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ANNUAL EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
JUNE 24 - 26, 2009
Park Hotel Amsterdam - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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NATD conference
NATD in the news
Breaking news
At ITEXPO
Avaya
Book review
Financing and leasing
Forecast
SMB
Training
UC

NATD conference

New leadership
The NATD elected Melody McKay of Telpro as President. McKay saluted outgoing President John Negri’s leadership. McKay pledged a program of innovation and to make NATD work hard for the members in challenging times. McKay said that she is a good listener and that her administration will strive to meet the needs of the membership.

Negri era closes on high note
Executive Director Joe Marion hands off a recognition award to John Negri. The NATD Board and membership honored outgoing President John Negri with a special award, recognizing an era of change, growth and achievement. Under Negri, the NATD became an international organization and found ways to represent a diversity of dealer business models.

NATD Charity backs South Florida MS Chapter
Denny McBroom of Telpro awarded the South Florida Chapter of the National MS Society a check for $5000 on behalf of NATD Charities. Pete Ensing of Ensing Inc. presented his daughter, Jodie Guarasci, who has found the MS Society to be a great help to her as she has confronted MS.

Strong showing at show
The 2009 NATD Conference was well attended.  The session was held in the San Diego Hard Rock Hotel, where attendees enjoyed informative seminars and breakout groups. NATD Vendor Members and event sponsors exhibited services in the main meeting room.

A love affair
“My name is Tom Ortbal and I love this business.” ^Back To Top

NATD in the news

Catalyst Telecom VoIP assessments greatly increase installation success rate
Catalyst Telecom, a sales unit of ScanSource, Inc. and value-added distributor of voice, video and data convergence solutions, has realized a significant success rate for its customers that have taken advantage of the company’s VoIP assessment services prior to implementing VoIP solutions for their end-user customers. By performing a VoIP assessment, resellers are able to fully plan and test all components of their customers’ solutions – from ensuring all parts meet manufacturers’ requirements and validating quality of service to analyzing metrics and verifying equipment.  A VoIP assessment is a reseller’s first line of defense in preventing systematic and quality issues before the solution is installed, reducing project overruns and post-production troubleshooting costs.  A majority of assessments are performed remotely, allowing the reseller to set up test agents and gather on-site data when necessary. Catalyst Telecom offers three levels of VoIP Assessments to meet a variety of budgets – Simple, Standard and Complete – all of which bring a high level of value and personalized service. 
Visit www.catalysttelecom.com.
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Breaking news

Vertical announces SBX IP 320
Vertical Communications, provider of telephony systems and applications, announced the SBX IP 320, Release 2.5. Developed in partnership with LG-Nortel, it is a cost-effective VoIP solution designed specifically for small office applications including small businesses and branch offices of larger enterprises.  The SBX IP 320 is designed along the lines of a traditional key telephone system (KTS) but with VoIP and application capabilities. The system currently has a maximum 12x32 (lines by stations) configuration and supports a variety of endpoints including VoIP, digital and analog station sets as well as softphones. The insertion of a single common control card to the KSU and exercise of a simple administrative option add VoIP capability for networking and support for IP phones and SIP trunking. In a full IP configuration systems can be networked via broadband access circuits (e.g. DSL, T1 and FT1) and over a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in consideration of quality of service (QoS) and security issues. Vertical has announced plans to increase the scale to 48 stations and offer a T1/PRI trunk card as early as June. In a VoIP configuration the SBX IP 320 supports up to 32 IP telephones as well as SIP trunk integration, thereby yielding potentially significant network cost-savings.
Visit www.vertical.com.
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At ITEXPO

snom unveils limited snow edition snom 3xx series VoIP phones
snom Technology AG announced the debut of a special line of 3xx series phones at ITEXPO East 2009. The snom snow edition features the snom 300, 320, 360 and 370 in an elegant pure white rather than the traditional black color and is only available through the first half of this year. The snom snow edition features the industry's premier, business-class, open, standards-based SIP VoIP phones with global executive design and styling, a large high-resolution display screen, programmable function keys and advanced business calling features. Since the company's inception in 1996, snom has been a leading proponent of open standards and is interoperable with the broadest array of IP telephony platforms. snom 3xx series phones offer the most comprehensive VoIP security including support for TLS and SRTP protocols and VPN capabilities. The SIP telephones can support several audio devices simultaneously, such as the handset, headset and hands-free and Power over Ethernet (PoE).
Visit www.snom.com.
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Avaya

Globitel solution now rated "Avaya Compliant"
Globitel announced that its Call Recording and Quality Monitoring System (SpeechLog) is compliant with key IP telephony and contact center solutions from Avaya. SpeechLog helps businesses deploy optimized Quality Assurance techniques to better control and improve the Quality of Service offered to its customer base in addition to recording Agent/Client interactions for any liability purposes. The application now is compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya Communication Manager 5.1; Avaya Application Enablement Services 4.2; Avaya SIP Enablement Services 5.0; Avaya 46xxSW IP Telephone; and Avaya 96xxSW Telephone. Globitel 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.globitel.com.
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Book review

Passive Optical Networks: Principles and Practice
This book is organized into seven chapters, the first two of which comprise a reasonably good introduction and a review of PON architectures, both written by Cedric Lam. Chapter 3 is an in depth exploration of PON optical technologies. Chapter 4 is a long, deep dive into transceiver technology. Chapter 5 is a relatively short discussion of ranging and dynamic bandwidth allocation and Chapter 6 is a short examination of relevant protection architectures. The final Chapter 7 is a discussion of optical characterization, diagnosis and performance monitoring. The book features a detailed table of contents and a reasonably complete index, both of which are important in a technical book of this sort. Also importantly, throughout the book there are a good number of figures and tables, all of which are relevant and well done.

