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Category: voip

  • Telanetix Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2010 Financial Results

    Telanetix, a communications solutions provider offering voice services and solutions to the business market, reported financial results for its 2010 fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2010.

    The company’s fourth quarter core voice revenue increased 10 percent over the same quarter last year and full-year core revenue grew nearly 16 percent over 2009.

    Fourth Quarter 2010 Financial Highlights:

    • Core voice revenue increased 10 percent year-over-year to $6.0 million, compared to $5.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.
    • Total revenue was $6.7 million, a decrease of 6.9 percent compared to $7.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The decline in total revenue was due to the expected decrease in legacy product revenues, which were $733,000, a 59 percent decrease compared to $1.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.
    • Adjusted EBITDA improved to $536,000, compared to $130,000 in the fourth quarter last year.
    • Net loss from continuing operations was $1.6 million, or $0.00 per share, compared to net income of $1.1 million, or $0.04 per share, in the fourth quarter last year.
    • Total cash and cash equivalents increased $58,000 to $2.3 million at December 31, 2010.

    Full Year 2010 Financial Highlights:

    • Core voice revenue increased 15.9 percent year-over-year to $23.7 million.
    • Total revenue increased $228,000 year-over-year to $28.5 million.
    • Adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million, first full year positive EBITDA and a more than $2.1 million improvement compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $379,000 for 2009.
    • Net income from continuing operations was $10.3 million, or $0.06 per share, which included a $16.5 million gain on recapitalization and $800,000 credit from change in fair market value of derivative liabilities, compared to net loss in 2009 of $8.1 million, or a loss of $0.26 per share, which included a $4.1 million expense for interest and a $3.8 million credit for warrant and beneficial conversion feature liabilities.

    “In addition, we achieved our fifth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and first full year positive EBITDA. During the quarter, our legacy revenue flattened out from recent declines, and we expect it to stay flat or modestly improve in 2011," said Doug Johnson, Telanetix’s CEO.

    He added that during the year the company made progress building on its strategic partnerships and expanding its customer reach by adding new channel partners, including Mitel Networks and Vertical Communications, each of which offers Telanetix’s SIP trunking services to customers ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 1000 enterprises. "We have seen strong initial interest in these services and expect this to be an important growth driver in 2011," Johnson said.

    ”2010 was a pivotal year for Telanetix and we are pleased with our progress and positive steps that have stabilized the company, including completing a comprehensive recapitalization of the Company. We believe we are well positioned now to build on this stable foundation and further expand our presence and share in the marketplace. We expect to achieve continued double digit growth in our core revenue for 2011,” he concluded.

  • Hosted Communications Services Present Excellent Growth Opportunities to European Service Providers

    Although the on-premise model with its control and security advantages will dominate the enterprise communications market in the immediate future, the revenue share of hosted services is poised to increase significantly, according to Frost & Sullivan. Hosted communications services present an ever more popular alternative for deploying IP telephony and unified communications applications.

    New analysis from Frost & Sullivan – European Hosted IP Telephony and Unified Communications Services Market – finds that the hosted IP telephony market in Europe earned revenues of €0.9 billion in 2010 and estimates this to reach €4.9 billion in 2016.

    "The hosted IP telephony and UC services market in Europe is witnessing rapid growth mainly due to the increasing awareness about hosted solutions and improved feature sets," notes Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Dorota Oviedo. "The economic slowdown and limited capital availability for investments urged many enterprises to consider alternative communications delivery methods."

    Once companies experience the actual functionality and service level offered, they become more comfortable with communications being delivered as a service. Services are becoming more mature, offering a complete PBX capability rather than the limited functionality of Centrex solutions previously witnessed in the market.

    "With the economy rebounding, companies will continue using hosted IP telephony services," adds Oviedo. "At the same time, they are also expected to complement them with new communications and collaboration applications."

    The European hosted IP telephony and UC services market is highly fragmented. All the major enterprise communications providers and vendors show interest in tapping this opportunity to leverage the strong customer demand for operational expenditure (OPEX)-based solutions.

    However, building a distribution channel is one of the key challenges faced by this growing industry.

    "Channel partners need to be educated on the benefits of predictable revenues based on recurring monthly revenues and commissions, which are less sensitive to the general economic fluctuations and will increase as hosted services gain traction," concludes Oviedo.

  • Polycom Announces Acquisition of Accordent Technologies

    Unified Communications provider Polycom has announced the acquisition of Accordent Technologies, a provider of video content management and delivery solutions, for approximately $50 million in cash. Polycom expects this acquisition to be neutral to earnings in 2011 and slightly accretive to earnings in 2012.

