IBM and 3Com Corp. have announced that customers have begun deploying the first- scalable IP telephony solution designed to run on a single system along with a customer's core business applications.

The IBM System i IP Telephony solution represents a shift from the current appliance model for IP telephony environments, which requires that customers dedicate one or more separate servers to support each function of the telephony suite — call processing, messaging and conferencing, for example — presenting integration and systems management challenges, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that may have limited IT resources. In contrast, the new IBM System i IP Telephony solution, based on IBM's "all-in-one" business computing platform and 3Com's VCX™ systems, makes IP telephony accessible to businesses of all sizes and requirements by allowing them to implement a complete IP telephony solution on one powerful, yet easy-to-manage platform.

Attracted by its simplicity, customers and business partners are already taking advantage of IBM System i IP Telephony in their businesses.

"Both IBM and its customers believe that System i is an ideal platform to run your business, but the exciting part of today's news is that whether you are familiar with the value System i provides or not, you can't help but recognize the benefit of running your entire business and your IP telephony simultaneously on a single system," said Mark Shearer, general manager of IBM System i. "System i IP telephony can support less than 100 to thousands of phone users and our analysis shows that it can deliver a return on investment in months, not years."

Edgar Masri, president and chief executive officer of 3Com, said the integration between IBM System i and 3Com VCX enables organizations to benefit from the cost-savings, advanced features and productivity-enhancing applications IP telephony has to offer, all on a proven platform.

"It also creates a converged business environment that we believe can deliver a competitive advantage through enhanced customer, partner and employee communications," Masri said. "IBM and System i customers are recognizing that VCX is differentiated by how it is architected to create a reliable and scalable platform to match the System i's capabilities. Additionally, the excitement from IBM business and solution-provider partners is a further proof point for VCX's flexibility and validation for our open standard-based approach versus proprietary systems."

IBM chose 3Com as its IP telephony partner for System i based on the two companies' common values of integration, ease-of-use, reliability, scalability, security and support for open standards. Using open standards such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) creates a platform for innovation by enabling the 3Com VCX to be more easily integrated with other applications running on the System i — including collaborative applications like Lotus Sametime and Domino as well as third party applications — helping customers reduce costs, increase productivity and enhance customer, partner and employee interaction. Since announcing in April their intention to deliver the System i IP telephony solution, IBM and 3Com have had substantial interest from the community of System i solution-provider and business partners who want to exploit this integration.

System i IP Telephony offers flexible options for purchase and deployment. The System i IP Telephony Express Editions, expected to be available in early this month, are sized and priced for companies from 100-1,000 users and can be added to new or existing System i platforms.

The importance of solution availability motivated IBM to offer System i IP Telephony Express Editions in both single and double system versions - one to act as the primary system and another correctly sized, configured and attractively priced to serve as the back up system where the highest availability is required. A single system offering starts at $37,900 and a double system offering for high availability starts at $51,900. ENSd