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Tag: winner

  • Cypress Communication's Frank Grillo Wins voip-biz.news' Person of the Year Award


    Frank Grillo, Cypress Communication’s executive vice president of marketing, is the winner of the voip-biz.news’ Person of the Year award.

    In nominating him for the title, the telecoms professional was described as a "visionary executive" and "innovative thinker" with "technical acumen".

    Grillo joined Cypress Communications in August of 2005 and was responsible for taking C4 IP, Cypress’ hosted VoIP and hosted unified communications solution, from inception to launch.

    Praising Grillo’s handling of the process, a voter said: "C4 IP is a technically challenging configuration and took Frank Grillo’s visionary leadership, technical acumen and foresight to launch.

    "It is the only integration of two traditionally disparate platforms: the carrier class softswitch, Nortel CS 2000, with the powerful multimedia server, MCS 5200.

    "With the successful integration of these platforms, Cypress became the only company in the USA, and only one of three in the world, to accomplish this feat.

    "To date, the C4 IP solution has won 10 awards for product innovation, and under Grillo’s leadership, C4 IP now has over 6,000 installed seats and is credited with the largest hosted VoIP/unified communications installation in the US."

    Prior to joining Cypress, Grillo was senior vice president of business services for Z-Tel and senior vice president of global business markets for MCI WorldCom.

    From 1995 to 2000 he was vice-president of marketing for LDDS.

    Voip-biz.news would like to thank everyone who took the effort to nominate a product and to cast a vote.

  • MyGlobalTalk and IPsmarx's SIP-based Calling Card Platform Share voip-biz.news Product of the Year Award


    Two innovative products dominated voting to share the honours in voip-biz.news’ Product of the Year 2008 competition.

    With 33 per cent of the nominations, MyGlobalTalk’s VoIP calling solution earned praise for its sound quality and call rates, as well as features such as no contract being required, no connection fees and no minimums.

    Launched as a BETA version in June 2008, MyGlobalTalk now works on any cell phone, land line or computer.

    The company, which is part of i2Telecom, is preparing a widgets launch which will enable MyGlobalTalk to be used from Outlook, iGoogle or Facebook.

    In the many comments of recommendation, voters also highlighted customer service and ease of use as reasons for their satisfaction with MyGlobalTalk.

    Sharing this year’s award is IPsmarx’s SIP-based calling card platform, which eliminates the need for a VoIP gateway and PSTN lines using DID technology.

    Fully over IP, the calling card solution offers a range of advanced features.

    So much so that the product was described by voters as "the platform of the future", "user friendly" and having a "great technical support team".

    One reader said: "I am extremely impressed with IPsmarx’s ability to think outside the box and eliminate common problems that exist in the calling card space."

    To take this year’s award, the joint winners saw off a large field which included well-known names including Mobivox, Ifbyphone, XConnect, Skype, Fring, ShoreTel, Cypress communications and HelloSoft.

    Voip-biz.news would like to thank everyone who took the effort to nominate a product and to cast a vote.

  • OnRelay's Ivar Plahte Wins Smartphone-biz.news' Person of the Year Award


    A true visionary, a trend spotter, truly innovative and the driving force behind OnRelay.

    Just some of the plaudits from those that voted OnRelay’s CEO and co-founder Ivar Plahte as smartphone-biz.news’ Person of the Year 2008.

    In second place was Ofer Tziperman, president and co-founder of LocatioNet, the mapping and location applications company.

    As CEO of OnRelay for the past seven years, Plahte has established himself as a key thought leader in the Fixed Mobile Convergence space.

    Prior to OnRelay, Plahte was director of IP telephony at Telenor, where he created and was the general manager of the Telecom over IP business unit.

    Ivar Plahte, CEO OnRelay

    His team produced several world-first launches and was among the first public operators worldwide to establish a voice over IP based revenue stream.

    Before Telenor, Plahte was Ericsson’s global product manager for IP Services.

    He has a BSc in Electrical Engineering and an MSc in Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

    Voters who recommended Plahte spoke of his vision and drive.

    "Ivar has been at the forefront of Mobile telephony for his entire career," said one reader.

    "He founded OnRelay to develop cellular FMC and only recently has the market managed to get over the WiFi hype and start to take the cellular option seriously.

    "Ivar has been there all along, and now has his company well positioned to capture the market as it looks for the right solution."

    Others described him as a "telecoms pioneer" whose vision predicted FMC shift back in 2000 and did something about it – "picking the right tech and staying at it".

    The last word must go to one supporter, who simply said "he rocks". Praise indeed.

    The runner-up, Ofer Tziperman, has over a decade of extensive experience in international business and in the marketing of high-tech products.

    LocatioNet provides mapping and location enabled applications to tier one telecom and defense customers around the world.

    Under Tziperman’s guidance the company has become one of the leading technology providers in the LBS and C4I markets, with an international presence in Europe, USA, Latin America and Asia.

    Prior to establishing LocatioNet, he served as VP Marketing for OTI, a public high-tech company listed in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and NASDAQ that specializes in contactless smart card technology.

    Tziperman played a major role in turning OTI from a young start-up company to an international organization with subsidiaries and front offices around the world.

    An attorney who practiced commercial and business law, he holds an LLB degree from the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and is a graduate of the Israeli Naval Officers Academy.