Business News Holding

Tag: hardware-and-technology

  • Proximity Communications Implements IP-ready Telephony for Nottinghamshire Healthcare

    Proximity Communications, provider of ICT services and solutions, announced it has completed the implementation of an IP-ready telephony solution for Nottinghamshire Healthcare, an NHS mental health and learning disability service provider.

    Deployed across 14 sites, the solution provides a single, resilient telephony platform, and incorporates a number of applications designed to reduce operational costs across the organisation, as well as improve productivity and collaboration within the workforce.

    The contract, which also includes 24/7 maintenance services to support the provision of round-the-clock emergency care, is designed to support Nottinghamshire Healthcare’s long-term transition to a fully converged IP network.

    Martin Harrison, telecoms project manager for Nottinghamshire Healthcare, explained that the company’s number one communications tool, telephony is essential for emergency scenarios and accessing medical expertise. “With many of our staff working in the field, we wanted our new system to help engender a greater sense of teamwork and collaboration,” he said.

    “Staff can quickly identify who’s working where; maintenance is handled at a central location; and, with applications such as auto-attendant, call handling is automated, helping to reduce costs and improve service delivery,” he added.

    Previously operating different telephony systems at each site, the newly networked platform is helping to reduce the complexity and cost of maintenance, and enhance patient care. As well as enabling staff to better share expertise, the central system is also helping the telecoms team to analyse and drive down the cost of lines and minutes across the organisation.

  • DataCore and Citrix to Distribute Free-To-Try DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance

    DataCore Software, the provider of storage virtualisation, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, announced that it has teamed up with Citrix Systems to distribute a free to try, downloadable, DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance. The company also released a Citrix StorageLink adapter to integrate its storage virtualisation solutions with Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V.

    The Virtual SAN Appliance evaluation software enables to try Citrix Essentials with a StorageLink-certified, iSCSI shared storage SAN that can pool up to 1 Terabyte of disk space, efficiently “Thin Provision” storage to virtual machines, speed up application performance and create snapshots for Instant Volume Cloning and Fast Disk-to-Disk Backups.

    The DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance and StorageLink Adapter can be downloaded at www.datacore.com/virtualSANappliance.

    “Customers want performance, productivity and manageability in a dynamic virtual infrastructure. Through StorageLink, DataCore presents to Citrix Essentials virtual disks that are well behaved, non-stop, lightning fast and waste-free, even though the physical storage behind it may come from a variety of manufacturers and be of a price, age and quality very different from one another,” said George Teixeira, DataCore president and CEO.

    DataCore has developed a fast-track “ramp up” programme for its partners, which provides them with NFR software and the opportunity to build their DataCore businesses at their own pace. The DataCore solutions are verified Citrix Ready through the Open Storage Program.

  • Motorola Accelerates TD-LTE Commercialization with Success in Trials

    Motorola announced successful completion of its joint Over-the-Air (OTA) trial with operators as part of the collaborative Time Division Duplex Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) commercialization.

    According to Motorola, its key trial achievements include:
    • First company to complete download throughput up to 70 megabits per second (Mbps) in a 20 megahertz (MHz) bandwidth channel
    • Mobility and hand-over with live applications
    • Multi-User Equipment (UE) testing under one sector

    All trial results have been submitted to the LTE/System Architecture Evolution (SAE) Trial Initiative (LSTI).

    Motorola’s LTE solution is comprised of its OFDM broadband platform and a selection of radio options that include MIMO and smart antennas as well as its self-organizing network (SON) solution. The portfolio includes frame based-mounted radios, remote radio heads and tower top radios to support a variety of LTE deployment scenarios.

    In addition to the collaborative trials with operators, Motorola is also engaged with the TD-LTE trials initiated by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) as part of its efforts to develop a globally competitive TD-LTE industry.

    Motorola’s Wireless Broadband Access Solutions (WBAS) Hangzhou team and Wideband Base Transceiver Systems (WBTS) China team have been working with Chinese operators for many years to get TD-LTE closer to market reality in China.

    “Motorola is committed to broadband and 4G developments, and supports both TD-LTE and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) LTE. We’ve made significant progress in TD-LTE commercialization as demonstrated by these trials," said Dr. Mohammad Akhtar, vice president and general manager of Motorola China.