    Polycom will integrate its open standards UC Intelligent Core and UC endpoints with Accordent’s open standards video content management solution. The Accordent solution provides capture solutions for all major video use cases, whether delivering highly scalable live webcasts from the studio, providing automated rich media webcasting from the meeting or classroom, adding a streaming extension to videoconferences or enabling user-generated content from the desktop.

    According to data from market research firm Wainhouse Research, this acquisition immediately expands Polycom’s total available market by $500 million and, for this video management segment, this market is projected to generate a compounded annual growth rate of 32% through 2014 to $1.2 billion. As a strategic partner with Microsoft, Accordent strengthens and further differentiates Polycom’s deep native integration with Microsoft Lync and Sharepoint.

    "Polycom is committed to delivering an innovative, flexible and world-class video communications solution to customers over the entire content lifecycle – from real-time to capture, to management, to delivery," said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom Chief Development Officer.

    "We believe Accordent has the most elegant video content management solution on the market and by leveraging customer, channel, partner and product synergies with Polycom, this transaction positions Polycom at the forefront of end-to-end video and content management. We welcome Accordent’s customers and employees to the Polycom team," he added.

    "From our first meeting with Polycom, we shared a common vision about the future of unified collaboration and the paradigm shift in the way people communicate and work," said Mike Newman, previous Accordent Chief Executive Officer. "By integrating Accordent’s video content management solutions with Polycom’s unparalleled end-to-end video solution, we believe we can make this vision a reality as we harness the natural synergies between our two companies."

    Accordent grew to $9 million in revenues in 2010 and has over 1,200 customers in the enterprise and public sector, and through select service providers. The staff of 50 employees will remain in Southern California and will report into Polycom’s UC research and development organization. Accordent’s software-centric solution will become an integral element of the Polycom UC Intelligent Core and will be reported with Polycom’s Network Infrastructure revenues.

  • VoIP-PAL Working on New iPad 2 App

    VoIP-PAL announced the development of integrating the video conferencing feature on forthcoming new PointsPhone Mobile App for the iPhone 4G and Apple’s new iPad 2. The App and the new Video Calling feature will soon be available for free downloading at the Apple App Store.

    According to VoIP-PAL, its goal is to provide "a quality, reliable, cost-effective and safe solution" for the casual and business international traveler who must rely on their smartphones to communicate.

    "Apple has once again proven to be the leader in innovation," stated Dennis Chang, President of VoIP-PAL. 

    "When it comes to providing what the consumer seems to want. A front facing camera on its iPhone 4G has made it practical for video calling and conferencing. Apple’s own FaceTime App is available from the Apple App Store, but we are developing a new version of our PointsPhone Mobile iPhone App that will also incorporate video calling. This new iPhone App will also be compatible and allow video chatting on Apple’s latest iPad 2. The new iPad 2 is a modest but significant upgrade and it’s important for our PointsPhone iPhone App to work on Apple’s latest product," he added.

    According to him,  video valling capabilities for smartphones is an important step in bringing the world closer together. Face-to-Face communication will not only improve family and friends’ connectivity, but it will help strengthen business relationships.

    "The first step is to complete the work to upgrade our iPhone App," said Mukesh Mohanbhai, VoIP-PAL’s Chief Technical Officer. "A beta version has been completed and tested. The new version will be fully capable of supporting our new Video Calling feature. Some of the new features of the Video Calling will be highly competitive to some of the others offered, such as transports to various popular Instant Messaging (IM) protocols such as MSN, Google Talk and Yahoo. Again, we will not release a product until I am sure it is truly a quality product and that it is safe and reliable. At VoIP-PAL we have adopted the doctrine of ‘Right the First Time’ release."

  • LifeSize Video Center Introduces Mobile HD Video Streaming

    LifeSize, a division of Logitech, has just announced HD video content streaming on mobile devices using LifeSize Video Center. According to the company, now organizations can benefit from "greater communication reach and flexibility" by using HD video streaming, recording and auto-publishing to make video content available to teams working remotely on mobile devices, such as iPads and iPhones.

    Today, mobile devices are everywhere. According to Frost & Sullivan, 2010 enterprise-level shipments for tablets worldwide was 600,000 units and is expected to go up to 49.1 million in 2015. LifeSize claims that the latest version of itsVideo Center helps organizations address the need for workers to have mobile access to live and on-demand video content such as executive updates, business presentations, sales meetings, training sessions, lectures and data.

