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Avaya
For Immediate Release: 29-Mar-2006
VANCOUVER, CANADA – CounterPath™ Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB: CTPS), the leading provider of SIP softphones, today announced it has been selected by Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, for membership in the Avaya DeveloperConnection program.
CounterPath is the developer of eyeBeam™, a video SIP softphone that supports open standards for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Video over Internet Protocol and instant messaging, and delivers video-conferencing with enhanced voice quality. The CounterPath solution works with Avaya's Internet protocol (IP) telephony platform that transmits voice over a data network. As a result, the two companies are improving the user experience and enabling enhanced integration of softphones across multiple user applications and interfaces.
The Avaya DeveloperConnection program promotes the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of innovative third-party products that are compatible with standards-based Avaya solutions. Member organizations have expertise in a broad range of technologies – including IP telephony, contact centers and mobility applications – helping companies extend the value of multivendor networks and transform voice into an intelligent business application that delivers true value to the bottom line.
"With our softphones, we aim to enhance the user's overall communications experience – whether it be VoIP, Video over IP or IM – and make it as seamless and easy as possible," said Donovan Jones, vice president, sales and marketing, CounterPath. "Membership in Avaya's developer community will further help us serve users' needs efficiently and effectively. By working more closely with Avaya to deliver compliance-tested solutions to the market, CounterPath will continue to offer customers innovative products and more choice across a variety of applications."
The Avaya DeveloperConnection program currently includes more than 2,200 software and hardware developer companies, integrators, service providers and customers. Members have created hundreds of innovative solutions tested for Avaya compliance, including natural language speech recognition applications, wireless services, specialized computer telephony integration and reporting capabilities, and applications tailored for specific vertical industries.
"With the involvement of companies like CounterPath, our Avaya developer community has become a catalyst for rapid innovation and the creation of new multivendor applications that help enterprises around the world unleash new possibilities for operating more efficiently and effectively," said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations and technical alliances, Avaya. "We help businesses embed secure, reliable Intelligent Communications into the very fabric of their organization so employees and customers have ready access to information – regardless of where they are and how they prefer to communicate."
As a member of the DeveloperConnection program, companies have access to a wide range of support from Avaya, including technical resources and training. There are four levels of membership – Registered, Innovator, Premier and Strategic – each entailing progressive levels of marketing and sales involvement. Free Registered membership is available to all without restriction. Higher-level Innovator, Premier and Strategic members must meet rigorous Avaya criteria for customer satisfaction, product support, business operations, marketing and sales. CounterPath is an Innovator member of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program.
Membership information and a listing of solutions developed and tested under the DeveloperConnection program are available at www.devconnectprogram.com.
For Immediate Release: 28-Mar-2006
BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – For the second time this year, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony solutions from Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV) were rated in first place in the industry's most demanding IP PBX competition by Miercom, a leading network consultancy and product test center.
Avaya, a leading global supplier of business communications software, systems and services, took top honors as "Best in Test" for its IP telephony solution for small to medium businesses (SMBs), adding to its first place win for "high end" IP telephony systems in a January 2006 review. In the most recent competition, Miercom cited Avaya IP telephony solutions for:
• Top performance in endpoints, performance and security
• Achievement of the only perfect scores in endpoints and performance categories and a near-perfect score in security; and
• Its security system, which outranked the other vendors' solutions, and included voice-stream encryption on all end points, including softphones.
The results of the test, which focused on systems supporting 50 to 500 users across multiple distributed sites, appear in this month's issue of Business Communications Review (BCR) magazine, an industry-leading publication for enterprise telecommunications and network managers and information technology professionals.
Miercom ranked each company's solutions based on architecture, endpoints, management and administration, features, security and performance.
The Avaya solution included the recently-announced Avaya Communication Manager 3.1 software, which helps businesses benefit from a more reliable, open enterprise communications foundation. New and unique capabilities of the software help organizations increase business continuity, improve mobility, drive greater investment protection of multi-vendor technologies with expanded Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) support, and enhanced employee and customer communications. The solution tested also included an Avaya S8300 Media Server, an Avaya Call Controller for small and medium businesses, and Avaya G350, G250 and G700 gateways. The Avaya solution was measured against three competing vendors with systems that typically support 50 to 500 users.
"Because the Avaya media server, which supports a maximum of 450 users, runs the same core Communication Manager control software that drives Avaya's high-end systems, Avaya offers many of the same capabilities in SMB systems as in their large systems," said Ed Mier, president of Miercom. "That gave the Avaya solution a clear advantage."
In the endpoint category, Miercom said Avaya's broad range of phones that operated with the solution, including Avaya IP and SIP handsets, Avaya softphone application, several models of wireless phones, and third party SIP handsets, were key to Avaya's top rating, Miercom said. Voice and connection quality were rated "excellent," even when Miercom added impairments, such as packet loss and delay, and easily handled Miercom's load of 7,200 calls per hour, which was designed to represent the "busy hour" load of a typical 500-station system.
