B601 Launch at Astricon

Today, Sangoma is announcing the launch of its newest hybrid telephony card at Astricon 2009 in Glendale Arizona. The new B601 integrates a Digital interface (T1/E1) with a few analog ports (4 FXO, 1 FXS) all on a single, small PCI/PCIe card. This allows PBX platform vendors to deliver solutions that are more compact and even more cost effective than before. Our partner Rockbochs has integrated the board in one of its Asterisk-based PBX appliances and is ready to take orders on an integrated box that includes this new card.

We’re also fortunate to have a few product reviews by some of our online retailer partners. Look for reviews to be posted on the web in the next while.

If you are a PBX system developer or reseller, you need to have a look at this product. Check it out at http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/digital_analog_hybrids/b601.html

Using Skype from a Legacy PBX

Skype has become one of the most attractive ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider) out there. In many geographies, its usage is now prevalent by consumers and is gaining substantial adoption in the enterprise. The problem with current corporate usage is that Skype is rarely integrated with other business communications infrastructure. That means that users deploy Skype on their desktop and call their contacts “peer-to-peer” or make long distance calls using Skype-Out. Of course, when you are doing that, your regular phone system is not “aware” that you are on a call so it cannot forward new calls to voice mail automatically (or whatever other logic you may have programmed in your PBX), or transfer/conference calls using internal PBX extensions, etc. Also, you don’t have integrated reporting of all your communications from a billing and resource usage perspective. Bottom line, you end up using two orthogonal business communication systems.

At CommunicAsia this week, PrettyMay, a maker of Skype PBX and Skype PBX Gateway systems that helps integrating Skype into business communications, is announcing their partnership with Sangoma. They have built a complete PBX system based on Skype. So all the features that are expected from a PBX can be used with Skype phones and external connectivity is done with a mix of Skype network, along with the good old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). A lot of companies love Skype, but they want to keep a few traditional lines for external access, for 911 or fallback perspective. PrettyMay has integrated Sangoma voice cards for the interface to the PSTN.

PrettyMay also has a Skype PBX Gateway that allows to connect a legacy PBX to the external Skype network. PrettyMay’s system integrates Sangoma’s voice cards to “bridge” lines that look to the PBX like PSTN lines, but in fact connect to the Skype network. This way, Skype can be used transparently as an ITSP for any customer out there with a legacy PBX. All PBX features remain, but Skype is used for transport on a few lines of the PBX, therefore saving on telecom costs.

But PrettyMay is not the only company with a Skype-to-PBX gateway. Back in February, IndustryDynamics launched their VoiceGear product line, integrating Sangoma telephony cards to provide a seamless interface between the Skype network and legacy PBX’es. IndustryDynamics supports both analog and digital PBX interfaces, increasing the number of potential integrations. The company is working hard to increase its distribution network and I think they will get great success with their product in the coming months and years. In particular, they have worked hard on explaining the detailed business case for enterprises to use their product. Check out their ROI models at:

http://www.industrydynamics.ca/business_cases.php

Overall, it’s exciting seeing companies bridge the gap between Skype and legacy PBX systems. It’s even more exciting that the industry seems to be standardizing on Sangoma to provide the telephony interface!

NetBorder Express 2.0 GA is coming

In February, Sangoma announced that NetBorder Express (NBE) Gateway 2.0 was in Beta. Well...it took a bit more time than expected, but we will be ready later this week to release the General Availability version.

The product has received significant attention from customers during the Beta phase, and is highly anticipated by application partners and resellers alike. With a ubiquitous SIP interface, NBE enables low-cost, inside-the-server connectivity to software-based communication applications. The IP-PBX market is right on target for this important new release, with the following main additions to the product line:

- Support for analog cards. There are a lot of small and mediuam businesses out there that need a few analog lines for deployments of their corporate communication systems. Previous versions of NBE enabled T1/E1 configurations (up to 960 ports per system). But now, with configurations as low as 4 FXO analog ports, the solution scales down to address one of the widest market segment. We have seen very strong interest from the Windows-based PBX vendors and their resellers for such configurations. For any vendor that targets the SME market for PBX systems, analog support is a must, so everyone is very eager to get this launched...

- Installation wizard and enhanced management interface. We heard customer feedback from the previous release, load and clear. Customers wanted a simpler and more straightforward interface to get the solution installed, configured and maintained. We delivered. Beta customer feedback has been terrific. Customers really like the smooth configuration process and the ease-of-use. Further, the interface provides even more capabilities for tight integration between the application and the gateway. This allows our partners to design PBX systems that look like one complete, unified system.

- A series of improvements in tone processing. This includes better international tone support, processing of pre-connect tones, custom tone definition template, etc. This allows to catch more real-life deployment conditions in a reliable and deterministic fashion.

Some of our partners have created custom integrations to NBE 2.0, so they will be fully ready to embrace the GA release later this week. We also have key distributors and resellers implementing special promotions specifically around this product launch. With all this ground work already in place, we hope for immediate success from this product release.

Of course, I'll make sure to keep everyone informed...