom found just one out of 50 VoIP calls to be of unacceptable. Quality. While Minacom said this was in stark contrast to Brix’s study, it could also be argued that even a single unacceptable call in every 50 means the technology is not yet enterprise ready.

VoIP in healthcare. This story caught my eye partly because I have an old friend and co-worker in the IT group at eTelecare. They're a big healthcare call center operation

NICE Provides VoIP Recording Solutions for eTelecare
When contact center outsourcer eTelecare decided they were ready to utilize VoIP recording for their customer interactions, they chose NICE Systems solutions and recognized improvements in customer satisfaction levels and increased quality management across their US and Philippines sites, a new case study shows.

NICE Systems (News - Alert)
VoIP Recording solutions provide eTelecare with the ability to easily distribute information across their locations as well as manage recordings without having to visit specific sites.

The case study noted eTelecare's need to record customer interactions for their clients due to various reasons, and so a switch to a solution that could support their VoIP needs was essential.