Getting the Fax Straight

Today, Sangoma and Commetrex announced that the companies are working together to deliver fax-server solutions to OEMs. This is significant in two ways: First it means Commetrex is letting go of its own TDM interface hardware in favor of Sangoma’s more complete and more cost effective TDM board product line. Second, it means Sangoma now has a reputable solution partner in the fax server space, selling into a market that just wasn’t seriously touched by Sangoma before. This is clearly a win-win proposition!

Here is how Tom Ray from Commetrex explains their decision process… “For years, Commetrex has shipped a limited range of PCI telephony boards, so this announcement marks a major shift in the company’s strategy. We have recently landed some significant design wins in the IP enterprise-fax market with BladeWare’s value proposition of high function and performance with an unbeatable price. But every one of these OEMs would like to enjoy similar competitive advantages when a PSTN interface is required. These OEMs have a worldwide customer base; systems range from two to hundreds of ports. This means not just analog and E1/T1 boards, but ISDN PRI and BRI for the EU market, plus global homologations. We knew we had to get there, and get there fast. Then the Sangoma folks told us that not only did they already have everything we needed, but that they could sell it to us for less than we could produce it. We were sold! Another consideration was Sangoma’s support for Windows. There are multiple sources for telephony interface boards, but many only support Linux. Sangoma’s support for Windows and Linux, and their simplified APIs with ISDN PRI support made the decision even easier.”

One can check out the Commetrex offering at http://www.commetrex.com/BladeWare.html


Everyone is excited about this one. I hope it gets the success we anticipate.

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...