RIM adds Wi-Fi, SIP support to FMC platform

As Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) extends its reach further into enterprise communication, it’s adding new functionality to its Mobile Voice Service platform, aiming to make the same impact on PBX it has had on business e-mail communications. Today RIM released version 5.0, which adds support for one capability of obvious import, voice over Wi-Fi, and one whose significance isn’t so obvious, support for session initiation protocol.

The voice-over-Wi-Fi capability allows RIM to extend its voice service to that middle ground between the wireline PBX and the wide-area cellular network. By supporting enterprise wireless LANs and authorized home Wi-Fi networks, RIM offers enterprises both new mobility and cost-savings components, said Manish Punjabi, senior director of collaborative mobile voice. Tunneling VoIP-over-Wi-Fi connections allows workers to take their PBX extensions to all corners of the building as well as create a virtual extension at home, Punjabi said. In addition, by using the IP PBX or a private Internet connection to route the call back to the PBX, enterprises can save a significant amount of money in minutes, especially when employees are roaming or in international branch offices, Punjabi said.

Wi-Fi, however, adds one extra component to the mix: presence. By detecting whether an employee has entered an authorized Wi-Fi zone, Punjabi said, MVS can activate home, office or traveling profiles. When an employee enters the office and the Wi-Fi zone, MVS can immediately activate a work profile, which routes all calls to an office extension or activates a simultaneous ring for both desk and BlackBerry. When he or she leaves the Wi-Fi zone, MVS can automatically route all calls from the desk to the mobile phone and route all calls placed from the BlackBerry back through the PBX, presenting the employee's business "extension" to all parties. When that employee returns home and enters his or her home Wi-Fi network, the BlackBerry can become a private phone line again, with MVS routing business calls back to office voicemail while personal calls go to the mobile device, Punjabi said.

The SIP functionality is designed so MVS can support more PBX systems. When RIM bought Ascendent Systems in 2006, it turned its FMC platform into MVS, but in the process of redesigning the architecture the platform became dependent on the Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) PBX architecture. By adding SIP support, MVS has a standards-based way of linking to other PBXs, but SIP will eventually open the door to many other applications, Punjabi said. As IP multimedia subsystem architectures emerge in operator networks, MVS can use its SIP interfaces to integrate with many more services beyond voice, eventually allowing MVS to support mobile video conferencing and other forms of collaborative communications.