VoiceCon: Industry Heavyweights Roll Out New VoIP Wares

Cisco's not alone in plans to upgrade its VoIP platform. Nortel Networks at the conference plans to unveil Communication Server (CS) 1000 5.0, the latest version of its IP-PBX platform. With the upgrade, scheduled for availability in the second quarter, Nortel is opening the platform to run on industry-standard hardware, a move that will give channel partners more deployment flexibility. It is also boosting call security features and enhancing the platform's E911 capabilities.

Toronto-based Nortel has already said it plans to roll out SIP integration between CS 1000 and Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging platform in the second quarter, the first scheduled deliverable from the Innovative Communications Alliance pact struck between the two vendors last summer.

Nortel is also adding integration to the IBM Lotus Notes messaging platform with its Multimedia Communication Server 5100 and rolling out Unified Messaging 2000, a high-end platform that enables voicemail, fax and e-mail access via common e-mail applications.

For its part, Avaya plans to launch at VoiceCon a new focus area dubbed Communications Enabled Business Processes. The idea is to tie communications into business processes and foster collaboration between the right people when problems arise.

"For example, if there's an issue in the production process [at a manufacturing plant], you have to reach the right people, send out the right information and bring them all together," said Lawrence Byrd, director of Communications Enabled Business Processes at Avaya, Basking Ridge, N.J.

Avaya's new Communications Process Manager is the software that sits in the middle and makes the whole thing work. It resides on a Linux server and ties Avaya's communications applications through Web services into a company's business processes. An optional Event Processor can monitor real-time data streams to automatically detect events, send out alerts and begin the communications process.

Throughout the year, Avaya plans to rollout training and information on the new solutions area to its channel partners, Byrd said. "They're going to have to think through which skills to bring on board and where they want to work with Avaya or [other] systems integrators," Byrd said.

For more on these and other products launching at the show, see CRN.com's VoiceCon slideshow.