SiTel Eyes Strong VoIP Phone Market with Open Source Software Release

In a move designed to lower materials and assembly costs, a Dutch company that makes chips for cordless devices, including VoIP phones, announced that its software now runs natively under the MicroController Linux, or “µClinux,” operating system.

 

Officials from SiTel Semiconductor say that by making their so-called “Natalie DECT (News - Alert)” stack and VoIP software run on the same processor, they’ll lower the number of integrated circuits needed for cordless telephony-enabled VoIP solutions

 

According to Mark De Clercq, product marketing manager at SiTel, VoIP is rapidly becoming the preferred telephony option for businesses because it offers significant cost-savings.

 

“With native support for our mature DECT stack under the industry-standard µClinux operating system, our customers can now confidently build cordless telephony into their next-generation VoIP products, effectively bridging these two technologies,” De Clercq said.

 

Specifically, company officials say, the new software is available with SiTel’s VoIP development kits – which includes the DECT module, pictured right – a combination that’s expected to help business customers quickly create cost-effective integrated products and reduce time-to-market.

 

The chip-making company’s focus on the VoIP market could lead SiTel through what’s projected to be a very difficult period.

 

As TMCnet reported, global chip revenues are expected to decline in consecutive years, with a 16.3 percent drop forecast for 2009, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based IT market research firm Gartner, Inc.

 

The total revenue predicted – about $219 billion – is far below the firm’s earlier estimates for this year of about $262 billion, which itself marks a 4.4 percent drop from 2007. In a negative scenario, Gartner (News - Alert) says, the semiconductor industry could decline as much as 24.7 percent.

 

Yet in this slower economy, technologies such as VoIP are emerging as attractive cost-savers.

 

Just this week, as TMCnet reported, a Salt Lake City-based provider of audio, video and Web conferencing applications and systems unveiled a conference phone for the Microsoft Corp. Response Point VoIP phone system, the so-called “MAX IP Response Point.”

 

ClearOne (News - Alert) officials say that in addition to the MAX IP Response Point products on display includes both wired and wireless versions of the MAX EX family of analog tabletop conference phones, along with MAX IP phones, for organizations using SIP-based VoIP phone systems.

 

In serving customers of Microsoft’s (News - Alert) VoIP system, ClearOne is tapping into a technology and market that appears – as TMCnet reported today – to be gaining traction as a cost-saver in this slower economy.

 

Experts already have told TMCnet that VoIP will gain a greater appreciation from the federal agency that regulates communications in the United States under President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. They’ve also said that VoIP stands to get better carrier interconnection rights and recognition among policy-makers that the telecommunications world is evolving toward Internet telephony.

 

Open source telephony solutions, in particular, could gain traction in this slower economy.

 

Officials at SiTel say that by making its software available under µClinux, they’re helping customers re-use the wealth of available open-source code to develop applications faster – further reducing both development costs and time-to-market.

 

“It also opens the way for a range of mobility options for VoIP, allowing cordless handsets or headsets to seamlessly link to VoIP networks while maintaining the voice quality associated with DECT and CAT-iq,” SiTel officials say.

 

The company’s announcement dovetails with news that TMCnet reported here, that SiTel officials’ tests on a dual 10/100 Ethernet VoIP desktop phone based on their so-called “SC14450” processor showed that power consumption during a phone call was less than 800 milliwatts.