Posts Tagged ‘voip’

Skype to put on suit and tie with help from Cisco and ShoreTel

Not content with over 500 million users using its voice and video chat, Skype now looks to make inroads into the corporate market and are in talks with Cisco and ShoreTel to sell its software. Why these two? Because their primary focus has been in corporate IP communications. Skype doesn’t want to deal with any TDM baggage often carried by Big Telecom.

The corporate communications market is obviously a very lucrative one. IDC pegs it at $203 billion. Even capturing 1% of that market is quite significant.

According to this BusinessWeek report, there are certainly challenges to come:

Persuading corporations to ditch their traditional carriers won’t be easy. “There are some major roadblocks to growing this in the large enterprise space,” says Jayanth Angl, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont. Chief among them: giving IT managers more control. In industries such as health care and finance, companies need to track and monitor calls—something Skype doesn’t allow for. Skype also needs to convince potential customers that its service, which is sometimes criticized for poor quality, is reliable and secure enough for important business calls.

Well, that’s on top of some internal challenges, too:

To reorient the company, Chief Executive Officer Josh Silverman has replaced five people on his executive staff this year and cracked down on distracting side projects, which had some employees spending their time building 3D chess software. “Skype is serious about providing our business customers the tools and features that put them in control,” says David Gurle, who left Thomson Reuters in January to run Skype’s business division, where he’s doubling head count, to about 100 people.

Now that Skype is privatized by Silver Lake (eBay sold most of its stake for $2 billion), which interestingly also touts Avaya in its portfolio, it’s time to get serious about business. Yes, no more fooling around with 3D chess software (too bad, I wouldn’t mind seeing what they may have come up with). Skype executives are on a new mission to trim fat and boost sales resources in order to conquer the corporate world.

Slow economy slows worldwide IP telephony adoption

Melanie Turek of Frost & Sullivan posted some highlights of her latest research into the worldwide enterprise telephony market. To me it looks to be a good snapshot of the overall global economy, too…

Traditional systems made up 25.8 percent of total line shipments, declining at a rate of 18.1 percent year over year. NEC was the undisputed market leader in this category, with around 3.6 million TDM lines shipped; it’s followed by Panasonic and Siemens.

The decline in traditional-line shipments is expected to be even greater in the coming years as customers continue to acknowledge the value of IP communications and vendors gradually phase out legacy TDM/KTS PBX systems.

This is a fairly impressive number — TDM lines still account for 1/4 of total shipments. And if we fool ourselves for a moment into thinking that the economy is no worse than last year’s and there is no decline, then the TDM lines add up to 1/3 of total shipments. NEC, being the “undisputed market leader” in TDM shipments, continues to enjoy a slightly better economic condition in Asia whereas North American and European markets are spiraling deeper into trouble.

I also believe that traditional-line shipments will decline in the coming years, but I’m not so sure about the “even greater” part. I think the lack of any uptick in the global economy — at least in the coming year or two — will prevent customers from leaping into the IP pool. Vendors may push for IP communications solutions, but customers won’t be buying in droves, instead opting to milk the most out of their TDM PBX systems. After all, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Especially when money’s tight.

Cisco was the market leader in total line shipments, with 13.6 percent market share, followed by NEC (13.3 percent) and Avaya (12.9 percent).

There’s only a 3.3 percent difference between Cisco, the IP leader, and NEC, the TDM leader, in total lines. That’s not a whole lot. There’s still a lot of TDM lines to be phased out, eh?

Traditional systems made up 21.4 percent of market revenues, declining at a rate of 27.3 percent. NEC was the market leader with a 33 percent market share, followed by Panasonic, Avaya, Nortel and Siemens, in that order.

IP systems (converged and native IP) accounted for 78.6 percent of market revenues, declining at a rate of 24.2 percent. Avaya’s voice system market revenues were greater than Cisco’s, with a total market share of 17.1 percent.

It’s no surprise that both traditional and IP systems showed revenue decline. It’s no surprise, either, that revenues from IP systems command such a big chunk of the pie. After all, going from TDM to IP requires a lot more hardware and professional services.

Overall, Avaya is the enterprise telephony platform revenue market leader with a market share of 15 percent, followed by Siemens, Cisco, NEC and Alcatel-Lucent.

Come on, Alcatel-Lucent… You can do better. Put those high-profile acquisitions to good use. Being the laggard in a market which the leader only commands 15 percent is a red flag, especially when the economy isn’t getting any better soon.

Skype opens the development floodgates

Get ready for Skype to become even more ubiquitous.

Today Skype lets loose its SkypeKit SDK for developers to incorporate Skype-tastic features into consumer devices and desktop applications. In essence, any Internet-connected device can now become VoIP-enabled via Skype. Right now the SDK is available for Linux with Windows/Mac coming later. The SILK audio codec is part of the SDK and definitely something to lure developers into creating HD audio apps.

