Your industry review for: February 20, 2006

 

 

Meet the new members

NATD Charity news

Enterprise

Tom’s Corner

Avaya

Nortel

NATD in the News

NATD Services

The Flag – EU & International News

 

Free pass to VoiceCon 2006, Orlando:  details here

NATD Charities Winter Conference 2006 - $5,000 award winner

Nortel sees $2.47 bln charge to settle lawsuits

 

Meet the new members

New members elected

A record 225 attendees representing 200 companies attended the recent NATD Meeting in Orlando, Florida. The following were elected into membership at the January meeting:

  • AO Communications (Asset Optima, LLC) – Pearl, MS – Richard Wells
  • Exceed Communications Inc – Winnipeg, Canada – Warren Tkachuk
  • Fairway Telecom – Hemet, CA – Steve Valencia
  • Nortech Holding AB – Sweden – Richard Asp
  • Paracon (Div. of ScanSource) – Greenville, SC – Clay Sorensen
  • ReLogisTechs, LLC – Massillon, OH – Mark Farina
  • Siemens Financial Services – Germany – Guenter Hess   (Vendor)
  • Tigerpaw Software Inc – Bellevue, NE – Dave Foxall   (Vendor)
  • tip | Capital (Technology Invest Partners, LLC) – Auburn Hills, MI – Pat Callahan  (Vendor)
  • VoiceTouch, Inc – Ontario, Canada – Alan Montgomery
  • Xtel Distribution – Brookville, FL – Scott Germak

 

Tigerpaw Software, Inc.

Tigerpaw Software, Inc. is a leading developer of end-to-end CRM software for small and midsize companies. The award-winning Tigerpaw CRM+ software suite empowers thousands of businesses to manage and automate their marketing, sales, service and inventory functions. While CRM+ is used in many industries, it is generally accepted as the leading service business software for telecom resellers, VAR's, and interconnects. Tigerpaw was founded in 1984 and is owned and operated by CEO Dave Foxall, President Linda Foxall, Vice President James Foxall and CFO Chris Wright.

Visit www.tigerpawsoftware.com.

 

Glenn Antonucci

Tigerpaw Software, Inc.

tel: 402.592.4544 x3118

fax: 402.592.7317

[email protected]

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NATD in the News

ScanSource makes Forbes’ “Best Big Companies” list for second straight year

ScanSource, Inc., a leading international value-added distributor of specialty technology products, has been named to Forbes Magazine's Platinum 400, Best Big Companies in America list for 2006. Based on its five-year total return of 18.7% as computed by Forbes, ScanSource ranked 6th out of all technology companies and number 203 overall. Forbes Magazine develops its Forbes Platinum 400 list by first starting with companies having more than $1 billion in revenue and then evaluating these companies' sales and earnings growth over five years and the last 12 months. The companies are ranked within 26 different industries based on governance, earnings quality and financial soundness.

Visit www.scansource.com.

 

ASCDI Chair attends NATD Meeting

As convergence continues, synergies grow between dealer groups

ASCDI Chairman Evan Windholz of Frontier Computer Corporation attended the North American Association of Telecommunication Dealers (NATD) Meeting in Orlando, FL, in late January in search of finding synergies between the two groups. Windholz was particularly interested in NATD’s expanding involvement with the Cisco product line, as well as other products typically considered ‘data.’ “As telecom networking and data networking technologies converge, it makes sense for the NATD and ASCDI leadership to look for ways to work together and to develop meaningful programming for both memberships,” said Windholz.

 

The change in focus from used to new in telecom is another shared experience. The two groups began over twenty years ago, both primarily consisting of companies selling used technology products: computers in the case of ASCDI and telephony gear in the case of NATD. Increasingly, however, many NATD members have become authorized dealers of new complete platforms and/or accessories, even while continuing to have a secondary market business. As a result the NATD has been strengthening its direct relation-ships with OEMs such as Avaya and Cisco. This shift occurred in the data world some years earlier, so that the ASCDI’s migration path may have much to offer the NATD as telecom evolves to a more software based industry.

Visit www.ascdi.com.

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NATD Charity news

NATD Charities Winter Conference 2006 - $5,000 award winner

American Legion Auxiliary Unit 270; McLean, Virginia

No Soldier Left in Need Project

This charitable project works with our wounded and injured military with three types of injuries: amputees, sight impairments and head trauma. These are the men and women who would most likely benefit the most from volunteer agency assistance…with the hope that the group remains small enough that the assistance will prove to be substantial to all involved.

