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August 29, 2007

APEX Voice Communications Now Does Video

By Richard Grigonis
Executive Editor, IP Communications Group

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In 1995, when Yours Truly first met Elhum Vahdat, Executive Vice President of APEX Voice Communications (News - Alert), he looked at me quite sternly—during a discussion about IVR (Interactive Voice Response) application generators—and said, “I don’t care how good the app gen is. At some point the true IVR developer is going to have to drop down out of the pre-packaged tool because no two databases are ever the same.”
 
Candid words indeed by a man whose own company created one of the more well-known GUI app-gens of the computer telephony era, for the OmniVox Unix- and Windows NT-based voice processing system for creating IVR, voice/fax mail, fax processing and conferencing applications. The whole OmniVox system also used ancillary technologies including voice recognition and text-to-speech.
 
In 1989, Elhum had teamed with Ben Levy, APEX’s President and Chief Technical Officer (the original architect of APEX’s core software products), to start APEX and thus establish a beachhead in the then-nascent open architecture call processing market, using UNIX-based PC systems and Dialogic (News - Alert) boards to build the most innovative systems of the time.
 
APEX has seen a lot happen since then, ultimately becoming a leading manufacturer of enhanced services and billing solutions for leading network service providers worldwide, now as well as a major global supplier of carrier-grade SIP Application Servers and Multi-Service Platforms (for value-added multi-media services, unified messaging and real-time billing) to wireless and wireline operators, service providers and telephone equipment manufacturers.
 
And as the demand for mobile conversational multi-media-based services continues to grow, subscribers are now looking to video as an enhancement to voice. IVR has become Video IVR or IVVR (Interactive Voice & Video Response), and so APEX, as usual, is at the forefront of things. Recently, the company announced a successful field test of new video capabilities it has added to its OmniVox3D SIP Application Server. Using industry standard protocols, OmniVox3D can reside as a core-element in 3G, IMS and IP Networks, providing the ideal multi-service delivery platform for IVVR.
 
OmniVox3D, with its integrated OmniView Service Creation/OAM&P Environment (a descendant of the original OmniVox app-gen), enables service providers to rapidly design, develop and deploy innovative, customer churn-reducing, value-added voice and video services for consumer and business users.
 
With OmniVox3D, wireless operators, ASPs, service and content providers can deliver the mobile video telephony services that further enhance the user experience, thereby increasing traffic, maximizing ARPU, reducing churn and strengthening subscriber loyalty. Additionally, service providers can be confident that OmniVox3D will continue to evolve with the IMS architecture, securing their investment in application development.
 
“With OmniVox3D, voice and video content are treated similarly when building applications,” said Elhum. “This means that our OmniView Service Creation Environment now supports both voice and video within the same command icons, further simplifying the process of bringing new and exciting video services to market faster.”
 
With OmniVox3D and OmniView, service providers are able to leverage a single unified browser-based service creation and delivery platform for converged voice and video mobile telephony services. This significantly reduces the time it takes to bring new services to market, while increasing return on investment. Additionally, the multi- service delivery capability of OmniVox3D means that a one-time carrier- grade investment provides a true platform for multiple services, including prepaid video, video mail/messaging, video conferencing, video ringback and interactive video response.
 
As a standards-based SIP application server, OmniVox3D supports MSML/MOML, MSCML and VXML as an interface to a variety of leading media servers. Specifically for mobile video telephony, OmniVox3D supports the 3G-324M Protocol, making it an industry standard platform. OmniVox3D also allows for DTMF and/or speech recognition control (via MRCP) for user interaction.
 
APEX’ new video capabilities should excite service providers and thrill customers hungry for video and other multimedia-based telecom applications.
 

What’s the best resource to learn about latest trends in the IP communications industry? Why, INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO, of course. ITEXPO West 2007 is just around the corner—this year it’s being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California, Sept. 10-12. Preview sessions, speakers and exhibitors—then register to attend.

 
Richard Grigonis is an internationally-known technology editor and writer. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) as Executive Editor of its IP Communications Group, he was the Editor-in-Chief of VON Magazine from its founding in 2003 to August 2006. He also served as the Chief Technical Editor of CMP Media’s Computer Telephony magazine, later called Communications Convergence (News - Alert), from its first year of operation in 1994 until 2003. In addition, he has written five books on computers and telecom (including the Computer Telephony Encyclopedia and Dictionary of IP Communications). To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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