january 23-26, 2007 ft. lauderdale, florida reaching the smb market: best practices thom o’connor...

January 23-26, 2007• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Reaching the SMB Market: Best Practices

Thom O’ConnorDirector, Product and Services

CommuniGate SystemsJanuary 23, 2007


Enterprise VoIP evolution

• "IP telephony has gone mainstream," says VoIP analyst Brian Riggs, of Current Analysis. "There's no doubt about it."

• The shift in market dominance from TDM to IP really became apparent in the first quarter of 2006, according to Synergy Research Group.

• Two years ago, only a third of business phone system lines were IP, but by this year's third quarter, more than 60% were.

• Enterprises have spent $7.7 billion on telephony in the first three quarters of 2006, according to Synergy


The End of „Walled Gardens“

• The closed-network, proprietary model for VoIP will likely end

• No one ever needs to ask whether their system can send an email to Yahoo

• Insecure for business – relies on outside, often unknown vendors

• Susceptible to cost hikes• Not based on standards• Not a true “end-to-end”

model for direct connectivity

• Not a real Internet model - based more on the PSTN of the past


Why do SMBs move now to VoIP?

• Mature solutions with applications• Open standards• Interoperability • Reliability• Security• Costs• For many customers, the impetus to go with VoIP is

consolidation of disparate phone systems, and centralized management

• Merging of voice and data • Option to operate in a hybrid technology mode at

some point


Challenges of Implementing VoIP/SIP

• SIP protocol still in rolling development• Many vendors adding non-standard methods that don’t

always interop• QOS and bandwidth issues, lost/out-of-order packets• Power over Ethernet (PoE) not widespread• Each SIP end-user device may state its own presence• “Near-end” and “Far-end” NAT traversal• Little policy/compliance for end-to-end data transfer• Scalability & HA of VoIP infrastructure• Emergency procedures (911)• Security challenges (data capture, MITM, DDoS, virus?,

encryption not commonly used)


Benefits of VoIP

• Sophisticated call management – presence, call forwarding/routing

• Integrated voice, video, file transfer, IM• (Arguably) communications at lower cost and with

richer media (although the cost benefits of are in transition and debatable)

• Consolidated identity management• Granular policy/compliance capabilities• ENUM for convergence of telephone numbers & IP

addresses• Mobility, access, flexibility


Total IP Communications

• Standards-based SIP and XMPP will allow every online user to communicate via voice/video/IM

• Single-address for email, VoIP, and collaboration

• Accessible from multiple devices

• Easy to deploy and maintain• IMS-ready converged platform• Clustered for scalability and

performance• SPECmail world-record holder

for messaging• SIP Farm for clustered voice

applications and presence


Convergence benefits for SMB

• One address for all IP Communications:

– VoIP

– Secure Instant Messaging

– Presence info

– Email and collaboration

– Video

• Integration of the IP communications spectrum into one platform allows an interesting set of capabilities and extensibility.

• Imagine having the calendar change your presence status, or having the PBX call appointments members prior to the meeting, or call a doctor's patients to remind them of the dental appointment the day before.


Rich features needed

• Adobe Flash client with full IP Communications features (Pronto!)

• Email through standards-based clients like Thunderbird or Apple Mail

• Email and Collaboration through Outlook in Work-group mode

• Groupware like Calendaring, shared address book etc.

• Click-to-call from Outlook or Pronto!

• Application sharing

• Secure IM with clients using SIP/Simple or XMPP (Jabber)

• Platform Choice (Unix, OSX, Windows, Linux, BSD)


Mobile Client …


… True Convergence


Future Ready


New Applications - XML API

• XML Interface for Messaging, Scheduling, and Signalling - XIMSS

• Light-weight, protocol independent XML API• Uses TCP and optional SSL• Pronto! Skin is written using XIMSS, and allows for easy

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Becomes<EMailHeader>

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XML API - XIMSS

• Business proposition• Easy to develop touch points to the platform• Mold communications to business processes• Ability to create new value add offerings at ease

• Technology proposition• Convergence of telephony/messaging• Lower Administration• Think different about Email clients...finally• Based on open standards


• Free 5user Community Edition for download at www.communigate.com

january 23-26, 2007 ft. lauderdale, florida reaching the smb market: best practices thom o’connor...

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