 

The NATD Charities donation will allow the program to continue providing tutorial work to teach Braille via computer, in addition to working with learning devices from the Columbia Light-house for the Blind.  Other services provided to our wounded servicemen via this award-winning charity founded by The American Legion Auxilary:

 

Home visitation is made by volunteers from the Legion, with all costs involved in transportation being paid by the volunteers. These home visits bring to the veteran counseling, rehabilitation and training that simply is not being sufficiently supplied by the VA.  One hundred percent of the donations received for this project are given to the disabled veterans, with all administrative costs paid by the American Legion or donated.  The assistance provided depends on the needs that are not being met by the VA as each wounded veteran is addressed on a unique basis.

 

Denny McBroom

Chairperson

NATD Charities

 

Thank you to the following companies who sponsored holes at the NATD Charity Golf Tournament, held during the Winter NATD membership meeting:

ATL Enterprises Inc.; BSL Telephone Services Inc.; Boyle & Voss, P.A.; CADAC, Inc.; Dan-Mar Components Inc.; Daycom Systems Inc.; Fonesys Communications Inc.; Hi-Line Supply Inc.; HSI, Inc.; Mastor Telecom; Metroline, Inc.; NTTN; Platinum; Protech Communications Inc.; Refurb Supplies; Simpson Telecom Group; South Supply, LLC; T & T Communications Inc.; Tech-Pack, Inc.; Teleswitch Telecommunications; Tele/Systems Inventory Mgt. Inc.; T.R.C.A.; Telecom Source Inc.; Telpro, Inc.; Voda One Corp.; Williams Telecommunications Corp.

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News in Review

Enterprise

Quintum announces new Tenor AF VoIP Gateway for SMBs

Quintum Technologies, a leading innovator in VoIP technologies, announced their new Tenor AF switch, designed for 8 analog lines in both station side and trunk side configurations. The new Tenor AF supports up to 8 simultaneous VoIP calls. It has a smaller footprint than the current Tenor AS and offers up to twice as much capacity. More importantly, it has a significantly smaller footprint than the Tenor AX model that currently supports 8 VoIP calls. The Tenor AF, designed for small to medium sized enterprises, can intelligently route calls between the VoIP, a traditional PBX/analog phone or the PSTN.  With its universal dial plan, the Tenor AF can support both public and unique dialing requirements.

Visit www.quintum.com.

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Tom’s Corner: Understanding technology better with Tom Cross

SOAP & SALT spice up VoIP

Scripting languages often used with ASP include VBScript, Jscript and JavaScript. SALT-Speech Applications Language Tags adds voice commands to web applications.  SALT is an extended set of markup (meta) tags based on XML-eXtensible Markup Language though compatible with HTML-Hyper-Text Markup Language and others. Here are some examples of Voice-based WEB applications including Yellow Page access driven by PDA-Personal Digital Assistants and cellular technology.  SOAP-Simple Open Access Protocol defines how to package/ format a database request (OLAP) as an XML string (bits of data) that can be transported via HTTP-Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (Layer 5-7).  SALT consists of a series of software applications meta-tags that are captured, interpreted and responds to audio-voice and DTMF-Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (touch tone) input.

 

SALT will use RPC-Remote Procedure Calls also known as an API-Applications Programming Interface to activate database applications.  An example would be to use voice commands to retrieve benefits information (shown here).  An RPC is a software programming function that allows one software program to activate (call function) another software program.  An RPC can start a software program to begin (dial a modem), retrieve information or other function.  RPCs are used to allow third-party programmers to start functions (dial phone) without giving their access to source code (human readable).  RPCs simplify integration of one computer program with another.

The animated TECH-Tip tutorial is available at http://www.techtionary.com.

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OEM Roundup

Avaya Developer

NICE and Avaya extend alliance to deliver IP-based contact center solutions

NICE Systems, a leading global provider of advanced solutions that enable organizations to extract Insight from Interactions to drive perfor-mance, and Avaya Inc. announced that they have signed an agreement that extends their scope of collaboration to deliver the benefits of IP contact centers to businesses. Building on the success of its existing partnership and a shared vision for IP-based contact centers, the extended alliance will include developing a joint offering of a suite of applications, working on strategic marketing initiatives and increasing resources to leverage shared business opportunities. The joint solution provides quality monitoring, branch recording, centralized storage, liability and interaction analytics. It is an integral part of NICE's unified product architecture, and leverages the Communi-cation Manager API of Avaya Applications Enable-ment Services (AES), a suite of Web services that provides rich integration with Avaya's converged communications applications.

Visit www.avaya.com or www.nice.com.

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Nortel

Nortel enables new rural market SIP access solutions
Nortel is helping rural carriers tap into the lucrative triple play services market by enabling new SIP fiber to the home (FTTH) and converged IP access solutions that help carriers deliver broadband data, video and a rich set of voice features to
residential and business customers. These solutions are enabled by Nortel's DMS-10 softswitch interoperating with products from Allied Telesyn and Pannaway Technologies. This gives rural carriers access to a new portfolio of revenue-generating services such as VoIP with E 911 lifeline calling, enhanced IP video and video on demand. Allied Telesyn's iMG600 intelligent Multiservice Gateway portfolio and Pannaway's Personal Branch Gateway (PBG) and Broadband Access Switch (BAS) successfully completed interoperability testing with Nortel's SIP-enabled DMS-10.

