NATD in the news
Member viewpoint
Avaya
Conferences
Market
Mitel
Nortel
Resellers
SAP
Training

NATD in the news

XETA’s UC system saves money, enhances instruction for Tulsa Tech
XETA Technologies announced that it will deploy its largest Nortel/Microsoft unified communications (UC) platform to date at Tulsa Technology Center, the oldest and largest career and technology education center in Oklahoma. The platform is expected to enhance student-teacher communication while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school. XETA deployed Nortel’s cutting-edge CS1000 VoIP platform in August 2007 to converge phone and Internet access into a single system. Now XETA will integrate Tulsa Tech’s e-mail network into the system, adding virtual communication capabilities for audio, video and web conferencing as well as a variety of other features. The new UC platform will connect the school’s approximately 700 staff members and 3,000 students through a Microsoft program, Sharepoint, allowing teachers to conduct class virtually with actively enrolled students worldwide. A feature called Presence will show teachers whether a student is “attending” class regardless of the student’s physical location as long as he or she is logged on to the school’s Sharepoint website.
Visit www.xeta.com.
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Member viewpoint

Premises to Keep
As the VoIP market continues to evolve, service providers face a new set of challenges to:

• drive down costs
• ensure the scalability necessary to support business growth
• fulfill customer expectations in terms of performance and functionality
• differentiate themselves from the competition

A service provider's choice of customer premises equipment (CPE) plays a critical role in addressing these multiple challenges and can have a major impact on a wide range of issues that concern VoIP customers - including survivability, support for existing analog devices, and PSTN connectivity. CPE characteristics can also have a substantial impact on installation and support costs.  
 
The benefits of selecting the appropriate CPE are many, and can impact a service providers’ ability to compete and optimize operating margins.  Key benefits are greater customer satisfaction and retention; lower equipment and installation costs; lower operating costs; competitive differentiation; and the ability to grow revenue and profits.  Quintum Technologies’ whitepaper shows how service providers can win business and sustain profits over the long term, and build their overall brand by delivering a superior customer experience at a better price. The whitepaper is available at: http://www.quintum.com/files/prod_lit/PremisesTo_Keep.pdf.

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Avaya

Edgewater Networks solution now rated “Avaya Compliant”
Edgewater Networks, Inc. announced that its EdgeMarc VoIP VPN Network Services Gateways are compliant with key IP telephony solutions from Avaya. The EdgeMarc VoIP VPN Network Services Gateway successfully completed compliance testing with Avaya Communication Manager release 4.0 and Avaya IP Office release 4.1.9.  The EdgeMarc VoIP VPN solution helps businesses simplify office connectivity, enable secure, high-quality voice and reduce problem resolution times through remote monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities. The VoIP VPN appliance includes an all-in-one access gateway with T1 CSU/DSU or Ethernet WAN, IPSec VPNs, stateful packet inspection firewall, VoIP prioritization, traffic shaping, passive call quality monitoring and managed Ethernet switch. Edgewater Networks, Inc. is a member of the Avaya DevConnect program - an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company’s investment in its network.
Visit www.avaya.com/devconnect or www.edgewaternetworks.com.

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Conferences

ACUTA Conference addresses challenges of emerging technologies on today’s campuses
With speakers representing 26 different colleges and universities, this year’s Annual Conference of ACUTA, the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education, will once again be an extravaganza of expertise sharing. The 2008 conference, July 13-17 in Las Vegas, is the 37th for ACUTA. In addition to the dozens of campus professionals sharing their knowledge, successes and challenges in educational sessions, the conference will feature a strong lineup of industry expert speakers. Topics range from emergency communications to unified messaging to VoIP and financial issues. Keynote speaker for the event is creative visionary and motivational futurist Warren Arbogast, who will focus on the future of the IT service organization and explore how colleges and universities can get the most out of their information communications technology investments.
Visit www.acuta.org.
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Market

Network Hardware Resale releases findings of secondary market survey
Network Hardware Resale (NHR) released the results of a market survey of 400 North American companies that purchased refurbished network equipment from NHR or other secondary market equipment providers. The majority of those surveyed represent businesses with an excess of $100 million in revenue and more than 1,000 employees. The top five reasons for purchasing secondary equipment cited by respondents are significant savings over OEM pricing, responsiveness, product availability as well as rapid delivery and warranties. As a result, nearly 80 percent of those surveyed buy from the secondary channel up to 10 times a year. Nearly 80 percent of companies polled deploy refurbished network equipment in production environments while 66 percent fuel network expansions with used gear. Network sparing, disaster recovery and testing were other top uses cited by the survey respondents. Additionally, more than a third of those surveyed revealed they only cover core equipment under Cisco's SMARTnet support while nearly 40 percent expressed interest in finding more affordable, flexible technical services for remote offices and edge routers.
Visit www.networkhardware.com.
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Mitel