    New features of LifeSize Video Center include:

    · Mobile Streaming: Users can access live and on-demand HD video content not only on a PC, but on a variety of devices, including an iPod, iPhone or iPad connected to a Wi-Fi or cellular network. Videos are accessed through the native Web browser, which requires no additional software installation.

    · Automatic Adaptive Streaming: LifeSize Video Center now features automatic adaptive streaming so that a single HD recording from a LifeSize 220TM Series endpoint can be streamed at up to four different bitrates, which means users will always experience optimal video quality especially when working from home, on mobile devices, or in locations with slow bandwidth.

    · Network Storage: Organizations looking to leverage existing storage can now serve on-demand videos from NAS and store a virtually unlimited amount of footage without additional fees, giving IT administrators infinite scalability to meet enterprise needs. Administrators can also control the backup of videos in case of an emergency.

    · API: Using LifeSize Video Center’s API enables easier automation and integration of LifeSize Video Center into third-party systems and tools, such as the company intranet and Learning Management Systems (LMS), so that resellers and organizations can easily customize the video streaming solution for their unique environment.

    "Based on our research, the demand for HD video on-the-go will play a big role in accelerating the adoption of video conferencing technologies in 2011," said Roopam Jain, industry director, conferencing & collaboration at Frost & Sullivan.

    "Tools like LifeSize Video Center present use cases that extend beyond the typical green story and cross-office collaboration. They bring value closer to home by giving professionals access to video content no matter where they need to be and enabling those working the field to leverage video as a visual touch point to their teammates at home base," he concluded.

  • Bandwidth.com Enters Into a Groundbreaking Agreement with Verizon

    Bandwidth.com, a privately held telecommunications company, announced that it has signed a commercial deal with the Verizon wireline companies under which the parties agree to terminate each other’s VoIP traffic at a rate of $0.0007 per minute.

    According to Bandwidth.com, the agreed upon rate, which applies to traffic that originates from or terminates to a VoIP end user, provides the companies with cost certainty for the traffic they exchange.

    "For too long, uncertainty over what charges apply to VoIP traffic has served as a wall to the innovations customers want and the lower prices they need," said John Murdock, President of Bandwidth.com.

    "We are delighted to be working with Verizon in reaching a commercial deal that hopefully will serve as a path for the industry and service providers to move forward and better serve customers," he added.

    According to Murdock, this agreement demonstrates how VoIP and other innovative services can flourish through private agreements.

    We know from our experience first hand how such services can spur economic growth and workplace productivity, while lowering costs and generating job growth," Murdock noted.

  • IPsmarx Releases New Line of VoIP Mobile Dialers for iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile

    IPsmarx announced the release of Breeze, their new line of VoIP Mobile Dialers that can be used with smartphones, such as the iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Android devices.

    By implementing IPsmarx Breeze, VoIP service providers can offer their own branded VoIP application that will enable their end users to make and receive calls using Wi-Fi or 3G on their smart phones.

    According to press release, with Breeze, end users "enjoy the convenience of using their smart phones’ existing contact list and advanced features like Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, Music on Hold, and Call Transfer, while making cost saving calls using the internet."

    “The Pre-paid Press estimates mobile smart phone traffic to increase by 700% over the next five years and according to latest statistics published on itmag.com, the mobile VoIP market will be worth US $32.3 billion by 2013 and when 2019 rolls around, half of all mobile calls will be made over all-IP Networks,” said Andrea Lopez, Senior Tech Sales Representative for IPsmarx.

    “Consumers and businesses are changing the way they communicate and service providers have to stay ahead of this trend by offering VoIP on smart phones,” she added.

    Because IPsmarx maintains an in-house development team, they are committed to updating the Breeze application as smart phones and their operating systems evolve.

    “This furthers our mission to enable our VoIP Service Provider clients to stay ahead of VoIP trends and offer competitive features to differentiate their service in the constantly evolving VoIP marketplace,” said Arash Vahidnia, IPsmarx CEO,

    “By implementing Breeze, we expect to see our existing clients greatly expand their businesses. Service Providers who have not migrated to IPsmarx yet have the opportunity to use IPsmarx Breeze with their existing Softswitch or IP-PBX platform without having to invest in a new softswitch."

    Combined with the IPsmarx Multi-Tenant IP-PBX System, Breeze is a superior mobile VoIP application for enterprises as it can be used as an extension in the PBX system.

