sunflash-Distributed to mailing list sun/NC/north-carolina sunflash-Send requests, problems to owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SunSoft Announces XTL Teleservices for Solaris SunFLASH Vol 61 #32 January 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 61.32 SunSoft Announces XTL Teleservices for Solaris XTL Teleservices for Solaris is a set of telephony software services and application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to create telephone-based applications and telecommunications hardware. XTL Teleservices reduces the costs for computer telephony integration (CTI) development in business, medical, educational, entertainment, scientific and other environments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUNSOFT EXTENDS SOLARIS WITH OPEN TECHNOLOGY FOR COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION New XTL Teleservices for Solaris aimed at $6.9 billion CTI market; will speed development and deployment of integrated voice/data/image/video services COMNET, WASHINGTON, D.C., January 25, 1994 -- SunSoft today announced extensions to its integrated multimedia software environment (called LIVE! for Solaris) by introducing an open, scalable platform for applications combining voice, data, images, and video. The new technology -- called XTL Teleservices for Solaris -- is a set of telephony software services and application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to create telephone-based applications and telecommunications hardware. XTL Teleservices reduces the costs for computer telephony integration (CTI) development in business, medical, educational, entertainment, scientific and other environments. Applications now can be easily and quickly customized for these diverse markets and geographic locations, regardless of the particular communications technologies and hardware platforms employed by end users. XTL Teleservices will be incorporated in the next major release of Solaris, SunSoft's premier network-based software environment. XTL Teleservices for Solaris consists of Solaris-based services and APIs that provide an open platform for call centers, integrated voice mail, fax and electronic mail, video conferencing, video on demand and other integrated business solutions. The new technology was showcased as part of Sun Microsystems' Customer Management Solutions today at ComNet, and is supported by third-party product and service providers in a range of CTI markets. SunSoft has also submitted the APIs to emerging telephony standards groups as part of the company's active participation in formulating standards for CTI applications worldwide. "By expanding the capabilities of Solaris, SunSoft is leading the way toward redefining the network and the services it will support for users," said Jim Billmaier, SunSoft's vice president of product marketing. "The network is the computer, the telephone, the fax machine, video and all other tools organizations need to access in the easiest, most productive way possible." Third-party vendors to offer expanded CTI tools and solutions Leading CTI systems integrators and vendors providing applications, development tools and network infrastructure products have already announced ports to Solaris and have endorsed XTL Teleservices. Some of these partners include Dialogic Corp., Newbridge Microsystems, Genesys Inc., Natural MicroSystems, and Linkon. "Through the open Signal Computing System Architecture, Dialogic is committed to providing open platforms that support computer telephone integra-tion standards like XTL Teleservices," said John Landau, Dialogic's vice president of marketing. "We are excited to be working with SunSoft to define standards and develop products for Solaris developers so they can offer powerful systems that bring together telecommunications and information processing networks." Lloyd Spencer, director of marketing at Newbridge Microsystems, said, "We believe that SunSoft's teleservices application programming interface, XTL, will provide the critical link between Newbridge's wide area network interface cards and leading integrated telephony applications on Sun workstations and servers." According to Genesys Inc., "We heartily endorse XTL Teleservices. Enabling Solaris for CTI will establish a consistent interface for telephony events and will allow CTI technology to reach a broad audience. Genesys is pleased to be working with Sun Soft toward the establishment of a computer/telephony standard that will be a dominant influence on the way business operates in the future." David Levi, president and CEO of Natural MicroSystems, said, "As a company strongly committed to open standards development, Natural MicroSystems wholly supports SunSoft's development of XTL Teleservices. We and many other Multi- Vendor Integration Protocol (MVIP) partners look forward to expanding the implementation of CTI applications through the XTL Teleservices' open development environment, which will enable developers to fully utilize the power of the Solaris operating environment." Customizable, scalable and portable CTI applications XTL Teleservices for Solaris is a highly flexible, open technology that provides a range of significant benefits, including: * Independent software and hardware development -- XTL Teleservices offers a layered architecture with well- defined interfaces at both the software and hardware level. This allows ISVs and IHVs to separately develop telephony-based applications and telecommunications hardware that can later be combined seamlessly in varied business environments. * Support for diverse platforms -- XTL Teleservices is highly portable, allowing products and applications to move quickly to new hardware platforms or operating environments for specific business applications. * Accessible CTI solutions -- The openness and flexibility of XTL Teleservices allows users to focus on business solutions rather than technologies. The technology's extendibility also allows users to quickly and easily tailor applications to new business needs. * Seamless integration of emerging technologies -- XTL Teleservices' layered design permits CTI products and applications to support new technologies as they become available. The object-oriented development environment also ensures easy integration of future object environments, including SunSoft's Project DOE: Distributed Objects Everywhere. * Increased customer management capabilities -- XTL Teleservices provides integrated access to resources such as telephone call control and routing, interactive voice response systems, operator assistance, databases, e-mail, video applications and fax services. This means greater responsiveness to customers for business applications such as customer service, order processing, sales, and telemarketing for all industries, particularly finance, manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare. * Full range of networking services -- XTL Teleservices allows applications to take full advantage of the distributed computing capabilities of Solaris, while adding easy access to public switched telephone networks, voice services and other multimedia applications based on wide area and high-bandwidth networking systems. * Freedom of choice -- Scalable XTL Teleservices technology runs on computers ranging from laptops to high-end servers and is available for both the X86 and SPARC architectures. Availability SunSoft is distributing early developer kits to its strategic partners today. XTL Teleservices will be integrated into and shipped as part of the next release of Solaris, due out later this year. About SunSoft SunSoft, headquartered in Mountain View, California, is a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., the exclusive computer supplier to the World Cup USA 1994. The company has offices in North America, Europe and Asia. SunSoft is a leading supplier of 32-bit system software solutions for SPARC and Intel 80386/486- based computers. The products are licensed by SunSoft and distributed through major computer manufacturers. # # # (c) 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc., SunSoft and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other product or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners. ********************************************************************** For information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. 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