Upcoming Meeting Notice


SAVE THE DATE:

MINNEAPOLIS REGIONAL RECEPTION
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
Le Meridien Chambers Minneapolis Hotel, Rooftop Lounge – Minneapolis, MN

TAMPA REGIONAL RECEPTION
OCTOBER 21, 2010
Columbia Restaurant at Ybor City - Tampa, FL

(Click here for more information.)

NATD in the news
Acquisitions
ADTRAN
Avaya
Hosted
Legislation
Mitel
NEC
Nortel
Storage
Toshiba
UC
VoIP

NATD in the news

Carousel Industries acquires TriNET
Carousel Industries, one of Avaya’s largest global business partners, announced that it has completed the acquisition of TriNET Systems. TriNET is headquartered in Canton, MA and was founded in 1992. They have regional offices in Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. TriNET Systems is an Avaya Platinum Business Partner that specializes in converged communications, IP telephony applications, unified communications, security and managed services. TriNET will strengthen Carousel’s footprint on the east coast and northern California locations. The two companies will combine design, sales and installation support to enhance Carousel’s offerings to their client base across the globe. Combined, the two companies will support 750 employees and over 30 offices in North America.
Visit www.carouselindustries.com.


PhoneInstallers.net launches new advertising features for phone installers
PhoneInstallers.net launched new advertising features for phone installers and a new overall website marketing plan to benefit all members. For the past six years PhoneInstallers.net, sponsored by MetrolineDirect.com, has given phone installers across the nation a location in which to list their company offerings so that they may be found by businesses in their area looking for related services. In light of the website's success, PhoneInstallers.net has revamped the site advertising features for phone installers, who can now select from several packages with increasing listing options. Those listed will also benefit from changes to the website's marketing plan and functionality. These efforts are aimed at achieving better organic search results positioning and, in turn, better advertising ROI as more qualified traffic sees a business' listing on the website.
Visit www.phoneinstallers.net and www.metrolinedirect.com.
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Acquisitions

Prospect Partners and Management acquire World Data Products
Prospect Partners and Management has acquired World Data Products, a leading provider of refurbished computer and networking equipment. Founded in 1987, WDPI has become one of the largest independent resellers of refurbished servers, storage and networking equipment, including platforms such as Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems. The company sources, refurbishes and sells used and new equipment to a diversified worldwide customer base of more than 4,000 wholesale broker/dealers and corporate end-users in markets that include technology, government, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and education.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to work with Prospect Partners,” said Neil Vill, Chief Executive Officer, World Data Products, Inc. “Prospect Partners specializes in niche companies of our size, and its investment team has an impressive history of helping portfolio companies pursue smart expansion strategies that achieve strong results.” Prospect Partners builds companies through selective acquisitions and fostering internal growth.  The company partners with management teams to acquire profitable niche leaders and growth-ready businesses. WDPI will continue to be led by its current management team.
Visit www.wdpi.com and www.prospect-partners.com.
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ADTRAN

ADTRAN delivers efficient, high-density switching solutions
ADTRAN, Inc. announced its second generation of high-density, managed Layer 3, 28-port Gigabit Ethernet switches. These platforms deliver greater bandwidth and feature enhancements that optimize business communications, mission-critical network availability and productivity, in addition to a wealth of new features and power conservation, all in the industry’s smallest form factor. The NetVanta 1534 and NetVanta 1544 offer all of the functionality of first-generation models, in a half-rack form factor – the smallest in the industry. With the ability to place NetVanta units side by side, customers with limited rack space, such as those in hospitality or retail, can realize the network performance and features they need today, with room for future growth.
Visit www.adtran.com.
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Avaya

PAETEC’s SIP trunking solution now rated “Avaya Compliant”
PAETEC Holding Corp. announced that its Dynamic IP product with SIP trunking has been certified compliant with the IP Office 6.0 PBX from Avaya. PAETEC has also previously been certified on the enterprise-level Avaya Aura Communications Manager and Avaya Aura SIP Enablement Services. Certifying the interoperability of equipment such as the Avaya IP Office and IP networks ensures that businesses can achieve the full benefits of advanced collaboration capabilities. PAETEC’s award-winning SIP trunking ensures the immense capabilities and efficiencies of VoIP while allowing customers to choose the bandwidth that truly meets their requirements, from a T-1 to DS-3, Ethernet or greater. PAETEC 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. As a Platinum member of the program, PAETEC is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab.
Visit www.paetec.com and www.avaya.com/devconnect.
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Hosted