    Breeze also supports VoIP Tunneling Technology and if integrated with IPsmarx Tunneling server, it can work from blocked areas or from behind firewalls for both incoming and outgoing calls.

  • Mobile VoIP Gateway Revenues to Soar Past $6 Billion in 2015

    VoIP, the technology that has revolutionized voice services over the past several years and has brought calling costs down for residential and business customers alike, is spreading from the fixed-line world to the mobile world. Usage is on the rise creating significant opportunity for mobile VoIP gateway equipment suppliers as expenditures in this space are expected to soar beyond the $6 billion mark in 2015, says In-Stat.

    "Mobile VoIP has only recently begun being implemented in the business environment," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst.

    "One of the key benefits of mobile VoIP for enterprises is extending desk phone functionality to mobile devices. Business-oriented solutions will essentially enable the users’ cellphones to become an extension of their desk phones and will deliver, in addition to voice, a unified communications experience, including email, IM, and collaboration," she daid.

    Business mobile VoIP users will increase tenfold over the next five years. According to the report, mobile operators are currently a barrier to adoption but could become a significant driver of adoption over the next several years.

    The research also finds that business mobile VoIP is based on IP PBX and hosted PBX solutions and that growth in IP PBX mobile VoIP usage will largely be driven by mid-sized and enterprise businesses.

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  • Skype Officially Launched Group Video Calling with New Premium Package

    Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, Skype has officially launched group video calling for consumers and enterprises. Group video calling is available as part of the new Premium package which offers group video calling together with access to live chat customer support as a day pass for $4.99 (€3.49/£2.99) or as a monthly subscription for $8.99 (€5.99/£4.99) per month.

    Skype users who sign up for group video calling in the first month it’s available will receive a 33 percent discount on 3 and 12-month subscriptions. New users receive a 7-day free trial. In addition, consumers who sign up for group video calling will receive a 25 percent discount off an HD webcam.

    Group video calling is also available in the new Business version of Skype, a desktop application for PCs, which gives enterprises the ability to control how Skype is used within the workplace, with the capacity to turn off or configure a variety of Skype settings. According to Skype, with group video calling, enterprises "can easily set up real-time, face-to-face meetings and work in more collaborative and productive ways." For enterprises using Skype Manager who sign up for Group Video Calling, they will receive a 33 percent discount when signing up for a 3 or 12 month subscription. In addition, they will receive a 15 percent discount off of a headset and speakerphone bundle.

    To start a group video call, only one member of the call needs to have activated the seven-day free trial or to have signed up for a day pass or monthly subscription using Skype for Windows 5.1. For all participants to receive video, they need to be on at least the 5.0 version of Mac and windows.

    According to Skype, video calling accounted for approximately 41.5% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes in the second half of 2010.

    Skype also said that video calls between two parties will continue to be offered as a free product.

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  • Skype to Acquire Qik

    Skype has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services. Qik has 60 employees, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Moscow, Russia. The transaction is expected to close in January 2011. The companies informed that terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

    Qik was founded in 2006 and offers solutions to capture and share video with anyone across mobile devices, the web, and desktop platforms. Videos can be shared in real time or stored so moments can be viewed later, allowing for video messaging, sharing and archiving. The Qik service is available on over 200 mobile phones across the Android, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms, and comes pre-loaded on a wide variety of mobile handsets.

    Both Skype and Qik have a common purpose of enriching communications and sharing with video, across any device. According to Skype, the acquisition of Qik "helps accelerate Skype’s leadership in video by adding recording, sharing and storing capabilities to Skype’s product portfolio. Through this acquisition, Skype will also be able to leverage the engineering expertise that is behind Qik’s Smart Streaming technology, which optimizes video transmission over wireless networks."

    "The Qik team has delivered exceptional video experiences for its mobile partners and millions of end users across a range of devices," said Tony Bates, Skype’s Chief Executive Officer.

    "Skype’s software enables an estimated 25 percent of the world’s international long distance voice calling minutes*, and approximately 40 percent of those Skype-to-Skype calls are happening over video. Qik’s deep engineering capabilities and strong mobile relationships will be an impressive complementary fit with Skype," he added.

    Vijay Tella, Chief Executive Officer of Qik, said: "Qik has worked very hard to solve complex problems that allow millions of people everyday to take advantage of sharing their lives with those people who are most important to them. Joining Skype allows Qik’s team to unite with Skype’s talented team to develop new and innovative products for our customers and partners."

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