Just some very quick news briefs that caught my eye today

Take Action: New Gear From Actiontec Gets VoIP Down to Business
By Paula Bernier
Posted on: 11/01/2006

About 98 percent of businesses in the United States are SMBs, and less than 10 percent of those businesses today use VoIP. But a little company called Actiontec Electronics Inc. is trying to change that by educating the SMB set on the benefits of VoIP and by offering some neat new PBX gateways designed for small-scale applications based specifically on Skype services.

Actiontec’s VoSKY Exchange 9040 and 9080, new versions of its Skype PBX gateway for SMBs, hit the street just last month. The stackable devices add four or eight outgoing Skype lines to the office PBX, allowing users to make and receive free and low-cost long-distance and international phone calls over Skype.

Mostly this caught my eye because I'm working with some of the Actiontec gear in testing right now. More on that here.

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The New York Times taps Nortel to build secure VoIP net
New headquarters, opening in 2007, will support more than 3,000 IP phones, unified messaging and built-in LAN security.
By Phil Hochmuth, Network World, 10/31/06

The New York Times is changing its address, with a moved planned for next spring to a new state-of-the-art facility in Times Square. Along with glass-and-steel architecture, desks without coffee stains and crumbs in the keyboards, the 3,500 or so Times employees plan to move to an all IP data, voice and video network, humming along on a single Nortel-built infrastructure.

While vacating its 43rd Street headquarters, which the paper has occupied since 1913, the company is leaving a legacy voice/data network built on Avaya Definity PBXs and phones, and Cisco switches and routers. The network at the new building will consist of Nortel gear from the desktop LAN ports to the data center and LAN core. The single-vendor net will provide greater security, easier management and more rich-media capabilities for users, Times IT technologists say.

Good for Nortel. They've had some struggles as a company and many of us wonder how they're going to really do. Recent talks coming from their HQ haven't done much to strengthen my optimism, but on the street, where the competition is, they're still doing well. Interesting to see open public note that the Times is abandoning incumbent vendors Avaya and Cisco by name in favor of Nortel. To me that says those two vendors really blew it on their sales efforts. Losing a high visibility customer like this one is a big loss.

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AudioCodes, BroadSoft Team Up on VoIP Access

Voice-over-packet-technologies provider AudioCodes and voice-over-Internet-protocol application-software provider BroadSoft will team up on pre-integrated access solutions for hosted VoIP applications.

The companies said AudioCodes will join BroadSoft and a consortium of other customer-premises-equipment and access-equipment vendors “to build solutions that integrate equipment with hosted applications to simplify the integration challenges service providers face when deploying new services.”

I think AudioCodes bears close watching. I have yet to find time to post about my conversation with Alan Percy, their Director of Business Development. AudioCodes is a leader in transcoding technologies, crucial to VoIP and unified communications. Further, I'm confident we'll be seeing them bringing us "videocodes" as advances in video technologies continue.

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Sipera Adds Shared Technologies as Reseller of VoIP Security Solutions

RICHARDSON, Texas, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Sipera Systems, the leader in pure security for VoIP, mobile and multimedia communications, today announced that Shared Technologies will resell Sipera IPCS products as part of its product portfolio. A recognized industry leader in enterprise converged communications solutions, Shared Technologies has extensive experience in enterprise VoIP deployments, with security as a top priority. By partnering with Sipera, Shared Technologies has enhanced its ability to provide reliable and secure unified communications solutions tailored to its customers' needs.

"As enterprises deploy VoIP for cost-savings and integrated IP communications benefits, it is essential that security be part of the total package. In reviewing the Sipera IPCS products, we found that they intelligently and proactively protect against DoS/DDoS floods, fuzzing, stealth and VoIP spam in real-time," said Jeff Graham, Chief Technology Officer at Shared Technologies. "Our company prides itself on its relationship with its employees, customers and partners like Sipera."

Sipera Systems offers some compelling product solutions in VoIP, multimedia and instant messaging. I think they're a company with a strong vision that's growing, and they're also well worth keeping an eye on.


Technorati Tags: Actiontec, VoSky Exchange, Nortel, New York Times, AidioCodes, Broadsoft, Sipera Systems