This couldn’t come at a better time. Consumer electronic devices are fast becoming networked and an important part of our lives that we wonder why we cannot communicate using these devices. We don’t really care for the traditional phone hardware anymore in today’s IP world. If my digital photo frame is Internet-enabled, why can’t I use it to call people too? It sits in the living room or at my desk — convenient and popular locations to conduct calls.

I’m excited to see what developers come up with to Skype-enable our electronics!

UC vendors agree on iPad as standardized platform

Now that the Apple iPad is out of the bag and starting to arrive in homes everywhere, all sorts of embargoed information are coming out. Not only will the device transform the publishing and portable computing markets, but evidently Big Telephony and other major UC vendors have reached an agreement to standardize on the iPad device platform. Yes, we’re talking about Alcatel-Lucent/Genesys, Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, Siemens, and several others. Apparently Apple CEO Steve Jobs had an interest in not just communications, but unified communications, since a long time ago, but had thought the technology was far from mature. The iPhone was really a stepping stone and learning lesson in how to partner with global communications providers. But now with the trend towards multimedia, SIP, and UC, Apple is ready to make the leap in furthering the reach of its red hot iPad tablet.

Perhaps this is a blessing to the competitive and sometimes hostile UC landscape. Jobs realized how UC technologies were fragmented and lack interoperability (and to his dismay, filled with “fugly devices”), and had the pull to bring top executives from each vendor to the same table in Cupertino to work out an all around win-win deal. It took months and countless stealth meetings — even when VoiceCon Orlando was just around the corner. Apple advised the executives not to leak this under any circumstance, especially when they were all to be present in Orlando. “Pretend that you hate each other,” was Jobs’ suggestion, according to an unnamed source at these secret meetings. Surprisingly, the deal remained a secret until now.

What these vendors have agreed on is to develop their products — PBXs, IVRs, UC servers, SIP phones, SBCs, etc. — to run on the iPad exclusively. Supposedly Avaya, Cisco, and Microsoft engineers, with the help of Apple, have already developed a few proof-of-concepts in Apple’s labs. The iPad multi-touch interface should prove to be a hit… Imagine performing MAC (that’s “moves/adds/changes”) on the PBX by tapping and dragging extensions. Or enabling presence using the built-in geolocation service (either Wi-Fi or 3G). Or dialing using the on-screen soft buttons on an iPad SIP phone. Or configuring the SBC with gestures to establish trunks. And of course, all of these tasks could be performed in either portrait or landscape mode! The possibilities are endless — only limited by the developer’s creativity…

Initially there were concerns about the iPad’s horsepower — can it really handle SIP and VoIP without sacrificing usability and stability? Apple assured the vendors that there won’t be a problem, and if so he would gladly provide more iPads (at a discount, of course) to form some sort of undocumented cluster architecture commonly seen in database design. No wonder there’s a shortage of supply, right?

Official press release below:

CUPERTINO, California—April 1, 2010—Apple’s magical new iPad will be available in all 221 US Apple® retail stores and most Best Buy stores this Saturday, April 3, beginning at 9 a.m. Starting at just $499, iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*

“iPad connects users with their apps and content in a far more intimate and fun way than ever before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait for users to get their hands and fingers on it this weekend.”

Apple retail stores will offer a free Personal Setup service to every customer who buys an iPad at the store, helping them customize their new iPad by setting up their email, loading their favorite apps from the App Store, and more. Also beginning Saturday morning, all US Apple retail stores will host special iPad workshops to help customers learn more about this magical new product.

“But there’s one more thing…”

Apple is pleased to announce major strategic partnerships with Unified Communications (UC) vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent, Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, Siemens, and others, to offer a unified platform for UC products and SIP interoperability. Soon not only will a user read books and play games on iPad, but also operate it as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, Public Branch Exchange (PBX), Session Border Controller (SBC), and more. More importantly, iPad will become the UC industry standard platform, eliminating the fragmentation and lack of interoperability among these vendors’ products.

Apple expects most of these UC and SIP iPad applications to be ready by third quarter of 2010.

Pricing & Availability
iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores, most Best Buy stores, select Apple Authorized Resellers and campus bookstores. The iBooks app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Press Contacts:
Natalie Harrison
Apple
harri@apple.com
(408) 862-0565

Natalie Kerris
Apple
nat@apple.com
(408) 974-6877

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple’s PR website, or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Multi-Touch and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Skype makes splash at VoiceCon without being here

A lot of people are wondering why Skype isn’t here at VoiceCon Orlando. Skype was the company that catapulted VoIP to the spotlight the technology enjoys now. When a company can make grandma want to use a computer to video chat with her grandchild, or have a news agency use its software to break news, then you know it deserves a booth at a conference about communications technologies.

Well, Skype isn’t here but that doesn’t mean they’re sitting idle. Two major announcements came out on Monday regarding Skype for SIP certification with AudioCodes equipment and Grandstream IP PBX and gateways.

This is not your grandma’s Skype anymore. Skype wants to become a serious contender in the market for IP-enabled enterprise communications.