Mitel signs on as Founding Reporter of The Climate Registry
Mitel has become a Founding Reporter of The Climate Registry by being the first provider of enterprise communications solutions to join the organization. The Climate Registry is a non-profit organization established to measure and publicly report greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in a common, accurate, and transparent manner consistent across industry sectors and borders. Thirty-nine U.S. states, six Canadian provinces, three Native American tribes, eight Mexican states and the District of Columbia are the founders of the organization. A forerunner in the unified communications industry, Mitel has demonstrated environmental stewardship on several fronts by voluntarily committing to measure, independently verify and publicly report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on an annual basis utilizing The Climate Registry General Reporting Protocol. The protocol is based on the internationally recognized GHG measurement standards of the World Resources Institute and World Business Council on Sustainability.
Visit www.mitel.com or www.theclimateregistry.org.
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Nortel

Nortel Government Solutions selects NetIQ
NetIQ announced its integral role in what is expected to be one of the largest VoIP deployments in the world. As part of a 10-year contract awarded to Nortel Government Solutions by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), NetIQ will provide best-of-breed VoIP network diagnostics, monitoring and professional services for day-to-day operations and management. “Government agencies around the world trust Nortel to provide comprehensive communication solutions and IP telephony is no exception,” said Chuck Saffell, chief executive officer, Nortel Government Solutions. “Proven management solutions are essential in optimizing the SSA VoIP deployment to meet service demands and reduce communication costs over time.” NetIQ will provide the following to support the SSA implementation: NetIQ AppManager for VoIP; NetIQ Vivinet Assessor; and NetIQ Vivinet Diagnostics.
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Resellers

Telanetix's AccessLine division expands channel program
Telanetix, Inc. announced that it has expanded its channel program and market reach through an agreement with OneCall, a Boston-based unified communications solutions provider focused on the real estate and financial services markets. OneCall will sell the VoIP services of the AccessLine division of Telanetix under a channel agreement that opens OneCall’s more than 7,000 real-estate agent customer base to the industry-leading business phone service and support of AccessLine's VoIP Trunking services. "Telanetix is dedicated to providing best-in-class communications solutions to the SMB market, and the opportunity to partner with an industry-leading channel partner in this space, such as OneCall, is a perfect fit,” noted Tom Szabo, chairman and CEO of Telanetix. “OneCall’s selection of our VoIP services as an addition to their portfolio is an extremely attractive way for us to move rapidly to a strong presence in one of the key vertical markets of the SMB marketplace.”
Visit www.telanetix.com or www.makejustonecall.com.
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SAP

AMC Technology achieves certification from SAP  
AMC Technology, LLC announced that seven additional connectors for its MCIS 5.2 product recently achieved “Certified for SAP NetWeaver” status from SAP AG for the interaction center capabilities integrated with the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application.  The recently certified connectors include six connectors that integrate with SAP CRM via the SAP integrated communications interface: AMC Telephony Connector for Cisco ICM 5.2; AMC Telephony Connector for Envox CT Connect 5.2; AMC Telephony Connector for AES 5.2; AMC Telephony Connector for AIC 5.2; AMC Telephony Connector for Nortel CCT 5.2 and AMC MCIS WebChat 5.2. Also certified is the AMC MCIS Telephony Channel 5.2 connector that integrates with SAP CRM via the SAPphone interface. This ongoing commitment to achieving certified integration with SAP solutions means that AMC’s Connectors provide seamless integration across a variety of CTI platforms, giving customers strong choices for their CRM and call center integration needs.
Visit www.amctechnology.com.
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Training

Free training for channel partners
TECHtionary.com announced a new program to help channel partners (independent, agents, VARs, dealers, brokers, interconnect) grasp new technologies faster and increase revenues faster.  These free courses “give access to channel partners who are time-constrained, mobility-driven and performance-pressured in today’s competitive business world.  Channel professionals can also learn on the go and anytime they want to whether waiting at the airport or a customer’s office, driving down the street or riding on the bus/train/plane,” Tom Cross said.  Courses are free for agents of TECHtionary-TBI-Telecom Brokerage Inc. where agents not only receive free training but commissions on network services delivered to customers. There is no limit to the number of employees who can attend the classes though each employee must be registered with TBI.  TBI-Telecom Brokerage Inc, is one of the largest master agencies in the U.S. TBI represents all of the leading network services providers with a complete set of Local, LD, Internet, Data and advanced telephony SIP products. 
Visit www.techtionary.com or http://www.tbicom.com/tbiu/.

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