Milpitas, California-based Octel Communications Corp has announced a strategic corporate roadmap based on three core initiatives. Its goal is to diversify from its core voice market and reposition itself as a speech, facsimile and data messaging company. The first – and most significant – is a new OcteLink global messaging network service, which the company has dubbed a messaging post office: the service will use Octel Network Services speech messaging network to enable subscribers to network their speech processing systems to other systems around the world, creating communities of interest with suppliers or customers. The idea is that users can broadcast spoken and facsimile messages (with multimedia text, sound and image messages, as well as electronic mail, to be added over the next 18 months) to other subscribers using a 10 digit telephone number. For speech, the network will initially support the Octel analogue and AMIS analogue protocols, with support for AMIS digital at a later unspecified date. The company said it was also planning to incorporate protocols used in other manufacturers’ speech messaging systems, and will also develop its own proprietary OcteLink protocol that will be available for licensing to other suppliers. It has installed its first messaging hubs in Dallas and Chicago, and is planning further hubs in Europe, the Pacific Rim, South America and the Middle East. There is no word yet on what kind of tariffs will be charged for the service. The second strand of the company’s strategy will see its Global Business Solutions unit working towards products that combine speech, facsimile and electronic mail messaging in a single unified mailbox. As a first step towards this, the company has announced a new Overture family of messaging servers which consolidate Octel’s existing products with those of VMX Inc, which Octel acquired last year (CI No 2,344). The company has also renamed its software products: its Aspen system has now been rechristened Aria, and the DIAL system will now be known as Serenade.
Further hubs
The new line of five messaging servers comprises the Overture PC, a personal computer-based system that runs the company’s Call Performer Plus software and has up to 16 ports and 70 message storage hours; the Overture 200, which uses the Serenade software and has up to 64 ports and 540 message storage hours; the 250, which has up to 72 ports and 485 message storage hours and uses the Aria software; the 300, based on Serenade software, and with a maximum capacity of 128 ports and 1,086 message storage hours; and the 350 – which uses the Aria software – with up to 144 ports and capacity for 725 message storage hours. With the new products, Octel has introduced capacity on demand pricing, which it said enables users to add capacity incrementally as their need s increase. The company is not, however, releasing any pricing specifics. The final element of Octel’s new strategy is designed to capitalise on Octel’s strengths as a supplier to service providers. Its Voice Information Services unit is planning to enhance its existing offerings and is also working on a new object-oriented client-server architecture that is designed to make its systems, applications and user interface more easily customisable. The company promised that it will be compatible with its existing Sierra system. As for the future, Octel says that its research and development department is now working on unified multimedia message exchange products; speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion; and new internetworking standards.
