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Avaya
Awards
Cable
Mergers
NEC
SIP
Virtualization
Voice

Avaya

Avaya names 2010 Avaya Connect Channel Partners of the Year for the U.S.
Avaya announced that it has named five, U.S.-based Avaya Connect Channel Partners of the Year for 2010 and two for outstanding accomplishments in migrating existing customers and capturing new ones. The awards honor the leading members of the Avaya Connect program that demonstrated significant revenue performance, technical expertise, increased competency and overall growth across key Avaya solutions areas during the past year. The awards highlighted key partners in areas ranging across the Avaya portfolio and included:
All Business Communications, Norwood, Mass., was recognized as the 2010 US SME Partner of the Year based on increased sales and service revenue as well as a customer-centric approach to implementing an Avaya solution.
CenturyLink, Monroe, La., took the 2010 US Service Provider Partner of the Year for adding over 500 sales and technical certifications and growing Avaya revenue by 110 percent.
Corporate Networking, Worcester, Penn., achieved the 2010 US Data Solutions Partner of the Year award for 50 percent year-over-year growth in Avaya Data Solutions, the highest growth of any Avaya partner.
Cross Telecom, Bloomington, Minn., garnered the 2010 US Services Partner of the Year award for outstanding growth in sales of Avaya professional and maintenance services to new and existing customers.
Technology Solutions Group (TSG), Aurora, Ill., received the 2010 US Enterprise Partner of the Year for 35 percent year-over-year overall growth in sales of Avaya products and services to mid- and large-size businesses.
Carousel Industries, Exeter, R.I., garnered the most significant revenue in the U.S. by migrating existing customers to newer, more powerful technologies, including the largest upgrade project in the U.S.
NACR, Eagan, Minn., captured the most wins against Avaya competitors, bringing more than 850 new customers to Avaya.
Visit www.avaya.com.
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Awards

Star2Star wins “Best of Show” at ITEXPO
Star2Star Communications was announced a winner of a prestigious “Best-of-Show” award at the ITEXPO West show. The Star2Star system uses a unique blend of an on-site PBX system (called a StarBox) and a suite of telephony applications hosted on Star2Star’s high-reliability servers. The on-premise PBX can make intelligent call routing decisions. Star2Star provides a complete, end-to-end service that includes the PBX, the VoIP service and IP telephones. Star2Star takes responsibility for service and support for the entire system and offers next-day equipment replacement in the event of a hardware failure. By taking responsibility for the entire call path, Star2Star can control quality and monitor reliability, using patent pending technology.
Visit www.star2star.com.
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Cable

CABLExpress introduces Skinny-Trunk
CABLExpress has added the Skinny-Trunk Z-Mount LC universal mounting bracket to its Skinny-Trunk Solution product line. The Skinny-Trunk Z-Mount LC is a new metal bracket manufactured by CABLExpress that attaches to the rails of any standard rack or cabinet. Fiber-optic trunking cables snap into the back of the Z-Mount bracket and fiber jumpers plug into the front, therefore eliminating the need to utilize an additional enclosure inside the rack. The Z-Mount LC is designed to be used in server cabinets and comes standard with 12 duplex, ganged LC ports, which are available left or right facing and feature shuttered adapters for optimum dust control and safety. The bracket is engineered for precision mating that far exceeds industry dB loss performance standards.
Visit www.cablexpress.com.



BICSI members elect new officers
BICSI, the association supporting the information technology systems (ITS) industry with information, education and knowledge assessment, has completed the 2010 Board of Directors Election as members have elected five board members to serve two-year terms. In voting that ended September 30, members have selected the following individuals:
SECRETARY: Christine Klauck, RCDD, NTS, JaffeHolden, Norwalk, Conn.
CANADIAN REGION DIRECTOR: Peter Levoy, RCDD, Anixter Canada, Mississauga, Ontario
U.S. SOUTH-CENTRAL REGION DIRECTOR: Paul Marek, RCDD, CCNA, AT&T, New Braunfels, Texas
U.S. SOUTHEAST REGION DIRECTOR: Mel E. Lesperance, RCDD, Affiliated Engineers, Tampa, Fla.
U.S. WESTERN REGION DIRECTOR: Todd Strand, RCDD, NTS, OSP, On Target Voice and Data, Irvine, Cal.
The new officers will officially be inaugurated in January 2011 during the BICSI Winter Conference & Exhibition at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Fla.
Visit www.bicsi.org.

