Convedia Goes Enterprise

Convedia Corp. says it will make its IP media server software available for integration into the servers, routers, and switches commonly used in enterprise networks.

We have dominated the carrier market, and now we are ready to extend our media processing technology into the enterprise,” says the company’s marketing VP and co-founder, Grant Henderson. The majority of the five-year-old company's business has come from the voice-over-IP (VOIP) deployments of carriers.

Media servers store and process recorded content used in IP voice networks, which nowadays can include anything from simple audio announcements to streaming video in conferencing applications.

Up to now, Convedia’s media server software has been available only inside the company's purpose-built devices. The software will now be baked into such things as ACTA blades, software-accelerator products, Linux servers, routers, switches, and gateways, the company says.

Henderson says this disaggregation of Convedia's core software will widen the company's market considerably. “We can now offer our media processing technology to customers regardless of their network type, regardless of the application, regardless of protocol, and independent of platform,” he says. (See Convedia Supports H.248.)Heavy Reading analyst Graham Finnie sees Convedia's strategy as a way to avoid having to pick winners and losers in enterprise networking gear. "Convedia’s decision to support a variety of platforms looks sensible, given the uncertainty about which platforms will dominate and when," Finnie says.

Convedia’s main sales channel to carriers has been large integrator partners like Siemens, Avaya, and Alcatel. (See Alcatel Selects Convedia .) Henderson said those integrators also sell media server technology to enterprises, and they want to be able to stick with Convedia for those accounts. That desire was a key motivator for Convedia to release its software for use in enterprise devices.

Convedia won’t divulge its revenues from the carrier media server market, but the company is clearly among the most visible in the market segment. The company says it has deployed its gear in more than 175 carrier networks worldwide, including at half of the top 50 carriers in the world. (See Telus Deploys Convedia.)

“Media servers are becoming increasingly important, especially on the wireline side, as telcos and enterprises look to transition to VOIP and retain existing enhanced calling features as well as adding new ones," says Heavy Reading's Finnie.

Infonetics Research says worldwide next-generation voice equipment revenues hit $2.5 billion in 2005, and the market research firm projects that number to hit $6.2 billion in 2009.AudioCodes Ltd. and IP Unity Inc. also supply IP media server technology to carriers, but haven’t yet made meaningful inroads in the enterprise space, Convedia's Henderson says.

Convedia is venture-backed and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The well known VOIP entrepreneur, Terry Matthews, is a major investor and sits on Convedia’s board of directors.

— Mark Sullivan, Reporter, Light Reading

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