    Equipment involved in these trials is based on Motorola’s second-generation OFDM products including Motorola’s Base Band Unit (BBU) that supports TD-LTE, FDD-LTE and WiMAX, and features a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) that supports 2×2 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO).

    “LTE is the next big technology in wireless networking and incorporates several key technologies such as smart antenna, all IP and OFDM to enable operators to deliver rich, high bandwidth, multimedia services,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, corporate vice president of Motorola.

    Earlier this year, Motorola deployed a live 700MHz LTE demonstration network in Las Vegas, replicating the successful 2.6GHz live LTE experience in Barcelona. During these two drive tours, visitors were driven around the streets to experience the performance of LTE in a real-life metropolitan RF environment.

  • Tadiran Telecom Launches Next Generation Call Center Solution

    Tadiran Telecom, IP business telephony and communications supplier, announced the EMEA and APAC launch of the Composit Contact Pro (CCP), its next generation call center management solution for the Coral ACD call center.

    IP based CCP is the newest member of Tadiran’s call and contact center solutions. Once deployed, system supervisors are able use the CCP to monitor call quality and service in real-time with call center status information like:
     
    • number of calls and average wait time in queue,
    • available agents in relation to the TSF (Target Service Factor),
    • talk/handling time,
    • agents on private calls,
    • deviations from the TSF,
    • average time before abandonment


    "Improved efficiency and service has long been the cornerstone of the call center management market, and the CCP system addresses the changing needs of organizations in today’s competitive markets,” said Shmuel Golan, Acting Vice President of Sales & Marketing.

    CCP system managers can oversee performance and adherence to cost objectives by monitoring features such as the performance and activity of agents and groups, call distribution and traffic statistics as well as call results.

    Managers can also utilize web based historical reports (Business Object world-leading reporting tool) to analyze trends and patterns over a defined period of time, and use the information for strategic planning and follow up to ensure a positive customer experience.

    The CCP system will replace the legacy MIS system.
     

     

  • Digital Realty Trust Launches Pod Architecture Services

    Digital Realty Trust, the wholesale datacenter provider, has launched a new offering called POD Architecture Services(SM) to provide design and construction services to companies that own or want to own their own datacenter facility, and would like to leverage Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter expertise and resources.

    This new product offering will enable customers to license Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter design packages, benefit from the Company’s procurement supply chain, and utilize the Digital Realty Trust team’s proven Gating Process(SM) for enterprise control throughout the construction process.

    Michael Manos, DRT’s Senior Vice President of Technical Services claims that these services fill a gap in the market between a pure do-it-yourself approach and leasing wholesale space from an outsourced provider. “Many companies want to own their own datacenter, but they do not have the internal skill set and experience to successfully tackle a construction project with the scope and complexity of a major datacenter facility”, he said.

    By using our POD Architecture Services(SM), customers can utilize everything from the company’s blueprints to its relationships with vendors – as well as the expertise that the manager brings to the process.

    Digital Realty Trust’s fee-based POD Architecture Services(SM) also enable companies to license Digital Realty Trust’s Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) design package, including its proprietary Design Engineering Guidelines, schematics, one-lines, BOMs, project/site basis and airflow modelling.

    “As customers increasingly adopt modular approaches to datacenters that speed time to market and lower upfront costs, blueprints such as those from Digital Realty will be in demand in both hosted facilities as well as customers’ own facilities”, said Michelle Bailey, Research Vice President, Enterprise Platforms at IDC

    Digital Realty Trust owns, acquires, redevelops, develops and manages technology-related real estate. The company is focused on providing Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) and Powered Base Building(SM) datacenter solutions for domestic and international tenants across a variety of industry verticals ranging from information technology and internet enterprises, to manufacturing and financial services.

  • TextMagic Releases New Bulk SMS Gateway API

    TextMagic, a provider of online text messaging solutions for businesses, developers and consumers, announced the release of its new Bulk SMS Gateway API.

    The company claims it will facilitate innovation by developers to integrate text messaging services into new and existing web and back-office custom applications, potentially reaching more than three billion active SMS text message service users.

    Developers can connect to TextMagic’s Bulk SMS Gateway using the HTTP API or Email to SMS service. To help developers new to TextMagic’s software and framework, the company has published a detailed, searchable online manual available here.

