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Obituary
NATD in the news
Avaya
Leasing
Mitel
Storage
Trends
Unified communications
Voice broadcasting

Obituary

Randy Lloyd, Panaseas
Panaseas Account Executive Randy Lloyd passed away in his sleep Friday, December 24, 2010 at the age of 54. Lloyd was in his fourth year at Panaseas International, a supplier of telecommunication products based in Houston. He died of a heart attack. Lloyd was a well-liked and respected member of the telecommunications community, and is remembered by his many customers for his knowledge of both products and people. Many customers appreciated that he took care to get to know people and their needs. “We are all feeling a profound sense of loss and shock at Lloyd’s passing,” said Brian Kiep, owner and president of Panaseas. Lloyd is survived by his wife of 32 years, Marynet, and 3 children: Courtney, Audrey and Eric and by his sister, Linda Stoll and two brothers, Terry and Marshall. Lloyd was preceded in death by his parents, Ray and Maggie Lloyd, and brother, Russell Lloyd.
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NATD in the news

Samsung Korea names TeleSwitch as the Latin America Master Distributor
TeleSwitch has announced a partnership with Samsung Korea for the master distribution of the OfficeServ Series Portfolio. With this development, telecom resellers in Latin America and the Caribbean will have access to the Samsung OfficeServ portfolio. Samsung OfficeServ Products bring a secure and versatile IP converged Key System solution supporting traditional voice communications, Voice over IP, IP based data communication and wireless solutions through Wi-Fi or CDMA. The Samsung OfficeServ portfolio includes solutions for small and medium sizes business as well as large enterprises.

From its inception as a small export business in Taegu, Korea, Samsung has grown to become one of the world’s leading electronics companies, specializing in digital appliances and media, semiconductors, memory, and system integration. Today Samsung’s innovative and top quality products and processes are world recognized.

TeleSwitch is a leading global provider of voice and data communications solutions serving customers worldwide since 1993. TeleSwitch partners with the most recognized manufacturers and service providers in the telecom industry, bringing the benefits of Business Class IP Telephony to hundreds of companies worldwide. For more information about the dealer programs that TeleSwitch has available for Samsung in Latin America contact our International Division at (305) 593.9292.
Visit www.teleswitch.com.
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Avaya

Algo SIP Audio Alerter solution now rated "Avaya Compliant"
Algo Communication Products Ltd. announced that its 8180 SIP Audio Alerter is compliant with key VoIP solutions from Avaya Inc. The 8180 helps businesses communicate more effectively with employees and customers through SIP-based audio alerting for loud ringing, voice paging, event notification and customer assistance. The application now is compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with: Avaya Aura Session Manager Release 6.0; Avaya Aura Communication Manager Release 6.0; Avaya Communication Server 1000 Release 7.0; and Avaya IP Office Release 6.0. Algo Communication Products Ltd. 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, Algo is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab. There, a team of Avaya engineers develops a comprehensive test plan for each application to verify whether it is Avaya compliant.
Visit www.algosolutions.com and www.avaya.com/devconnect.

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Leasing

Loans make comeback as new issuance doubles
Leveraged-loan issuance in the U.S. more than doubled this year, as private-equity firms sought funds for buyouts and borrowers refinanced debt amid a rebound from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. More than $369 billion of loans were raised as of Dec. 28, led by financing for the purchases of Tomkins Plc and Burger King Holdings Inc., up from $170 billion in 2009. Interest rates fell to 3.91 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate on average, from 10.28 percentage points at the end of 2009, according to Standard & Poor’s Leveraged Commentary and Data. Cheap financing will bolster the loan market again in 2011, as buyout firms seek cash for acquisitions and borrowers refinance some of the more than $288 billion in bank debt due in the next four years, data from Barclays Capital and S&P LCD show. The return of collateralized loan obligations should also create demand as investors seek out higher returns while the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero.
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Mitel

Mitel to renew lease with KRP, shedding up to 200K square feet
Several months after launching the largest public offering in Ottawa history, Mitel Networks is planning to shed up to half of its office and lab space in the Kanata Research Park when its lease expires in February, sources say. Mitel currently leases 406,000 square feet from Kanata Research Park, which like its tenant, counts local tech icon Terry Matthews among its founders. However, one industry source says Mitel is poised to renew its lease, but only take 200,000 to 250,000 square feet. While the new lease may appear to be a substantial contraction, Mitel already subleases some of its space to General Dynamics and Calian. Mitel is among the many Kanata tenants that signed 10-year leases during the tech boom of 1999-2001 that are now up for renewal. While some companies have downsized amid a difficult business climate, the outlook for Kanata remains stable on expectations the buyers of Nortel’s business units – namely Ericsson, Avaya, Ciena and Genband – will soon be shopping for west-end space.
Visit www.mitel.com.
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Storage

