Mitel goes 'all-IP' with latest releases

Mitel has announced the architecture it will use to migrate its PBX products onto 'all-IP' environments, and unveiled the Ipera2000, an IP version of its SX2000 PBX for SMEs.

Mitel has announced the architecture it will use to migrate its PBX products onto 'all-IP' environments, and unveiled the Ipera2000, an IP version of its SX2000 PBX for SMEs.

Campbell Williams, business development manager at Mitel, said the product will be introduced to the channel at Mitel's reseller conference on 4 May. Although pitched at the SME market, a 20-port configuration has a US list price of $22,000 (£13,750). Williams admitted this places the product firmly in the higher end of the SME market. "I still believe it will be attractive to SMEs because of all its built-in functionality," he said.

Williams also said the Data Integrated Voice Applications (Diva) architecture used in the Ipera2000 will be introduced to the next generation of Mitel's Kontact products within 18 months. Two versions will be released: one for more than 50 users and one for fewer than 50.

Andy Willers, head of computer telephony at Bluechip, said these announcements have not restored his faith in the company. "I have lost an awful lot of confidence in Mitel. It really let the reseller channel down," he said.

In December, Mitel withdrew its existing voice processing product for SMEs, MediaPath, because it said insufficient third-party applications had been written to feed demand. Up to 50 resellers were directly affected.

Mitel's Diva announcement is a marketing move that does not address the real issues, Willers said. "Even though the SX2000 is a brilliant phone system, running it on some sort of emulation under NT isn't what's needed."

Willers explained there are two important aspects of a phone system: its feature set and the resilience of its architecture. "The features are software so are easier to transfer to IP, but Mitel can't replicate the architecture of the SX2000 in an IP environment. Under IP, a different set of considerations becomes important, such as network design - things traditional data firms know better than telephony ones."

The Windows NT-based Ipera2000 can handle up to 384 extensions. Williams said the next generation of the Diva architecture will see Mitel dispense with NT and move to real-time operating system VxWorks. Ipera, which includes a separate analogue bus, is superior to soft PBXs made by data vendors because it does not require a bolt-on gateway to work with legacy telephone systems, he added.