"We know that small and medium businesses typically need the same communication capabilities as do large businesses, to enable them to serve customers better and increase productivity," said Micky Tsui, vice president and general manager, converged systems division, Avaya. "By winning top ratings in this intense competition twice in a row, for solutions designed for all sizes of enterprises, it's clear that Avaya is focused on empowering all companies to embed intelligent communications, made possible by IP telephony, into their business processes."
Cisco System
CertCities.com's 4th Annual Readers' Choice Awards
Your picks for the top certifications, programs and providers of 2005.
by Dan Hong
12/7/2005 -- Every year, we gather your collective opinion about which IT certifications are the best in our annual reader survey. What program is worthy of your respect? What and who are the best exam preparation resources and resource providers?
Though the field has a lot of good things to offer, here are the crème de la crème. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and finalists.
Most Respected High-Level Certification
Winner: Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE)
Finalists: Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), (ISC)2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
For three years running now, this triumvirate continues to dominate the upper echelon of IT certifications, covering networking infrastructure from the set up to its security. And in the case of Cisco’s CCIE and Microsoft’s MCSE, their reign has been uninterrupted since our first CertCities Readers’ Choice Awards in 2002.
The key to the CCIE’s success lies in the respect it commands from IT professionals for the painful (but worthwhile) difficulty of its hands-on practicum, which puts candidates’ book knowledge to the test -- for eight hours. One reader believed the title is the most respected high-level certification because of “the level of difficulty in attaining the cert, along with the hands-on testing in a lab environment, which shows you can DO what you say you know and not just guess a correct answer from a set of four.” By testing candidates in a lab setting with realistic, unique situations, he said there’s “no way to braindump through it.”
The MCSE, on the other hand, owes its claim at the top largely to its “brand-name recognition,” as a reader put it. Because of Microsoft’s undeniably universal presence in almost every corner of the IT industry, its certifications carry some weight on that fact alone: “We clearly live in a Microsoft world. Our clients are 100 percent Microsoft -- therefore we have to be,” said one reader. Another commented, “As most organizations use the Microsoft platform, it’s very relevant when applying for most jobs in the IT industry.”
Rounding out the top three is (ISC)2’s vendor-neutral security CISSP certification. Several readers pointed out its stringent requirements, which sound like prerequisites for becoming a CIA agent or British knight: having a minimum four years of full-time security experience, agreeing to a code of ethics and passing the six-hour CISSP exam. As one reader said, “CISSP is the gold standard for the computer security profession.” In this day and age of weekly security bulletins, patches and fixes to strengthen an organization’s -- or even a desktop’s -- defenses, security is a critical issue. “Security is hot these days, and the CISSP is valued for this reason,” related Steve Griffiths, a consultant at Cyberdyne Systems with 11 years of IT experience.
Best Overall Certification Program
Winner: Cisco
In this winner-take-all category, Cisco’s venerable program continues to keep Microsoft and CompTIA at bay to win the title for the fourth straight year.
Apparently, IT professionals love pain and respect the tough love that Cisco dishes out in its certification exams. But the difficulty of these exams is directly proportional to the amount of recognition from peers and employers you’ll get once you gain those hard-won certifications from the network giant. “Cisco has always kept their certifications up-to-date and resistant to ‘paper’ certification,” said one reader. Another put it simply, “No B.S.”
“Cisco's exams are quite difficult, requiring a higher percentage to pass, and have more simulation-type questions,” a reader said. “I feel that the Cisco certs are very accurate at determining a tech's skills.”
Not only that, the knowledge and skills learned will be invariably applicable in the candidate’s future job. One reader noted that Cisco’s “tests were of high quality and very close to the actual day-to-day use of their products.”
There you have it -- the best of the best of 2005. Congratulations, once again, to all of this year’s winners and finalists. Now, let’s hear what you have to say about the results by posting down below!
NOTE: Winners and finalists will be contacted shortly by CertCities.com with their official congratulations e-mails containing logos, etc. If you have questions in the meantime, please e-mail dhong@101com.com.
Extrme Networks
Extreme Networks' New BlackDiamond 12K Carrier Switch Certified for Metro Ethernet Forum's MEF 9 Specification
March 02, 2006 (12:30 PM EST)
PRNewswire
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Extreme Networks, Inc. today announced that its new carrier switch, the BlackDiamond(R) 12K featuring Multidimensional Ethernet, has passed the Metro Ethernet Forum's (MEF) service conformance tests. This latest certification allows service providers to deploy a family of certified Ethernet switches from the customer edge though the core of their service networks.
The MEF tests demonstrate the platform's capability to deliver robust Ethernet Private Line services, Virtual Private Line services and Ethernet LAN services over Metro Ethernet networks, as defined by the MEF 9 specification. With the certification of the BlackDiamond 12K, Extreme Networks(R) now features an end-to-end switching family that has passed all three service conformance tests, performed by independent lab Iometrix, Inc., a leading test firm. The testing certified that the Extreme Networks' BlackDiamond 12804, BlackDiamond(R) 10808 and Summit(R) X450 switching platforms can deliver a variety of Carrier Ethernet services.