    “TextMagic’s SMS Gateway API now helps developers capitalize on the continually expanding text messaging market by allowing them to enhance existing applications or create new custom text messaging applications to cost-effectively send and receive SMS messages, check the delivery status of text messages previously sent and more,” said Priit Vaikmaa, marketing manager of TextMagic Ltd.

    Developers can also send large group text messages, build 2 Way SMS systems, communicate in any language and create sub-accounts to manage multiple API users, among other capabilities.

    In addition to the release of the new API, TextMagic is further facilitating the integration of text messaging into software applications with the release of open-source client libraries prepared for Java, Ruby, Python, Perl and PHP. The libraries take over the responsibility of communication with the API and serve as text messaging middleware which is both well documented and easy to install. Thee initiative will be soon extended to other popular programming languages.

    To begin using the TextMagic Bulk SMS Gateway API, developers can apply for a free trial, or buy SMS credits at https://www.textmagic.com/products/api.

  • Clearwire to Launch 4G Service in 10 New Markets in the U.S.

    Clearwire Communications announced the official launch day of CLEAR 4G service in 10 new markets across the U.S. on September 1, 2009.

    The company’s CLEAR WiMax wireless broadband services will occur in Boise, Idaho; Bellingham, Wash; and eight markets throughout Texas, including: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Killeen/Temple, Waco and Wichita Falls.

    Clearwire’s 4G network is now available in four markets, with the expected September 1st launches adding an additional 10 markets, and the company plans to bring CLEAR to 80 markets covering up to 120 million people by the end of 2010. In addition to the markets recently announced, consumers and businesses can purchase the company’s 4G services online and at various retail locations in Atlanta; Baltimore; Las Vegas and Portland, Oregon.

    Some of the additional markets planned to launch in 2009 include Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle. In 2010, Clearwire plans to launch 4G service in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area among others.

    Clearwire’s 4G service, called CLEAR offers fast mobile Internet, similar, butt different, to that provided by Wi-Fi. CLEAR uses a 4G technology called WiMAX, that provides up to 3 Mbit/s broadband speed (although Clearwire claims that it can provide up to 4 MB/sec for downloads and 500 kilobits/sec for uploading).

    Clearwire currently provides 4G service, utilizing WiMAX technology, in four markets and provides pre-WiMAX communications services in 50 markets across the U.S. and Europe.

  • IPsmarx Technology with Encore Networks to Deliver Global SS7 Connectivity


     

    Encore Networks announced that IPsmarx Technology, VoIP solution provider, has selected Encore’s SP-201-Z Signaling Gateway to deliver C7 to ISDN protocol conversion and other VoIP based solutions to Long Distance carriers and global operators.

    The SP-201-Z is an advanced signaling gateway that facilitates out-of-band interoperability between incompatible voice networks, as well as providing interworking capabilities between legacy TDM voice networks and VoIP networks.

    IPsmarx is dedicated to delivering customer management and billing solutions for carriers, VoIP Calling Card Operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). With locations throughout North America, IPsmarx provides Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) in 63 countries with fully integrated turnkey solutions to deploy and run applications like wholesale, residential VoIP, calling card, and termination. Encore joins other industry leading IPsmarx partners including Cisco and Quintum Technologies.

    “Many types of out-of-band signaling protocols exist globally while many countries have different protocols simultaneously in use within its networks,” said William Pourmajidi, Technical Support Manager of IPsmarx Technology. “With its extensive list of seamless protocol support, the SP-201-Z breaks down the barriers presented by these different protocols and enable the flow of information across any network.”

    “By adding the flexible signaling conversion capabilities of the SP-201-Z to their product portfolio, IPsmarx offers customers the opportunity to customize signaling solutions for their specific needs minimizing the risks of entering new international markets,” added Bill Ferguson, Encore Networks Vice President of International Signaling Sales.

  • Teradata Announces Availability of Its Newest Database for Enterprise Intelligence

    Teradata Corporation, the company solely focused on data warehousing and enterprise analytics, today announced general availability of Teradata 13, which includes Teradata Database 13, Teradata Tools and Utilities 13, services and partnerships.

