Dialogic improves products in the interests of unity

Dialogic chose the first day of the CeBIT exhibition to announce additions to several of its Media Gateway unified communications (UC) solutions, available from May. If you follow the rationale put forward in a recent report by Datamonitor, the timing makes excellent sense: the big theme at this year's event is Green IT and the research house states that economic and environmental issues will, finally, drive the uptake of UC.

The Dialogic 4000 Media Gateway Series (DMG4000) products will bring fax into the fold over IP for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 users, among others. The Dialogic 2000 Media Gateway Series (DMG2000) products will have greater availability.
 
Dialogic's premise is that providing a link between existing voice networks and IP-based applications remains a challenge for the ICT industry. Its Media Gateways can link PBX and PSTN voice networks with IP based application servers within UC environments.
 
The DMG2000 is a turnkey appliance that combines PSTN with IP networks via 24 to 120 channels with T1/E1-to-IP signalling and transport. New features include greater operational robustness and TDM-to-TDM routing, so that a DMG2000 can connect between the PSTN and the PBX without any changes or configuration of the PBX. The DMG2000 offers Failover Relays, which directly connect E1/T1 lines between PSTN and PBX in case of failure or interference within the IP network.

However, this seems to be a somewhat dated approach to UC, which is now mostly about instant messaging with presence, mobility and/or web conferencing services. Indeed one of UC's problems is that it means different things to different vendors, typically reflecting which end they are approaching from. Datamonitor also concluded that, "Despite the publicity and hype, cost of implementation and measurability of benefits are still the leading inhibitors."