Your industry review for: March 20, 2006

At VoiceCon	Conferences		New at FOSE		Avaya
Cisco	Mitel		Nortel		Siemens
NATD in the News		NATD Services		The Flag – EU & International News

Exhibit and sponsorship opportunities at INNUA’s Global Connect 2006

Cisco and Microsoft collaborate to enhance real-time business communications

‘Best in VoiceCon’ awarded to Avaya and Cisco Systems

Nortel posts $2.21 billion loss

NATD in the News

Veramark adds full suite of new telecom expense management services

Veramark Technologies, Inc. announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Telecom Solution Center to provide a complete end-to-end Telecom Expense Management Solution. Building on Veramark's suite of Telemanagement Solutions, (eCAS and VeraSMART), Veramark now adds a complete new portfolio of telecom expense management services:

Service Inventory Build & Validation
Service Analysis and Recommendations
Wireless Optimization and Ongoing Management
Contract Analysis and Negotiations
Line Verifications
Billing Dispute Resolution
Move, Add and Change Management

Veramark also will begin offering its customers Telecom Solution Center's Knowledge Exchange products, including eLearning courses and Telecom Workshop packages.

Visit www.veramark.com.

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News in Review

At VoiceCon

ACE*COMM introduces ''Network Business Intelligence'' capabilities for enterprise telecom systems

ACE*COMM Corporation, a global provider of network business intelligence and advanced operations support systems (OSS) solutions, introduced the ACE*COMM Network Business Intelligence (NBI) suite for enterprise telecommu-nications environments at the VoiceCon Spring 2006, a leading industry forum for business IP telephony. NBI Enterprise solutions solve telecommunications management problems from a holistic perspective through the integration of network, user and services data. ACE*COMM's NBI solutions are already providing revenue assurance, asset recovery and operational efficiency to service providers in both Europe and North America. ACE*COMM is now gearing its NBI technology and benefits to enterprise communications networks.

Visit www.acecomm.com.

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Conferences

Exhibit and sponsorship opportunities at INNUA’s Global Connect 2006

Companies exhibiting or sponsoring at Global Connect 2006 will gain access to thousands of Nortel telecom and IT professionals and will have the opportunity to promote products and services to a highly qualified audience. These companies gain exposure and increased awareness and expand their prospect list. Nortel professionals look to INNUA year-round for information and education and recognize INNUA’s Global Connect as the top industry event to explore new products and receive training.

Contact Brad Putz: 312.673.5994 or [email protected] for more information.

Visit http://w3.innua.org/gc2006/natd.

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New at FOSE

Interstar's boardless T.38 Fax over IP software attains GSA approval for US Federal fax requirements
Interstar Technologies, the global IP fax leader since 2002, recently showcased its award-winning XMediusFAX boardless T.38 Fax over IP (FoIP) fax server software at the FOSE government IT tradeshow in Washington, DC. The XMediusFAX boardless T.38 FoIP fax server software is a GSA-approved IP fax solution for U.S. Federal govern-ment agencies worldwide. Interstar's fax server solutions are deployed by a number of government agencies, including a US federal legislative branch with 600 offices handling a daily volume of 30,000+ inbound and outbound faxes, and simultaneous fax broadcasts to thousands of outlets. Some other government entities deploying Interstar's fax server solutions include: Sacramento County, American National Red Cross, Canadian Senate, Canadian Red Cross, and Public Safety Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC), as well as key government contractors such as Titan Corporation, TriWest Healthcare Alliance and Boeing.
Visit www.faxserver.com.

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OEM Roundup

Avaya and Cisco

‘Best in VoiceCon’ awarded to Avaya and Cisco Systems

VoiceCon Spring announced Avaya and Cisco Systems as the co-recipients of the Best in VoiceCon award, which recognizes new and exceptionally compelling enterprise voice communications solutions. Both companies received an equal amount of votes, which were submitted by attendees on the VoiceCon Spring 2006 exhibition floor after visiting exhibitors' booths. Avaya was awarded this honor for the Avaya one-X Quick Edition, while Cisco won for the company's submission of the Cisco Unified Communications System. To be eligible for the Best in VoiceCon Award, entrants must be a VoiceCon Spring 2006 exhibitor in good standing. The product or service must be new and officially announced with a published ship/launch date during the week of VoiceCon Spring 2006 or any time since March 2005. Core technology releases, enhancements and upgrades are eligible. The winners were selected from a group of 28 finalists who submitted products for the Best in VoiceCon Award.

Visit www.avaya.com or www.cisco.com.

