Aastra - Canadian VoIP Player to Watch
/They just announced the acquisition of troubled German PBX manufacturer, DeTeWe KG. This will quickly add critical mass, and give them a foothold in Germany. Together with some earlier European telecom acquisitions, Aastra will look to consolidate all these pieces and become a strong force in the European PBX and video markets. We don't see many Canadian companies growing this way, and it's a good sign in terms of Canada becoming more of a global player as the IP revolution unfolds.
Aastra has also come to market with some interesting mid-range IP phones that are a great fit for the small business market. Eweek just ran a terrific article about their Venture IP phones. These are not ordinary IP handsets. They include embedded software from Nimcat Networks, another up and coming, but little-known Canadian vendor. Their nimX solution provides PBX functionality that's built into the phones, and uses serverless peer to peer technology. It's a unique approach, and provides PBX-like performance for those who cannot justify a full PBX, and want a premise based solution that's affordable, but isn't PC-based. Definitely an interesting alternative to the likes of Asterisk, or any of the open source PBX offerings.