NetworkIP drives IBM technology into a real-time telephony environment
NetworkIP announced the successful deployment of enhanced IBM architecture and database software to its Hosted Services Telephony Platform within a real-time telephony environment. In response to increased demand and a commitment to evolving its solution, NetworkIP implemented new IBM System x servers and upgraded its database architecture to IBM Informix 11.5. IBM recognized this commitment to innovation by publishing its case study, “NetworkIP supports expansion with IBM Informix and System x,” which showcases NetworkIP’s innovative use of their best-in-class solutions. The innovation resulted in end-user account management and call processing transactions running over five times faster, and while NetworkIP is already known for its reliability, the implementation further enhanced the platform’s stability. NetworkIP is open for business 24/7, so a seamless upgrade was paramount. By utilizing IBM’s Informix Enterprise Replication (ER) technology, there is almost zero downtime.
Visit www.NetworkIP.net or www.ibm.com.
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Legislation

TIA issues statement on Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal for Internet Policy
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), which represents the companies that manufacture or supply the products and services used in the provision of broadband and broadband-enabled applications, responded to the Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal for Internet Policy, issuing the following statement on the goals outlined therein:

"TIA appreciates the efforts of Verizon and Google in proposing a legislative framework for Internet policy. We believe this is a step in the right direction towards consensus and a possible solution to the uncertainty created by the Comcast decision. The Verizon and Google announcement rightly addressed important issues such as the need for network management, recognizing that a managed network is necessary to ensure reliable broadband service. We look forward to continuing to work with all parties to help define a policy that will promote investment, innovation and access to broadband and broadband-enabled technologies for all Americans, without negatively affecting job growth and the economy."
Visit www.tiaonline.org.
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Mitel

Memorial campus deploys Mitel for emergency response
Mitel announced that Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, a campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland, has selected Mitel to provide key components of its advanced emergency notification system. The new mass notification solution combines offerings from both Mitel and Mitel affiliate partner, Benbria, to provide a truly comprehensive solution for enhancing student and staff security campus-wide. A key element of Grenfell's system is Mitel's Dynamic Extension solution, which provides faculty and staff with single-number reachability across multiple devices. With Benbria's BlazeCast notification system, authorized staff at Grenfell can quickly and easily send PC desktop and telephone alerts to faculty and students during emergency situations. Desktop PCs display alerts as a full-screen message while voice and text notifications are broadcast to all devices in the notification list. The system allows both pre-configured text and voice message templates to be created for anticipated scenarios, substantially decreasing the time between a serious event and the notification of staff and students.
Visit www.mitel.com or www.benbria.com.
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NEC

CounterPath and NEC announce mobile solution
CounterPath Corporation and NEC Unified Solutions (NEC) announced the introduction of NEC’s Smart Mobile Client, a sophisticated solution for Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) that extends the functionality and capabilities of NEC communication servers to market-leading smartphones. Multiple customers have successfully implemented Smart Mobile Client and say they appreciate the way the client software complements their existing smartphone usage patterns, instead of requiring employees to modify their preferences. Smart Mobile Client automatically routes their calls through the company’s communications server based on the customer’s least-cost-routing settings. The client software supports Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Nokia Symbian platforms, as well as Apple iPhone and Android through the Web client. With Release 2.2 rolled out across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Smart Mobile Client is now available for iS3000 and SIP@Net communication servers. With Release 3.0, expected early 2011, Smart Mobile Client will become available for NEC’s UNIVERGE SV8300 and SV8500 platforms.
Visit www.necunified.com.
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Nortel

