Why VoIP Paging Instead of Analogue + ATA? Interview with Bill Majerzak, Cyberdata

[VoIPon]: Broadcasting from various countries around the world, using Voice over IP Technology, this is VoIP Uncovered–a VoIPon Solutions UK Podcast.  I’m Kathleen Reed.

A company that always seems to be driving innovation in our market is Cyberdata, the IP end-point company.  They manufacture SIP products for the unified communications industry.

Over the last couple of months Cyberdata had some interesting developments, and we welcome today their sales and marketing manager, Bill Majerzak.

Thanks for joining us today Bill.

1.  So Bill, recently you released the “industry’s first” SIP IP paging talk back speaker and digital VoIP wall clock kit.  Where might this product be used and how does it relieve some of the customers’ challenges? [Bill Majerzak , Sales and Marketing Manager for Cyberdata]: Yes, thanks Kathleen, we’re really excited about bringing our version two speakers to market.  Our very first SIP IP speaker that now has talkback that can go into our clock kit. And we’re really positioning these products for places like schools, colleges and universities. We also see them working very well in manufacturing facilities and for local and state government.

2. [VoIPon]: I see it’s billed as an industry first. Were there obstacles in getting this product to market and why haven’t others done it sooner?

[BM]: Well, of course, we had some obstacles. In fact at the very end there were several obstacles of getting the product to market just based on making sure the product was working correctly. Why no one else has done this before? I don’t know. I sometimes wonder why other companies in the past haven’t really brought these products to market in general and that kind of was the focus of Cyberdata to bring these type of VoIP peripherals that were analog equivalents to the marketplace.

3. [VoIPon]: Why might a VoIPon customer want to use a CyberData VoIP Paging / Access Control Device instead of say a traditional analogue device with an ATA attached?

[BM]: Well that’s the way that most of your analogue folks are doing things by using an ATA, and at the end of the day, you’re really not managing the entire peripherals on your IP network, you’re still going to provide that service contract on your analog amplifier, and if it breaks, you’re still going to have to call someone to fix that. With Cyberdata products, as your IP endpoints, you can manage your entire network including these endpoints on your IP network. And your local admin folks can login to these devices in the event there may be some changes or some things that may need to be fixed on the device.

4. [VoIPon]: I see you have a lot of new products coming soon. What ones can we expect to see first and which new product do you believe will have the largest impact on your market?

[BM]: Well, we just recently signed a deal with a company called Singlewire. Most people may recognize them as a Berbee. And Berbee makes a third party application that provides paging in a Cisco call manager environment. And up until this point there is only been one other company they’ve worked with to provide the speakers for their overhead paging. So, now there’s going to be another choice for speaker, along with our other peripherals in the Cisco Call Manager environment.

We’re also coming out with our keypad intercom, which will now add some functionality to our existing intercom devices.

We’re also working on our next generation high powered AT standard devices that will allow you to provide more power to our end points to provide more amplification.

So these products should be coming out here around the first of the year, the Singlewire speaker should be available to the market probably by next month.

5. [VoIPon]: Excellent! So, we also see that Toshiba recently announced that CyberData’s VoIP Intercom is interoperable their Toshiba Strata® CIX™. What does this announcement mean for you and for your end customers?

[BM]: Well again, we’re very excited about getting involved with Toshiba, as they are a worldwide company and they have presence all over the world.

Now that we’ve “inter-opted” our voice over IP intercom with them, we now can provide those customers with the ability to have access control to their facilities with our device along with two-way communication— both externally to a facility, and internally, as we do have an indoor and an outdoor intercom.

6. [VoIPon]: So, are there any other new products that I’ve skimmed over that VoIPon’s listeners really should know about? [BM]: Well, I ask your listeners to please stay tuned to our website, because we do come out with… We are coming out with some really interesting and innovative products that are going to change the way people do things from a paging and notification standpoint, and as we continue to partner with other third party application developers, and connect with other IP PBX manufacturers, I’m sure that your listeners are going to see more products that are going to provide them with more functionality to those folks that are using these types of products.

Thanks so much for your time today Bill. We’ve had some informative answers.  And hopefully we’ll talk with you again soon.