Cisco Systems has announced plans to adopt a key Internet Protocol telephony standard, which will allow for the addition of new network service features and will let companies like Microsoft integrate their communications products with Cisco gear.
Cisco Systems said it will add support for SIP (session initiation protocol), to its IP PBX software.
SIP helps establish contact between IP phones, and enables addition of special features such as presence awareness, video or mobility capabilities, onto a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. SIP also allows companies using VoIP to considerably lower the cost of deploying such a network.
The latest version of Cisco's product - CallManager 5.0, will include SIP capabilities for Cisco IP phones, multimedia communications software, and presence-awareness software.
So far Cisco has been the only major supplier not to support SIP in its IP PBX software. Barry O'Sullivan, vice president - IP communications, Cisco, said that the company move is in line with the fact that IP telephony is no longer restricted to toll bypass, and that people need to be able to communicate and collaborate through the means that best suits them.
Although CallManager 5.0 is geared to work with any SIP-based phone, Cisco intends to support a softphone or PC-based phone client for Research In Motion's BlackBerry handheld and Nokia's new dual-mode phones.
In another announcement, Cisco said, it plans to bring together the worlds of voice, data, video and mobile communications in the form of a new architecture dubbed the Cisco Unified Communications system.
A key part of this architecture - the Cisco Unified Personal Communicator would combine different communications media. Unlike its pre-decessors, the new Communicator will be made available in two versions; one based on Microsoft Communicator, and the other based on Linux.
Cisco announced it is working with Microsoft Corp to integrate Microsoft's Office Communicator 2005 and Office Live Communications, with Cisco's Unified Communications System.
In effect, users will be able to launch a VoIP conversation directly from their Microsoft Outlook client. The interoperable package is expected to ship in August 2006.
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