Private Line and Virtual Private Line services provide point-to-point Ethernet connectivity, while Ethernet LAN services are used to interconnect multiple sites. These services are typically used by business customers for voice, video and data connectivity between campuses and remote sites.
"The addition of the BlackDiamond 12K switch to our MEF certified platforms gives service providers a complete Carrier Ethernet solution," said Peter Lunk, senior manager of Metro Ethernet solutions for Extreme Networks. "Our customers can now scale their Ethernet deployments and deliver service guarantees for both business and residential subscribers using our innovative and certified platforms."
New Carrier Ethernet Resource:
Extreme Networks has also launched a new Carrier focused micro-site dedicated to Multidimensional Ethernet. This serves as a resource where service providers can obtain in-depth information on Extreme Networks' innovative Metro Ethernet technologies that allow them to increase the scale of Ethernet VPNs, provide guaranteed services with three tier hierarchical Quality of Service (QoS) and establish an Ethernet cross-connect for simple access to various content networks.
Visit: http://www.multidimensionalethernet.com .
Extreme Networks, Inc.
Extreme Networks is a leader in open converged networks. Its innovative network architecture provides enterprises and metro service providers with the resiliency, adaptability and simplicity required for a true converged network that supports voice, video and data, over a wired and wireless infrastructure, while delivering high-performance and advanced security features. For more information, please visit http://www.extremenetworks.com .
Extreme Networks Seen As Takeover Target
Monday March 20, 12:14 pm ET
Stock Jumps As Analyst Upgrades Extreme Networks, Calls It an Attractive Takeover Target
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Extreme Networks Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of ethernet switches, shot up Monday after an analyst upgraded the stock and suggested the company could make an attractive takeover target.
Shares of Extreme Networks, which have traded between $4.02 and $6.25 over the last year, were up 21 cents, or 4.2 percent, at $5.20 in heavy midday trading on the Nasdaq.
Prudential analyst Inder Singh upgraded the stock Monday to "Neutral Weight" from "Underweight" and said downside in share price could be limited by the company's financial position and new product cycle.
"Extreme is at the front end of a product cycle with a particular focus on the carrier ethernet market with the new Black Diamond 12K platform. While any new product introduction entails a high degree of risk, a solid market reception could help the company to generate additional revenue growth," Singh wrote in a research note.
"We believe the company may also represent an attractive takeout candidate for financial or strategic buyers attracted to its upcoming products or solid financials along with the ability to bring exposure to the metro ethernet market at an attractive valuation relative to Foundry Networks Inc. and Cisco Systems," he added.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the Extreme Networks to earn, on average, 23 cents per share on $383.7 million in revenue for the year.
Extreme Crashes Red-Hot Carrier Ethernet Party
3/13/2006 -- As seminal post-punkers the Replacements once put it: Oooooh, Black Diamond. As of last week, that's one chorus that should be near and dear to the hearts of Extreme Networks and many of its customers.
Extreme unveiled the BlackDiamond 12K, a new carrier Ethernet switch designed to deliver data and triple-play services to both business and residential subscribers, support for thousands of users per platform, and provide known QoS.
"[I]t's a new and next generation platform that was specifically designed with carrier-class Ethernet Service delivery in mind. Using fourth generation ASIC technology, the platform supports a non-blocking architecture with hierarchical QoS and eight service levels per subscriber as well as being able to scale to support a large number of subscribers," says Jeff Ogle, a principal analyst for carrier infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis.
Extreme's new offering is based on the same Extreme OS (XOS) underpinnings that power the company's other BlackDiamond Series products
although the BlackDiamond 12K is powered by new, fourth-generation ASIC technology. "The BlackDiamond 12K offers a right-sized modular fault tolerant hardware platform ... [that is] optimized for line rate performance, including some overhead capacity for filtering and SLA performance monitoring," he comments.
It's an ambitious deliverable for Extreme, Ogle notes. More than that, however, the BlackDiamond 12K provides additional proof that the carrier Ethernet space is sizzling. "The market impact of this announcement by itself would be relatively minor in the overall scheme of things if it [were] simply an isolated new product claiming carrier Ethernet qualities. Instead, this is another of several vendor announcements that have come from both the major tier-1 players like the Alcatel 7450, Cisco 7604, and Siemens hiD6650, and the smaller niche players like the Foundry IMR 640 and Riverstone 15000," Ogle points out. "This market is the fastest growing carrier segment that has come along for some time, and everyone has taken notice and is getting very serious within this space."
In the carrier Ethernet space, Cisco should be able to parry Extreme's BlackDiamond gambit, Ogle says. "The 7600 ... has compelling CapEx advantages based on new Ethernet interfaces -- part of Cisco's SIP/SPA architecture known as I-Flex -- which have lowered its cost per port and increased its density. Cisco can also stress its IP DNA and broad breadth of management solutions," he concludes. "Additionally, Cisco can point out that it has added the 7604, which is optimized to deliver high availability 10GigE support for triple-play services for small PoPs and Internet gateways."  -Stephen Swoyer
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