Nortel retirees stand to lose one third of pension
Nortel will soon liquidate its pension accounts and the plan is only about 64% funded. The Ontario government stepped in this year to guarantee the first $1,000 of monthly payouts for each of the 11,000 employees who worked in that province. About 12,000 others in Alberta, Quebec and Nova Scotia are out in the cold and could find themselves facing poverty, says former Nortel employee Ken Lyons. The problem for Nortel pensioners has to do with the size of Canada's annuity market. It's too small to provide a healthy return on a one-time dump of Nortel's pension accounts. The market can only absorb $500 million a year. Quebec has said it was ready to offer partial pension guarantees for Nortel workers in the province. The province would take over the pensions of 3,000 current and former workers for a period of five years and guarantee existing payments while putting the fund on the market in an attempt to increase its value. Nortel's pension fund deficit was estimated to be between $2.5 billion and $2.8 billion when the company filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009.
Visit www.nortel.com.
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Storage

DataCore showcases storage virtualization and stretch high-availability software
DataCore is blazing a trail by developing storage virtualization software that is a game-changer in terms of how resellers, solution providers as well as companies considering virtualization deployments manage and deploy virtualization projects and Clouds. By deploying DataCore in a stretch high-availability (HA) configuration, DataCore delivers fault-tolerance that virtually eliminates storage-related outages that jeopardize business continuity and plague virtualization and consolidation initiatives. Even though server and desktop virtualization and consolidation have garnered much of the virtualization press to date, now the real focus of concern is turning to how can we do more to mitigate the risk that results from consolidation. DataCore addresses these concerns with proven software deployed in thousands of customer sites around the world. DataCore’s software virtualizes disks across pools of tiered storage devices enabling users to provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand or upgrade without slowdowns or downtime.
Visit www.datacore.com.
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Toshiba

Toshiba and Vinculum Communications certify interoperability
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division and Vinculum Communications Inc. announced the certification of interoperability of Vinculum’s Vintrex Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking solution with Toshiba’s family of Strata CIX IP business communication systems.  Vintrex SIP trunking is now available nationwide from Authorized Toshiba Dealers. Among the benefits Vintrex offers Toshiba Dealers are: residual commissions up to 25 percent of customer monthly service charges; free 30-day Vintrex SIP Trunk trials for dealers and their customers; dedicated channel managers for immediate sales support; deployment of SIP trunks in as little as four business days; low-cost international long distance calling; bundled SIP trunks and calling plans; quarterly channel newsletter “The Insider” with news, events, promotions and sales incentives; and U.S.-based customer care 24/7/365.
Visit www.telecom.toshiba.com and www.vintalk.com.
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UC

Global market for unified communications to reach $16.8 billion by 2015
The prolonged world economic recession has dampened enterprise communication markets, especially so in the developed countries. Lack of strong budgets to fund equipment upgradation and replacement has been cited as a major factor dragging down growth. Nevertheless, as a simple solution for complex networking, the unified communications (UC) market performance has been relatively better than most other technologies, thanks to cloud and hosted UC services, which have emerged as the market’s saving grace partially cushioning the impact of recession. As stated by the new market research report on Unified Communications, PBXs and Video Endpoints/Infrastructure together account for more than 80% of the global UC products market. Improving economic conditions will unleash pent-up demand for UCs as hitherto postponed purchase decisions resurge to provide commercial opportunities. Lease expiration on currently deployed systems is additionally expected to drive revenue gains in the market in the upcoming years. The report, titled “Unified Communications: A Global Market Report,” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. provides a review of noteworthy market trends, growth drivers and challenges. The report in addition also enumerates recent acquisitions and other strategic industry activities.
Visit www.strategyr.com.
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VoIP

Aastra partners with Telchemy to ensure VoIP service quality
Aastra announced a partnership with Telchemy to resell two products, DVQattest and SQmediator, which provide performance testing, monitoring and real-time reporting for VoIP interactions. Available to Aastra’s directly managed customers, the Telchemy products will be offered to Aastra’s USA distributor, reseller and carrier customers later this year. DVQattest is a distributed active test product for Voice and Video over IP that supports pre-deployment testing, network assessment, SLA monitoring and troubleshooting. DVQattest is based on VQmon, Telchemy’s widely used VoIP/IPTV performance analysis technology which provides accurate quality scores and a rich set of metrics for voice calls, video sessions and network tests. SQmediator is a high performance mediation server that provides centralized collection, aggregation and correlation of QoE/QoS reports from IP endpoints and gateways. The SQmediator dashboard makes it easy to monitor call performance across the network and to quickly identify potential problem conditions and view system alerts.
Visit www.aastrausa.com.
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