Upcoming Meeting Notice:

2011 USA FALL RECEPTION
September 14, 2011
Boston, MA

2011 EUROPEAN FALL CONFERENCE
October 26 - 28, 2011
Hamburg, Germany

(Click here for more information.)

Avaya
Call recording
Cisco
Contact center
E911
NEC
Nortel
Unified communications
Video conferencing

Avaya

Altura recognized as the Western Region Partner of the Year
Catalyst Telecom recently recognized Altura Communication Solutions as their 2011 Western Region Avaya Business Partner of the Year.  Beginning in 2005, Catalyst awarded Altura the Avaya ECG Growth Award in recognition of its strong growth, and for the last six consecutive years, Altura has been selected as the Western Region Avaya Business Partner of the Year.  Altura is a nationwide Avaya Platinum-level Business Partner and specializes in the design, installation, and support of converged communication solutions, contact center and mobility solutions. Altura offers a complete suite of managed services including their Sentinel 24X7 network operating center, network monitoring, technical support and value-added maintenance service.
Visit www.alturacs.com and www.catalysttelecom.com.


OneStream Networks SIP trunking solution now rated Avaya Compliant
OneStream Networks announced that its Global SIP Trunking Service is compliant with key IP telephony solutions from Avaya Inc.  OneStream Networks Global SIP Trunking uses Session Initiation Protocol signaling and a native IP-based facility to manage all voice traffic between a customer’s Avaya Aura SIP network, the OneStream Networks IP network, and the Public Switched Telephone Network. This converged service enables greater efficiencies by eliminating the need for businesses to manage multiple vendors at multiple sites with multiple access facilities and offers the following enhanced features provided with the advanced technology of the Avaya Aura Session Manager core: global local numbers and number portability; network flexibility via OneStream MPLS or existing MPLS; unlimited, zero-cost site-to-site coordinated dial plan; consolidated long distance and Toll Free services; geographic diversity and network failover; and Web-based service management.  The application is now compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya Aura Communication Manager, Avaya Aura Session Manager, and Acme Packet 3800 Net-Net Session Border Controller.
Visit www.onestreamnetworks.com and www.avaya.com/devconnect.

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Call recording

OAISYS call recording solutions released to general availability
OAISYS announced the latest version of its Talkument and Tracer solutions has been released to general availability. Talkument personal voice documentation and collaboration software utilizes patent-pending OAISYS Portable Voice Document (PVD) technology to create digital media documents from business telephone calls, making them available to organize, retrieve, play back, annotate and share as needed.  Tracer is the industry’s leading call recording solution for contact centers.  Compatible with leading IP business communication systems including those from Avaya, Mitel, ShoreTel, Toshiba and others, the Talkument and Tracer call recording solutions help companies improve customer service, reduce costs, increase revenue and drive overall profitability. Drawing on industry trends and feedback from the company’s end users and channel partners, product advancements have included: virtualized infrastructure interoperability certification; dramatic capacity expansion; variable data lifecycle management; support for SIP trunk recording; On-Demand Licensing; ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center integration; and Avaya Aura Communication Manager integration.
Visit www.oaisys.com.
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Cisco

ANDTEK delivers attendant functions for visually impaired
ANDTEK GmbH will be presenting Unified Communications solutions at the “CiscoLive 2011″ in Las Vegas (July 10-14). The center stage of the product range is the attendant console software “AND Desktop AC”.  This solution offers a standardized environment with an identical interface on various platforms and is the ideal solution for enterprise customers and call centers handling their calls by phone and/or via PC. The solution offers a quick installation and integration into existing environments. Since the latest release the attendant console solution is also available in a version including Braille display to be used as a full-featured workplace for the visually impaired. Further highlights presented by ANDTEK are easy to handle manager/assistant services, a provisioning solution boosting the efficiency of moves/add/changes and a virtual infrastructure for all offerings.
Visit www.andtek.com.
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Contact center

CGS launches CirriusImpact
Comtel Global Services, LLC (CGS) announces CirriusImpact, a state-of-the-art cloud-based hosted contact center featuring the award-winning NICE SmartCenter suite of workforce optimization solutions from NICE Systems and the offering of Presence Technology. The CirriusImpact branded offering provides contact centers of all sizes with access to scalable, state-of-the-art solutions on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. CirriusImpact features hosted applications that provide multi-channel communication capabilities that enable customers to effectively interact with their clients via voice (inbound, outbound), email, web chat, SMS and social media channels. Users of the CirriusImpact platform can engage with customers in a high quality, real-time manner, resulting in highly effective interactions.  Contact center managers benefit from capabilities such as branch scripting tools for outbound campaigns, voice and data interactions, call recording, quality management (QM), workforce management (WFM), Interaction Analytics (IA), real-time dashboards and customized reports. 
Visit www.cirriusimpact.com, www.nice.com and www.presenceco.com