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Mergers

Leading VoIP and unified communication providers announce merger agreement
Leading VoIP and unified communication service providers – Broadvox and Cypress Communications – announce the signing of a merger agreement. Award-winning hosted unified communications provider Cypress Communications is known for helping to define the unified communications as a service (UCaaS) category and has been providing hosted communications to small and mid-sized businesses and enterprises (SMBs and SMEs) for more than 25 years. As a worldwide communications leader, Broadvox has nearly a decade of experience in providing SIP Origination and Terminating services to carriers. In 2007, Broadvox began offering SMBs and SMEs various SIP Trunking products and this year expanded the offering with virtual PBX hosted services. Cypress will gain access to Broadvox’s network backbone for direct origination and termination of voice traffic to more effectively serve the needs of its expanding customer base. Broadvox will benefit from the increased utilization of its network backbone and the ability to enhance its carrier, SMB and SME offerings with the Cypress Communications’ unified communications suite of services.
Visit www.broadvox.com and www.cypresscom.net.



Transcend United Technologies and Spectrum Solutions join forces to create large technology reseller
Transcend United Technologies and Spectrum Solutions announced they are joining forces to create a large IT and communications technology provider with a significant presence in the Twin Cities. The new entity has advanced capabilities working with Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, ShoreTel, Riverbed and other IT and communications vendors, and becomes one of the largest technology resellers in North America. “Spectrum Solutions has an outstanding reputation for engineering expertise and customer service with enterprise and mid-sized accounts in the Twin Cities and throughout the Midwest” said Rick Hirsh, Transcend United’s CEO.  ”Bringing Spectrum together with Transcend United significantly extends our expertise in voice, data, wireless, and converged technologies,” Hirsh continued.
Visit www.transcendunited.com and www.specsolu.com.
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NEC

NEC Australia turns iPhone into cordless IP PBX handset
NEC Australia has developed an iPhone app that turns the iPhone into a cordless (via WiFi) VoIP handset for use with NEC IP PBXs. Developed at its Innovation Centre in Melbourne and based on open source code, it enables calls from the iPhone to be routed over corporate IP networks rather than the mobile network, at lower call costs and NEC says it is compatible with all NEC IP telephony systems. It is available free for all NEC customers in Australia and New Zealand who have the appropriate licensing agreements for their NEC telephony systems and can be downloaded from the iTunes app store and installed by individual users. An NEC spokesman stated that NEC Australia was in discussions for release of the product globally, but could give no timeframe of its availability.
Visit www.nec.com.au.
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SIP

Edgewater Networks expands SIP trunking interoperability lab
Edgewater Networks, Inc. announced the certification of eight additional PBX manufacturers by its SIP trunking interoperability lab. The lab is a part of the Edgewater Networks Plug & Dial Alliance program and is used to formally validate and document the proper operation of PBX systems with increasingly popular SIP trunking services using the EdgeMarc Network Services Gateway. Service providers and enterprise organizations use the EdgeMarc Network Services Gateway to connect IP and TDM based PBXs to SIP trunking services. Acting as an enterprise session border controller the EdgeMarc connects the PBX to the SIP trunking service by performing SIP protocol harmonization to ensure reliable service delivery. The EdgeMarc also protects voice devices, optimizes voice quality using traffic management and monitors the quality of real-time communications to simplify troubleshooting. The EdgeMarc Network Services Gateway is also fully compatible with the EdgeView VoIP Support System.
Visit www.edgewaternetworks.com.
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Virtualization

Citrix Synergy 2010: DataCore virtualization software improves availability and performance
At Citrix Synergy 2010, DataCore Software highlighted how joint Citrix and DataCore customers have benefited from performance gains, improved availability and cost efficiencies resulting from virtualizing their desktops, servers and storage. DataCore delivers a cost-effective storage infrastructure for Citrix Virtual Servers and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) by avoiding the need to “rip and replace” existing storage and SANs, thereby avoiding large, upfront capital expenses and greatly reducing ongoing operational costs. Virtual Desktop Infrastructures along with Citrix XenServer, XenDesktop and XenApp require failsafe and centralized storage solution, but in many cases this is jeopardized due to the high costs involved. With DataCore's storage virtualization, users can easily create cost-effective "shared" storage for virtual servers and desktops from new and existing storage capacities.
Visit www.datacore.com/solutions/govirt-citrix.asp.
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Voice

TNETV1072 processor enables an enhanced voice experience Optimized for Microsoft Lync
Texas Instruments Incorporated continues to build momentum in the unified communications (UC) space as it announces that its TNETV1072 high-performance processor powers IP phones Optimized for Microsoft Lync. TI’s processor enables the enhanced voice experience with UC functions, including presence, in advanced endpoints such as the Aastra 6721ip and 6725ip and the Polycom CX500, CX600 and CX3000 IP phones. TNETV1072′s robust C64x+ digital signal processor (DSP) core provides exceptional high-definition voice and wideband acoustic echo cancellation capabilities offering richer voice quality to its users.  The processor and the software together provide users with voice quality by implementing the Microsoft Real Time Audio (RTA) codec and Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) in software.   Integration of peripherals onto the chip such as a Gigabit Ethernet switch and a high performance audio codec are well-suited for multimedia phones and reduce system complexity and bill of materials (BOM) costs.
Visit www.ti.com.
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