IP Unity introduces Video Chat

CHICAGO--

Media server and application server company, IP Unity, launched a Video Chat application last week at Supercomm 2004. The chat application is a first in a series of IP-based conferencing and collaborations tools the company will offer to service providers on its Harmony6000 server product.

The company also announced that Canadian carrier, Telus, has deployed the platform as an engine for the voicemail and unified messaging portions of its IP-One Telephony Services.

IP Unity also entered into a reseller agreement with Syndeo, whereby Syndeo will integrate IP Unity’s Harmony6000 into its softswitch voice-over-IP applications.

“We have more interoperability with other players than any of our competitors,” said Arun Sobti, founder and Chairman and CEO of IP Unity.

The Video Chat application is an MPEG-4 based feature set allows carriers to provide shared presented video, PowerPoint slides, stored images and streaming video to enterprise and consumer customers. IP Unity expects carriers to be able to offer corporate broadcasts, distance learning, interactive educations and multi-point video chat applications.

Over the next year, IP Unity plans to offer other video-rich applications such as video news delivery as part of unified messaging, Internet video streaming without the need for full downloading or storage, and collaborative conferencing.

“The platform can be used for little systems like voicemail up to big video conferencing applications,” Sobti said.

The Telus implementation will use IP Unity’s Harmony6000 to enhance its existing voice messaging platform and migrate all users to IP-based messaging so that users can access messages through both a phone and a PC.