Mountain View, California — JaJah, a Mountain View, Calif.-based VoIP service provider, on Tuesday scored a nice partnership with Microsoft to launch a new IP service for enterprises, allowing business customers to make voice calls over the Internet from computers and landlines, aimed at improving the quality of VoIP calls made using Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
A SIP trunk is fundamentally a concurrent call that is routed over the IP backbone of a carrier using VoIP technology. With JaJah’s VoIP (voice over IP) platform, companies using Microsoft OCS 2007, which bundles e-mail, instant messaging, Web conferencing and VoIP, would not have to buy additional hardware and software to power their voice calls.
JaJah delivers VoIP to technology companies, carriers, mobile operators and enterprises, which clearly indicates that it competes with pretty much any Web-based calling platform, from established specialists such as Skype and Vonage to fellow upstarts such as RingCentral and even Google Voice. Businesses that buy OCS 2007 can point the server at JaJah’s IP address and begin making calls immediately.
SIP trunking also cut-downs infrastructure costs at the gateway and enables companies to move to a standards-based infrastructure.
Companies can now take advantage to make high quality calls over JaJah’s IP PLatform in a cloud, without the need for any additional infrastructure upgrade, the company said. The move to connect with JaJah’s global carrier-grade IP network lets Microsoft OCS users make low-cost voice calls from their computers, IP phones or mobile phones to any device.
“The JaJah qualification on Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 is a clear indicator of the strength of JaJah’s platform and quality as a carrier-grade SIP solutions provider,” said JaJah CEO Trevor Healy, in a statement. “Enterprises across the world can implement VoIP and unified communication easily and cost effectively with Microsoft and JaJah.”
Thousands of small to mid-size enterprises use JaJah’s cloud phone platform to enable calls. “It is like Skype, but without the headsets, downloads, software or hardware,” Healy explained.
Since Microsoft rolled out “OCS 2007 R2” last December, and although it has well established traction in enterprises, solution providers believe SIP trunking could help spur OCS adoption in the mid-market and SMB segments, particularly in light of the prohibitive cost of T1 lines needed to drive PBX environments.
“The combination of JaJah and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 offers enterprises a powerful and rich external telephony solution,” said Warren Barkley, Microsoft senior director unified communications in a statement. “JaJah is a world leader in providing innovative telecommunications solutions to enterprises and consumers worldwide. We believe that they will bring a suite of services that will be interesting and valuable to our customers.”
JaJah is just making initial penetration into enterprise IP telephony, which also offers voice-based instant messaging service tailored for Internet-based companies like Yahoo, Match.com and eHarmony. For example, when users make phone calls from Yahoo Messenger, they are using JaJah on the back end, from registration to billing.
As the demand for Unified Communication solutions continues to grow, Microsoft faces an increasingly pitched battle with Cisco Systems in the field, fueled in no small part by the software giant’s $180 million global initiative to work with Hewlett-Packard to deliver integrated unified communications and collaboration solutions.
As of today, a fully managed service will be available to use on desk phones and PCs as well as mobiles, allowing in and out the office connectivity for businesses that buy OCS 2007 can point the server at JaJah’s IP address and begin making calls immediately.
“What this indicates is that when you make an internal call inside the enterprise, we will carry [the call] all the way to your destination. … But then also, if you want to connect to a mobile phone in France, we will handle all the routing and trafficking of that call to Orange in France,” Healey said.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Privately held JaJah has 110 employees and received funding from Sequoia Capital, Intel and Deutsche Telecom.