In an effort to make UC more “contagious,” IPcelerate Inc. introduced Monday at the 2009 VON Conference & Expo its next-generation framework for the delivery of unified communications across multiple vendor platforms plus two new offerings – IPsession NG and Webur – built on the framework.
Called NIPA 2.0, the framework now supports not only Cisco Systems Inc., for which the framework originally was written, but other gear makers’ solutions. IPcelerate has announced publicly its work with NEC, but executives said additional relationships would come to light soon. It also supports mobile devices, with certain Nokia models and the Apple iPhone being the first. Interestingly, for service providers, the framework now supports hosted delivery for the first time.
IPcelerate CEO Kevin Brown said many of the company’s recent strategic partnerships have been with service providers. These telcos want to move beyond selling apps for Cisco Unified Communications Manager to selling apps for other platforms and devices as well as delivering managed and hosted services.
He said NIPA 2.0 gives sp partners and traditional VARs tools to create their own products. CTO Alok Jain said the goal was to expose UC to other environments, e.g. business applications and social networks and any device, to create new business solutions.
In that way, Brown said, NIPA 2.0 represents a fundamental change that and his staff at IPcelerate expect to “make UC more contagious” by making it a more adaptable part of life and business.
Key to this is NIPA 2.0’s new Web Services module, which extends the embedded applications and capabilities of the framework to social networking and business applications and databases, and the NIPA 2.0 Thin Client Framework for Mobile Devices (with Web Services embedded), which resides on mobile devices, extending the embedded applications and capabilities of the NIPA framework to the mobile device
IPfusion 2.0, a drag-and-drop Integrated Development Environment (IDE), provides the tools and methodology for IPcelerate and its integrators/development partners to create new products designed to integrate with many aspects of a customer’s business initiatives, processes and results.
This approach enables IPcelerate partner to insert themselves into non-communications conversations, giving them greater opportunities to serve customers, Brown said, explaining it’s not about UC, but about patient management for a hospital, or attendance management for a school.