Altogether, Passive Optical Networks is a good piece of work. It covers the relatively narrow subject well, deeply and authoritatively. It is not, however, an easy read – even for a serious student, professional engineer or technically astute manager or other telecom professional. The writing is choppy and stylistically lacking. The book is beneficial if you have a serious need to know about Passive Optical Networks (the technologies and standards) at a fairly technical level.

Authors: Cedric Lam, et al
Publisher: Academic Press (October 2007)
ISBN-10: 0123738539
ISBN-13: 978-0123738530
Price: $99.95Back To Top

Financing and leasing

IBM to HP: our financing beats your financing
Hewlett-Packard touts its recently announced zero-percent financing option as a good deal for SMB customers. But IBM's financing executives beg to differ, saying IBM offers a better deal with its own 36-month leasing option because customers don't have to give back the system when the lease is up. Financing from vendors has become more important as other credit programs used by solution providers to finance their customers' IT purchases are disappearing. Last week, a Channelweb.com story uncovered how several channel financing programs for VARs, including IBM's Flexible Credit program, are closing or making their terms stricter because of the recession.

HP launched a zero-percent financing promotion through its HP Financial Services subsidiary called "HP Total Financing," covering a broad array of the company's products and services for SMBs. The zero-percent financing applied to a 12-month purchasing plan and a 36-month leasing plan. The lease offer includes an option to purchase the product at fair market value at the end of the lease term. Not surprisingly, IBM financing executives think IBM offers a better deal. The company offers a 36-month leasing plan with what the company calls "ongoing low rates." But it adds several options for customers when the lease is up. As with the HP plan, customers can simply return the product. IBM customers also have the option to continue leasing at the monthly rate they were paying all along. Or they can renegotiate a lease extension based on the product's fair market value. Or they can purchase the product at fair market value.
Visit www.hp.com/hpfinancialservices or www.ibm.com/financing.

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Forecast

Forecast: nearly 31 million business IP phones will ship in 2012
The IP phone market is actually a tale of two drastically different markets – business and consumer – with the former thriving and the latter diverging in a drastically different direction, reports In-Stat.  By 2012, 31 million voice-centric business IP phones will ship. However, the consumer side of the market is radically different. Among voice-centric IP phones, businesses will outpace consumers more than 10 to 1.  The nascent consumer market for voice-centric IP phones is being subjugated by the introduction of IP media phones, such as the Verizon Hub and AT&T HomeManager, that support both IP communications as well as delivery of Internet information and multimedia content. Even where VoIP is being used in the home, many consumers don't realize it because IP-based cable voice services are marketed as traditional PSTN voice offerings, supported by traditional analog telephones. Recent research by In-Stat found that Cisco, Avaya and Nortel are leading the market for enterprise IP phones.
Visit www.in-stat.com.
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SMB

Cisco announces SMB security, network storage products
Cisco Systems announced a slew of products aimed at the small to medium-size business market, building on an announcement that the company would invest $100 million on providing products and support for midmarket companies. Among the products announced was the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, a security appliance that provides protection for a business's network and critical data from viruses and malicious e-mail attacks while mitigating spam, the NSS2000 and NSS3000 network storage systems and a collaboration and communications system, the Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4.  “We understand that small businesses need to see the immediate business benefits from their technology investment, especially during these tough economic times, and that's why we've built these new products to address their essential business needs of security, connectivity and productivity,” said Cisco’s senior vice president of the small business technology group, Ian Pennell. A recent Forrester Research report found small to medium-size businesses are planning to spend a healthy percentage of their 2009 IT budgets on security, with data protection listed as a top priority.
Visit www.cisco.com.
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Training

New Telecom+UC Training team launched
A new team has launched Telecom+UC Training as the instructor-operated successor to BCR Training.  This group of proven instructors will be conducting the same popular courses based on the same top-rated course materials, as well as new training courses as the industry evolves.  Telecom+UC Training will offer these courses as both public (open enrollment) and private on-site (single enterprise) training.  One of the top ranked public courses, “Introduction to Telecom: Voice, Data and Video” will be conducted April 20th and 21st 2009 at the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The course has been well received by thousands of attendees.  Attending the course gives you and your personnel an understanding of all the existing technologies that are in use, with the positives and negatives of each technology. This course enables you to lead the discussions with vendors and consultants in the direction that would create the most cost effective and efficient communication networks for your company.
Visit www.telecomuctraining.com.
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UC

Zeacom receives Unified Communications Magazine 2008 award
Zeacom announced that Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC) Unified Communications magazine has named Zeacom Unified Communications Center 5.1 (ZCC 5.1) as a recipient of its 2008 Unified Communications Excellence Award.  ZCC 5.1, the latest version of Zeacom’s flagship unified communications suite, empowers SMBs to integrate and improve the effectiveness of both internal and external communications and other mission-critical processes.  Boasting Rich Presence, Executive Mobility, best-of-breed voice conferencing, Microsoft integration and an easy-to-use GUI, ZCC 5.1 extends unified communications from the desktop to mobile devices and is used in demanding industries such as healthcare, government, financial services, credit unions and utilities. A full list of Unified Communications Excellence Award winners are published in the November/December, 2008 issue.
Visit www.zeacom.com or www.uc-mag.com.
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