DataCore Software sets the stage for virtualization leadership in 2011
DataCore Software highlighted what it considers points of emphasis for 2011 in terms of furthering the promise of virtualization. The promise of virtualization will be further realized this year. Software-based storage virtualization will take its rightful place by making storage anonymous within virtual infrastructures. Equally important, a number of trends, strategic drivers and software architectures will emerge to make a new level of flexibility and scale both practical and cost-effective to achieve. The most significant driver will be the simple realization that only a software-based infrastructure can truly deliver the necessary advantages to make virtualization and Clouds a reality because software can abstract itself from device specific limitations, provide portability across platforms, and endure beyond the life of underlying hardware platforms that come and go over time. Bottom-line: A software based storage virtualization infrastructure can live within the same abstraction level as virtual servers and virtual desktops and bring along the same type of benefits that we have seen from these movements in regards to making storage hardware brands largely irrelevant – or anonymous – to users and applications, therefore simplifying management, removing storage task complexity, speeding up response and provisioning times and increasing overall utilization and flexibility.
Visit www.datacore.com.
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Trends

IBM unveils 'Next Five in Five' innovations impacting societal trends
IBM formally unveiled the fifth annual "Next Five in Five" - a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. They are:

• You'll beam up your friends in 3-D: In the next five years, 3-D interfaces - like those in the movies - will let you interact with 3-D holograms of your friends in real time.

• Batteries will breathe air to power our devices:  Instead of the heavy lithium-ion batteries used today, scientists are working on batteries that use the air we breathe to react with energy-dense metal, eliminating a key inhibitor to longer lasting batteries. If successful, the result will be a lightweight, powerful and rechargeable battery capable of powering everything from electric cars to consumer devices.

• You won't need to be a scientist to save the planet: In five years, sensors in your phone, your car, your wallet and even your tweets will collect data that will give scientists a real-time picture of your environment. You'll be able to contribute this data to fight global warming, save endangered species or track invasive plants or animals that threaten ecosystems around the world.

• Your commute will be personalized: In the next five years, advanced analytics technologies will provide personalized recommendations that get commuters where they need to go in the fastest time. Adaptive traffic systems will intuitively learn traveler patterns and behavior to provide more dynamic travel safety and route information to travelers than is available today.

• Computers will help energize your city:  Innovations in computers and data centers are enabling the excessive heat and energy that they give off to do things like heat buildings in the winter and power air conditioning in the summer.

The Next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM's Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Unified communications

Digium sees continued growth of its Switchvox UC solution
Digium, Inc. announced that Switchvox, the company’s turnkey VoIP unified communications (UC) solution designed for small- to mid-sized businesses, grew more than 30 percent in 2010, making it the company’s fastest growing solution. Switchvox, which is based on Asterisk, the world’s most popular open source telephony engine, provides enterprise-class features at a price businesses can afford. New features included integrated iPhone and BlackBerry mobile applications. The popularity of Digium and Switchvox with analysts and industry organizations showed continued growth in 2010. For the fourth year in a row, Digium was included in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony. Additionally, Digium was selected for several awards, most notably Switchvox received Everything Channel’s Top MidMarket Value Product Award at the Midsize Enterprise Summit.
Visit www.digium.com.
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Voice broadcasting

Auto Dialer – simple voice broadcasting via VoIP
Voice2Phone announces the release of Auto Dialer tool. The product automates the process of broadcasting voice message by phone making it much easier to perform phone surveys, send voice notifications or reminders to clients. Auto Dialer is automatic phone broadcasting software working both via VoIP service providers and through hardware PBX systems, or via software PBX including Asterisk. The program takes a list of phone numbers and dials all of them simultaneously (or one by one, depending on the VoIP provider) playing the pre-recorded message to the line and recording an answer if needed. Thanks to flexible configuration, Auto Dialer detects and accurately handles answering machines and voicemail boxes. It stays on line and waits until the respondent will be ready to receive the voice message. It is also capable of recording the voice answer and the keys pressed on the phone, which is indispensable in phone surveys.
Visit www.voice2phone.com.
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