    Teradata acts as a single data store that can accept large numbers of concurrent requests from multiple client applications. Teradata Enterprise Data Warehouses are often accessed via ODBC or JDBC by applications running on operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or flavors of UNIX. The warehouse typically sources data from operational systems via a combination of batch and trickle loads.

    Teradata 13 enables data to stream up to two times faster into the data warehouse. Simultaneously, tens-of-thousands of variables can be analyzed directly in the database. The high-speed data loading and analysis do not interrupt or slow each other, providing agility for business users. The loading of data at high speed has been made possible by using specialized tables to support businesses that accumulate massive data volumes like retail and financial services.

    The query optimizer interprets a query and determines the most efficient way for the database to process it providing business users with a rapid response to their queries. Database administrators and application developers don’t have to be involved, because these enhancements deploy automatically.

    “A data warehouse must deliver analytical muscle, not just scalable storage. Teradata 13’s ability to balance complex workloads is key to this effort. The addition of geospatial and temporal capabilities will provide Teradata customers with entirely new opportunities for business models.” said Scott Gnau, head of development, Teradata Corporation.

    According to Gnau, “Teradata customers will be able to improve the processing of selected geospatial queries by as much as 20 times by integrating and analyzing geospatial or location data along with customer and operational data in-database. Geospatial processing is the latest process that is executed in parallel inside the Teradata Database along with in-database OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) and in-database data mining with SAS. The integrated geospatial data and the high performance of Teradata Database will add a significant new data dimension for customers seeking to increase the intelligence of their enterprise.”

    For customers using OLAP for standard business analytic queries, some type of queries are supposed to run up to 20 times faster on Teradata 13. The Teradata Database patented “intelligent scanning” innovation, eliminates the need to scan data whenever possible, unlike some vendors that focus on brute force, which wastes resources by unnecessarily scanning rows and rows of data.

    Teradata is a massively parallel processing system running a shared nothing architecture. It is offered on Intel servers interconnected by the proprietary BYNET messaging fabric. Teradata systems are offered with either Teradata-branded LSI or EMC disk arrays for database storage.

  • HTC opens Android Market in South Africa


     

    Leaf International Communications, the sole distributor of HTC in South Africa launched three phones, Touch Pro2, Touch Diamond2 and the Snap for the local market.

    The Leaf team presented their new offerings to the media at Central Grill in Fourways. The company also confirmed the Android Market, Google’s mobile application directory, will be available to South African users from August 2009.

    “HTC was the first to launch Android-based handsets in South Africa during May 2009,” said Stephen Strachan, marketing director at Leaf. “At the time, the Android Market was unavailable to local users and, while we have developed a local application portal, it is great that consumer demand has resulted in Google allowing local users to access this popular global portal. Leaf, together with HTC is exceptionally proud to bring the Android market to the South African consumer”.

    For the first time, HTC Magic and HTC Dream handset owners have access to literally thousands of free applications. They can download a complete spectrum of apps, ranging from functional downloads to those designed purely for fun. The assortment is limitless and consumers can choose between a variety of gaming applications, business & social networking tools and a multitude of other exciting content for download direct to their HTC Android handsets.

    HTC Pro2

    The new HTC Pro2 runs off the windows Mobile 6.1 professional operating system and will be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.5 when released. The phones features 3.6-inch touch-sensitive screen with ultra sharp WVGA resolution, an internal GPS antenna, Bluetooth 2.1 stereo that has enhanced data rate and a micro SD card slot which offers expandable storage. The PRO2 makes communication more natural thanks to HTC’s new Straight Talk technology.

    Touch Diamond2

    The slim 13.7mm handset features a 3.2-inch touch sensitive screen with ultra sharp WVGA resolution. The Touch diamond 2 also has an internal GPS antenna which is GPS and A-GPS ready, Bluetooth 2.0 with enhanced Data rate and micro SD card for storage. The Touch Diamond2 runs off Windows 6.1 which will like the PRO2 be upgraded to Windows 6.5 operating system once it’s released.

    HTC Snap

    The New Snap seamlessly integrates the familiar features of Microsoft windows and an exceptional mobile web experience. The HTC Snap operates the flexible Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 standard platform. The HTC Snap also includes an internal GPS antenna that is GPS and A-GPS ready, Bluetooth 2.0 with enhanced Data Rate, Wi-Fi and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets.