In 2008, Commetrex was approached by Microsoft to discuss plans and specifications for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. “They wanted to provide deep integration of T.38-based “partner-fax solutions” with Exchange 2010 since inherent support for fax would not be included in Exchange 2010. We provided feedback on the proposed “Partner Fax Specification”, and were invited to participate in the Exchange “Testing and Adoption” program and test a product that would replace the Exchange T.38-fax feature.
Many of Commetrex’ enterprise-fax OEMs include a fax-to-email feature in their high-function enterprise servers, but we saw the need for an economical, easy-to-use fax-to-email product that was a direct replacement for the fax feature being removed from Exchange. It was evident that a large class of Exchange Server users did not need full-function fax servers.
So, we designed a special version of our BladeWare Fax2Email Server, BladeWare Fax2Email for Exchange Server 2010, that would complement the high-function offerings of our OEM customers, and packaged and priced the product to make it appealing to small and mid-size businesses.
The case study can be reviewed at Commetrex case study and the BladeWare Fax2Email for Exchange 2010 product bulletin is available here. For more information, contact Tom Ray at tray@commetrex.com or call him at 770-407-6025.
BladeWare support for the Sangoma analog boards is now generally available.
The combination of the Sangoma PSTN-interface boards and BladeWare yields the industry’s highest-performance yet lowest-cost fax boards. And no offering gives you more choices: two-to-24 FXO and/or FXS ports in any divisible-by-two combination that requires only one PCI or PCI Express slot. V.34 support will be added in BladeWare 1.5, slated for release by year-end.
We will launch a beta of the digital service manager with PRI support before year-end.
For more information, click here, or call 770-449-7775 and press “1” for sales.
In support of the release of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, and other products, Microsoft has launched a major promotional campaign called “The New Efficiency”. It shows how Microsoft products deliver cost savings, productivity, and innovations. As part of that program, Microsoft is featuring partners that offer products based on these new platforms, that meet the criteria of “The New Efficiency”. Commetrex is pleased that BladeWare Fax2Email for Exchange 2010 server is a part of this product launch.
BladeWare Fax2Email for Exchange 2010, which is a custom version of BladeWare Fax2Email Server, supports inbound T.38 fax, and is packaged and priced to make it appealing to small and midsize businesses.
Commetrex is prominently featured in the Silver Sponsor section. To view our virtual booth, just click on this link.
For more information, please contact Tom Ray at tray@commetrex.com.
We’ve given our venerable Website a thorough once over. Check it out. We’ve updated much of the content, made it much easier to navigate, and improved the look. In addition, we’ve reworked the customer section, identifying many of our customers by application and product. We’ve long maintained that we are the leading developer and licensor of fax technologies, this section may convince you. Of course, BladeWare and our unrivaled offering of fax and fax-related licensed technologies are there.
We’ve also given proper attention to our new MSP product line, based on the Sangoma line of PCI and PCI Express boards.
Please visit us at www.commetrex.com.
We are making progress, not as fast as we want (we all have day jobs), but we are making progress:
We have submitted our problem statement to the IETF as an informational document as “SIP Forum – Fax Over IP Task Group Problem Statement draft-jones-sip-forum-fax-problem-statement-00.txt.”
We have also submitted our work on Question 5 to the ITU as TR-30.1/09-09-030 “V.34 Facsimile to Standard G3 Facsimile Fallback Procedures with SIP/SDP in ITU-T T.38.”
Here’s Question 5:
The rapid adoption of V.34 technology in fax machines, and slow deployment of V.34 fax-enabled gateways, makes the start up of a T.38-based fax session over an Internet Protocol (FoIP) network much more complex than before, when G3 facsimile dominated the market. This document collects, identifies, and investigates various issues associated with V.34/V.8/V.152 with T.38 in SIP networks. The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and best-practice recommendations on these issues, and, if needed, to propose changes in the relevant ITU-T Recommendations (T.38 in particular) for better and more reliable T.38-based Fax-over-IP communications.
Question 6 is in progress:
6. SDP Negotiations
In general, implementers are inconsistent in their handling of T.38 SDP negotiations. When should a Re-invite to T.38 be accepted? When can and should T.38 capability be declared? Should fax-only T.38 endpoints be able to invite directly to T.38?
Question 1 is on hold pending getting some participation from the long-haul IP carriers, which may be largely responsible for the problems. Here’s Question 1:
1. Network Interconnection and Peering
Effective wide-area transport of IP fax requires that T.38 be supported in all IP networks traversed by a fax session, and that the inter-network signaling be correctly implemented. Yet the information needed by equipment vendors, integrators, and end users is difficult to obtain due to the difficulty of obtaining SIP trunking and peering information from service providers. It is a goal of the TG to assist interconnection and peering through its recommendations, but carriers and equipment vendors can immediately improve the situation by publishing on the Web all the information needed for T.38 inter-network interoperability.
If you’re interested, take a look at the FoIP problem statement on www.sipforum.org. If you believe you can contribute to the resolution of any of these questions, join up!
Mike Morris, Director, Platform Development, is responsible for all system-level product development, including BladWare and SIPfaxEngine. Mike’s 32-year software-engineering career ideally prepares him for this position as the scope of his experience spans driver development to the API and to user-level applications.
Former VP, Corporate Development; General Counsel at Voxeo Corporation, is an advisor to Commetrex. Mr. Ivey has founded four startups, and his business plans/pitches have raised more than $71 million during the last ten years from VCs like Crosspoint and Mayfield.
VP & GM, Premiere Global Services is an advisor to Commetrex. He was previously President of Vocalocity LLC, a technology leader in the open systems speech technology market.
Bob Cooke is President of R.W. Cooke & Associates, an international petrochemical brokerage. Prior to this, he spent 29 years with E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company, holding senior positions in manufacturing and international marketing. Mr. Cooke holds a degree in mathematics from Florida State University.
Bruce Adams, Director, Signal Processing Technologies, brings an 18-year career in signal-processing and telephony-systems development to Commetrex. During his 8-year Principal Engineer assignment at Hayes Microcomputer, he completed his PhD EE coursework at Georgia Tech. Subsequently, he was Chief Executive Officer and GM at Signals+Software prior to joining Commetrex. He has also served as rapporteur on numerous ITU committees.
Cliff Schornak, CTO, Commetrex’ co-founder, was president of Systems By Design, a telecommunications design consultancy firm. Prior to this he was a senior researcher at Digital Communications Associates and the VP, Engineering at Innovative Technology, Inc. (ITI). Schornak holds master’s degrees in computer science from Georgia Tech, business and finance from George Washington, and undergraduate degrees in math and physics from Marycrest College.
Mike Coffee, President & CEO, prior to founding Commetrex, was VP, Marketing & Sales, with Natural MicroSystems, where he brought NMS into the computer-telephony market and introduced the idea for MVIP, the industry standard that propelled NMS into the market’s technology-leadership position. Prior to NMS, he served as VP and chief marketing executive at Innovative Technology, a digital-media technology developer, and Autodynamics, a worldwide marketer of process-plant simulators. Mr. Coffee holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech.
