The company that was once known (ugh) as Stalker Software is embracing an open architecture that will enable cool applications and genuine scalability.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 21, 2006]

The latest announcements from Mill Valley, Calif.-based message server company CommuniGate are a flash-based webmail system and an alliance with a service provider. Jon Doyle, CommuniGate vice president of business development, talks about the architecture first.

"Stalker Software is now CommuniGate. We're changing the direction of the ship, going into VoIP."

The company calls this strategy, "SIPify your life" and writes on its about page:

CommuniGate Systems' goal is consolidate all IP Communications into one address space, making the single address for email, IM, VoIP, and video calling more productive, more portable, more independent of tariffs and tolls of closed network topologies.. We see all IP communications becoming accessible to multiple media types through one account, providing true portability of an "address" no matter where you access the internet.

ISPs, Doyle says, will soon be selling a communications package (many are doing so already), not just an internet connection. Those that don't make the change will not do well. "We realized that ISPs were viewing e-mail as an operational expense and not a revenue stream."

ISPs that add applications to e-mail can earn more. "Voicemail is pretty good, but rich applications—calendar, interactive voice response (IVR), mobile devices, and home entertainment have great potential. Comcast, for example, could put messaging and communications into your TV set."

Cell phone companies are already making this change, charging for applications over their closed networks. "I was in Brazil for a month and Telefonica and Vodafone were describing to me how their business model is changing completely. These are multi-billion dollar companies and their revenues are coming from ring tones and applications on cell phones. They're not making money on the phone call, but on charging for applications. It's flipping the industry's business model upside down."

"Service providers will charge for storage, charge for delivering a calendar to a handset, charge for IVR, try anything to get that $29 per month fee up to $39 or $49, the way the cable TV people do. As service providers evolve and adapt, we do too."

Doyle says that CommuniGate's history makes it unusually well placed to win market share as the industry changes. He points out that the company has been profitable for 9 of the 11 years it's been in business, with consistent profit growth, and, as a result, is more independent than vendors backed by bankers. "Our advisory board is our customers," says Doyle, "not a bunch of VCs."

The platform
CommuniGate retains ownership of the core software, but is encouraging its community of users to develop applications on open extensions to the code. The platform for this is called XIMSS, for XML Interface for Messaging, Scheduling, and Signaling. "The code base is commercial," Doyle says. "The applications and development environment are open. We ship the product with PBX, voicemail, conferencing, auto call distribution—you can see all the applications."

Ideally, this will enable customers to develop applications rapidly. Doyle says that while not every service provider has people who know IMAP or SIP, every service provider—and enterprise—does have web developers. The XIMSS platform makes web development easy. "For example, you could create an IM client within a website inside an hour, using XML calls within the website. You wouldn't need to know Jabber or SIP."

Pronto!
The latest announcement is the company's flash-based webmail, called Pronto! (screen shots here). Doyle is proud of using Flash instead of Ajax. "Flash runs in memory space, not in the browser cache," he says. "Java is prone to spoofs, tricks, and other hacks. If you're serving rich media, as we are, you cannot do video or audio calls using Javascript running in a browser. Flash is designed for rich media."

In addition, Doyle says, Flash scales, which is important to service providers.

The only other company using Flash for webmail that we know (and that Doyle knows of) is Laszlo Systems, whose headline customer is EarthLink (see Related articles, below).

Pronto! includes a calendar, news browser, e-mail client, and VoIP application. The VoIP application has a contact manager and voicemail. But the richer applications that this platform enables are what's really exciting.

Applications
On September 12, at VON, CommuniGate announced a partnership with Orlando, Fla.-based VoIP specialist Voxeo to host and deliver the applications that the new platform enables. The hosted system is called Project Lingo.

In the announcement, the press release described one sample application:

For example, a medical office application bundle will allow doctors to work from home and securely IM, e-mail colleagues in the office, or even hold video conferences. Speech based IVR applications will help patients self service their appointments, and get pre-appointment call reminders.

The system is designed to enable business service providers to solve the problems of their business customers. Whereas doctors' and dentists' offices spend a great deal of time confirming appointments and will love having the system do this automatically, lawyers' offices spend a great deal of time tabulating billable hours. For a legal office, Doyle says, the VoIP system could be tied into the company's billing system, logging calls automatically and connecting call records to customer accounts.

As ISPs move from selling hardware-based services to selling software-based services, they will find that the companies they need to keep track of are those developing the software. Last week, we reported the DSL Forum's new direction, as it too moves from developing technology protocols to developing applications platforms.

Office automation has come a long way from copier repair. If you want to impress your business clients, offer them click to call functionality in secure, web-based e-mail that's accessible anywhere and syncs up automatically to the handheld without any of that awful synching middleware. And help them get rid of the feature of modern business that customers hate the most: the IVR.

Voxeo says it well. In its mission statement, the company writes:

Callers despise IVR for the same reason they despise airports. They tolerate restrictive touch-tone menus to get to their destination, but dislike the restrictive inefficiency those menus require.

Free your business customers from repetitive tasks, and free their customers from voice mail jail!

Pricing and availability
The Pronto! interface is in final beta testing now. CommuniGate's software is available from the company. Pricing was not disclosed.

—End