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E911

911 Enable certified with Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise and Genesys SIP Server
911 Enable announced that its Emergency Gateway (EGW) appliance has successfully completed interoperability testing with both Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniPCX Enterprise 9.1 and Genesys’ SIP Server 8.0, ensuring seamless integration of 911 Enable’s E911 solutions with both the OmniPCX and Genesys SIP Server platforms. The EGW is an on-site appliance that helps organizations simplify E911 management and meet state and local E911 legislation. It provides critical E911 functionality, including the automatic tracking of IP phones, a comprehensive suite of on-site security notification capabilities, robust reporting and monitoring tools, and 911 call recording. The EGW may be deployed as a hardware appliance, or as a virtualized appliance for small and medium businesses. 911 Enable also offers an award-winning E911 call routing service which delivers 911 calls and location information to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) across the US and Canada. This service works seamlessly with the EGW, and together they deliver the industry’s only end-to-end E911 solution for enterprise deployments.
Visit www.911enable.com.
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NEC

NEC offers zero percent financing for UNIVERGE SV8000 Series systems
NEC Financial Services, LLC announces the availability of both a 48- and 60-month zero percent true lease promotion subject to offer terms and conditions for NEC UNIVERGE SV8000 Series communication systems installed by authorized NEC Corporation of America dealers. The limited time offer enables qualifying commercial customers to affordably upgrade their communication infrastructure to a standard that offers advanced high performance applications and scalability for growth. The lease provides the customer with an option to acquire the system at the end of the lease term for its then Fair Market Value. “We have offered similar promotions in the past and did so again earlier this year,” said Herschel Salan, vice president and general manager of NEC Financial Services, LLC. “The results have been extremely positive and continuing customer demand for this flexible offering has been so strong that we decided to bring this lease option back. It gives companies the ability to begin taking advantage of NEC’s advanced communications solutions sooner than budgetary constraints might otherwise have allowed.”
Visit www.neclease.com.
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Nortel

Nortel auction attracts IT’s big guns
The technology giants of today are signaling that they see value in the remains of a technology giant of the recent past. UPI is reporting that bankrupt Canadian telecommunications firm Nortel said an auction for its patent portfolio was attracting some technology heavyweights. Intel Corp., Ericsson AB, Apple Inc., and Google are all in the running for the auction delayed until June 27 due to a “significant level of interest,” Nortel said in a court filing. The Wall Street Journal reported also in the mix is RPX Corp., a company that buys patents to protect other companies, rather than for its own use. Nortel is sitting on about 6,000 patents with some that focus on its development of WiFi and others that cover LTE wireless technology, which is considered a fourth generation wireless innovation. Mike Lazaridis, chief executive officer of Research In Motion Ltd., called the LTE patents a “national treasure.” But the auction is not for the feint of heart. The bidding starts at $900 million, which Google is offering as a “stalking horse” bid, the Journal said.
Visit www.nortel.com.
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Unified communications

Digium releases Switchvox 5.0
Digium, developer of the Asterisk open source telephony system, recently released version 5.0 of Switchvox UC.  Current subscribers of Digium’s Switchvox can now download and upgrade to version 5.0 free of charge to avail themselves of all the new features including converged phones and the InCall menu, queue logs and new criteria in queue reports, concurrent calls report, bulk modify for phone-type extensions, outgoing call rules with failover options, caller ID rules and incoming DID rules, and reminder notes. Version 5.0 builds on previous versions of Switchvox and enhances many features. One key element of version 5.0 is its support for mobility, which includes fixed/mobile convergence without any extra licensing, application, cost or requirement to upgrade the network or add additional gateways.  Switchvox 5.0 integrates this function and handles the convergence of up to 6 phones per extension.  Thus, one extension can be associated with multiple phones to facilitate UC Presence. 
Visit www.digium.com.
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Video conferencing

Aastra BluStar video conferencing solution receives ‘Office Oscar’
Aastra has been awarded an ‘Office Oscar’ by Office Equipment News for the Aastra BluStar video conferencing solution. The BluStar 8000i desktop media phone combines true HD video conferencing quality with unified communications and business applications into a powerful collaboration and easy to use device. With its 13-inch touch screen, the Aastra BluStar 8000i provides broadcast quality video and audio, resulting in a totally ‘natural collaboration’ experience. The product delivers true HD 720p video conferencing at a rate of 30 frames per second. The video quality is matched by superior HD sound quality, delivered via four voice tracking microphones and three speakers. Office Equipment News is a highly respected business magazine aimed at purchasers and recommenders of business equipment within large organizations, covering blue-chip, legal, financial and education sectors. Its ‘Office Oscars’ award is its top accolade and is well regarded in the business equipment IT sector.
Visit www.aastrausa.com/blustar.
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