BroadSoft acquires VOIP rival

BroadSoft has acquired struggling fellow VOIP application platform vendor Sylantro Systems for an undisclosed sum, says Telephony Online.

The VOIP service provider says it will continue to support Sylantro customers and even market and sell Sylantro's Multiplay Application Feature Server while working on ways to technically bring the two vendors' platforms together.

Broadsoft marketing VP Leslie Ferry says the sales team began reaching out to Sylantro customers during December last year.

ClearOne, a Salt Lake City-based provider of audio, video and Web conferencing applications and systems, is showcasing its wares at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show, to be held from 8 - 11 January in Las Vegas, states TMCnet.

Officials from ClearOne say they're planning to show off their new - and the only - conference phone for the Microsoft Response Point VOIP phone system, the Max IP Response Point, at the event.

Other products the company will display include both wired and wireless versions of the Max EX family of analogue tabletop conference phones and Max IP phones for organisations using SIP-based VOIP phone systems.

The quarterly carrier IP telephony global market fell nearly 11% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2008. This comes from a research paper conducted by Dell'Oro Group, a US-based networking and telecommunications research firm, reports TMCnet.

Officials at Dell'Oro Group say despite a modest sequential increase during the third quarter, operators are poised to focus next year's budgets on reducing expenses, meaning there will be weaker demand for carrier VOIP products.

Dell'Oro Group VP Greg Collins says many of the trends that have been affecting the market are being compounded by the poor economic environment and by the recent financial market collapse.