Visit www.nortel.com.

 

Nortel sees $2.47 bln charge to settle lawsuits

Nortel Networks Corp. said it has agreed in principle to pay $2.47 billion to settle two class-action lawsuits stemming from an accounting scandal that has rocked the company. Nortel said it wanted a settlement so that it could focus on rebuilding its business. It was hit with the lawsuits from shareholders who said they lost money because Nortel revised its financial outlook in 2001 and needed to restate financial results from 2001 through 2003 to correct bookkeeping errors. Under the proposed deal, Nortel will pay $575 million in cash from its reserves and issue 628.7 million of its common shares, or 14.5 percent of its current equity. It sees a total charge of $2.47 billion, or 57 cents a share. The settlement will also include one-half of any money Nortel recovers in its lawsuits against senior officers fired in connection with the accounting debacle.

Visit www.nortelnetworks.com.

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The Flag:  EU & International Telecom News for IATD Members

Voyages answers wilderness challenge with Mitel IP Telephony
Mitel announced that Voyages has successfully implemented Mitel IP Telephony solutions at several of their resorts in the Red Centre of Australia. Voyages is an Australian company providing experience-based holidays in spectacular wilderness locations, including the Red Centre, Queensland’s Outback and the Great Barrier Reef, the Kimberley Region of Western Australia and Tasmania’s Central Highlands. Ericom, a Mitel accredited Gold Partner, designed the voice solutions for the Voyages resorts at Kings Canyon and Ayers Rock. Utilizing the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) at each resort, voice and data communications are provided by a combination of Telstra Private IP services, as well as radio and satellite based services. Installation and onsite support services for these remote resorts are provided by Telstra Business Systems. Voyages Ayers Rock Resort is the largest tourist resort in Australia, with more than 2500 traditional telephone handsets already in place. The challenge of extending a large existing environ-ment was solved by integrating a Mitel 3300 ICP solution with the existing legacy phone system.
Visit www.mitel.com or www.ericom.com.au.

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NATD Charity: Give a gift that really matters!

 

NATD Charities Winter Conference 2006 - $5,000 award winner:

American Legion Auxiliary Unit 270

McLean, Virginia

No Soldier Left in Need Project

This charitable project works with our wounded and injured military with three types of injuries: amputees, sight impairments and head trauma. These are the men and women who would most likely benefit the most from volunteer agency assistance…with the hope that the group remains small enough that the assistance will prove to be substantial to all involved.

 

NATD Charities: Vets Are 2006 Focus

Help us donate 1,000,000 miles to help vets get needed medical care or help veteran’s families with medically related travel needs. Please contact Denny McBroom [email protected] to document your mile pledge. Please visit Hero Miles at http://www.fisherhouse.org/programs/heroMiles.shtml

 

Please visit our newly revamped page at http://www.natd.com/public/committees/charitycommittee.asp

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Sponsors

 

Plug Into Profit! –

Monitoring, Maintenance, Service and more for Any PBX & Any network device!
OutPost Sentinel provides an integrated hardware and software solution that delivers everything necessary to remotely access, efficiently manage and proactively monitor your customer’s PBX as well as any other console device such as routers, switches, frame relays etc. SAM (Sentinel Alarm Manager) provides a powerful and flexible centralized, scalable reporting, alarm monitoring and automated call escalation procedures for all phone systems, servers and networking equipment. To see how you can get this comprehensive, leading technology to work for you and your customers email: [email protected] or call 1-877-868-8767. www.pbxmonitor.com

 


Check out the Next Generation of Quintum MultiPath Tenors!
Quintum Tenor MultiPath Switches support both H.323 and SIP!  Tenors assure QoS through MID-CALL transparent failover switching between IP and public phone network.  Unique design makes it easy to install in any existing network. Ranked #3 in NJ Technology Fast 50 and #2 in market share of low density gateways. Rated UP TO SPEC by Tolly. Read white papers, case studies and application notes at: http://www.quintum.com
 


Ship with CTS- Now a member of World Cargo Alliance
Computer Transportation Services, Ltd. is now a member of World Cargo Alliance, Inc.  WCA is the world’s largest network of independent air and ocean forwarders in the world and was established in 1998 with no freight forwarders in ownership, thus preserving group neutrality and ensuring equal benefits for all members. Visit our innovative Ballpark Rates - http://www.ballparkrates.com, the instant online transportation rating program for blanket-wrap trucking, economy motor freight and time definite air freight services. Call 1-800-831-0030 or email Todd Partridge, [email protected] for more information.
 

 

 

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