Briefs: VoIP in the news

Asterisk creator Digium has announced an infusion of cash from a major investment group. The maker of the open source telephony technology just closed its first round of venture capital funding, receiving $13.8m from Matrix Partners. In a statement, the company predicted that "the funding will help fuel the continued growth of Digium and Asterisk, especially in launching new offerings for the enterprise communications market."

Digium has been profitable since 2002 and claims 100% growth over the course of each year since then. There are more than a million Asterisk users today, a number that continues to grow, as evidenced by its 1,000 downloads per day, according to Digium. The company also currently counts 130 Asterisk partners worldwide, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises, nonprofits, branch and remote offices, contact centres, carriers and service providers.

VoIP backup

Quintum Technologies has introduced a version of its VoIP switch that provides a backup VoIP option for branch offices. The Survivable version of the company's Tenor VoIP MultiPath Switch kicks in with local support of a branch office IP telephony network in the event of loss of IP connectivity with a company's voice server at the main location.

The new Survivable Tenor S contains a local SIP proxy that provides survivability for local Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) endpoints, such as IP phones, and intelligent call routing to keep a SIP-based VoIP network running if connectivity with the main proxy server is lost. The new Tenor solution has been compatibility-tested by Avaya, Quintum said in a statement.

Unified communications for profit

LiteScape Technologies has launched a pilot version of its Unified Communications for Retail application and Secure Personal Authentication Reader (SPAR), which was showcased in conjunction with the Robertson Group in The Cisco Company Store at Networkers 2006.

The Cisco Store gave visitors the opportunity to swipe a magnetic card or RFID card through LiteScape's SPAR device to win prizes from Cisco. Attendees also used the LiteScape application on IP phones to search and view information on the Top 20 Cisco Press books.

Unified Communications for Retail solutions from LiteScape is a retail application of the software as it can be used in the enterprise. It includes OnCast Directory, which gives enterprises the ability to search and dial across multiple sites and view Presence availability before making a call. OnCast Directory can be used to broadcast to individuals or groups for multimedia training to increase productivity, or to send emergency alerts and create a safer work environment.