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Cisco

Cisco and Microsoft collaborate to enhance real-time business communications

Cisco Systems and Microsoft Corp. announced they are working together to provide collaborative real-time capabilities for businesses through the integration of Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 and the open Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with the new SIP-based Cisco Unified Communications system. Cisco and Microsoft have agreed to work together to create a converged solution that will provide desktop IP telephony call control. Cisco's SIP interface allows customers to build solution sets to meet their business needs with flexibility and simplicity. To enable this solution, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator will interoperate with the new Cisco Unified CallManager.

Visit www.cisco.com.

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Mitel

Mitel, University of Ottawa bridging nation’s past to its present
Mitel, the University of Ottawa and other top universities in the country have teamed up to complete a task that has as much to do with history as it is historic itself. Centrally administered at the University of Ottawa under the direction of team leader Dr. Chad Gaffield, the goal of the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure (CCRI), a five-year pan-Canadian initiative, is to build databases from documentary records and manuscript census reports for the period of 1911 to 1951. The periods of 1871 to 1911, as well as 1971 to 2001, have already been placed in databases, leaving a mysterious gap in the unfinished bridge to the nation’s past. To enable the diverse group of colleagues to work together on the project while being geographically scattered, the team called on Mitel to connect them in a fashion that until recently would have been impossible. The Mitel Teleworker Solution, installed in the other universities, are designated as extensions hosted on the University of Ottawa’s resident Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP), allowing the researchers to reach each other from coast-to-coast through easy four-digit extensions. In addition to eliminating long-distance charges, the researchers have full access to the rich features of the Mitel platform, including voicemail, full conferencing, transparent access to corporate voice and data services, and high levels of security. All of this communication from homes takes place over standard broadband Internet connections with security provided through encrypted call control and voice from the remote sets to the teleworker server at the University of Ottawa.

Visit www.mitel.com.

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Nortel

Nortel posts $2.21 billion loss
Telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. posted a preliminary fourth-quarter loss of $2.21 billion, most of it related to the settlement of class-action lawsuits, and warned it could default on $1.3 billion in debt. The Brampton, Ontario-based company announced it would delay filing its 2005 annual report until the end of April. Nortel said it would be unable to meet its debt obligations if they came due earlier than expected, and it is working to get waivers. Nortel also said it and its principal operating unit will restate financial results for 2003, 2004 and the first nine months of 2005, and will have adjustments to periods prior to 2003, mainly due to revenue incorrectly recognized in prior periods that should have been deferred to future periods. The company said it recorded a $2.21 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2005 and had revenue of $2.95 billion, a 14 percent gain from the $2.59 billion in revenue a year earlier. The fourth-quarter loss amounted to 51 cents per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $107 million, or 2 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2004. Nortel said it will postpone its annual shareholders meeting, which was scheduled for May 2, because of its restatement.

Visit www.nortelnetworks.com.

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Siemens

Siemens solutions deliver pre-built certified Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration

Siemens Communications Inc. announced that businesses of all sizes can take advantage of pre-built Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration with Siemens HiPath ProCenter Agile and HiPath ProCenter Standard contact center solutions. The out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM software, coupled with HiPath ProCenter solutions, delivers valuable customer information to contact center and enterprise desktops, enabling faster first-contact resolution of customer calls. The HiPath ProCenter portfolio's pre-built integration helps provide enterprises with lower total cost of deployments by reducing or eliminating the need for manual configuration of the solution on each agent's desktop. The integration is embedded within the contact center's routing workflow for ease of business process integration. Automated screen pops, with vital Microsoft Dynamics CRM customer records, are pushed to the agent desktop to help provide more streamlined contact handling and more personalized customer service.

Visit www.usa.siemens.com/communications.

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The Flag: EU & International Telecom News for IATD Members

Verimatrix secures content for Telecom Italia France IPTV deployment

Verimatrix, the leading provider of content protection and security for the IPTV industry, announced that Telecom Italia France has selected the Verimatrix Content Authority System (VCAS) for its AliceBox triple play service. AliceBox, which offers unlimited calls to France and Italy, a minimum of 6Mbit/s broadband and up to 100 broadcast channels over the DSL network, was officially launched on 1 January 2006 and is available to all subscribers of the Alice Internet broadband service. Working closely with market-leading partner Sagem, provider of the set-top boxes supporting both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC video compression, the VCAS software will protect premium content from TPS and Canal+, providing peace of mind for both operator and content provider. The VCAS software is built on the principles of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and X.509 digital certification to ensure the most robust and secure service possible.

Visit www.verimatrix.com.