VoIP Vendor Plays Nice With Others

Company:

Headquarters: Berlin

Technology Sector: VoIP

Key Product: Snom 820 VoIP Phone

Year Founded: 1996

Number of Channel Partners: 8 distributors in North America

Ideal Channel Partner: Volume-oriented reseller

Why You Should Care: Snom Technology brings a fresh face to the U.S. IP telephony market with its line of VoIP business phones that interoperate with equipment from any PBX vendor that uses the SIP standard.

The Lowdown: A company formed in 1996 may not sound as if it would be considered "emerging," but VoIP telephone maker Snom Technology is actually a relative newcomer to the U.S. IT channel, having opened its first domestic office just three years ago.

Since then it has worked to bulk up channel operations, bringing on eight North American distribution partners to help bring its IP telephony products to market through solution providers.

Central to Snom's focus is interoperability via SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) -- the standard for initiating interactive user sessions involving multimedia elements such as voice, video, chat and more -- which means its products work with most major VoIP vendors' platforms.

Snom sees SIP as gospel. "If someone is selling an IP PBX, most are using SIP as the protocol for the end point or VoIP phone," said Mike Storella, Snom's director of business development.

Currently, Snom sells its line of VoIP phones in 40 countries through a two-tiered distribution system. Snom gear is sold 100 percent through the channel, targeting VARs through distribution.

In 2008, Snom set out to educate VARs, launching a certification program and VAR recruitment effort to broaden its channel reach. And it's looking to broaden its partner base.

"We want to work with everybody on the planet who does SIP," Storella said.

Its flagship phone, the Snom 820, features a high-resolution TFT color 3.5-inch screen to display call lists, phone directories and caller information through an XML-based minibrowser. It also ties in functionality such as wide-band audio, auto-provisioning, VPN capabilities and other SIP security features, with a list price of $419. Other models are available starting at $119.

The 820 also includes a wide range of functions, including five-way conferencing, multiple ring tones and up to 12 different SIP identities, while the new WLAN edition lets users install the phone in any environment, whether its Power-over-Plug with WLAN or Power-over-Ethernet.

"Our phones have a lot of features and are reasonably priced and high quality," Storella said. "A lot of people think phones are going to die because of laptops, but phones are the main productivity tool for the office worker."