Real-time collaboration vendor Antepo plans to extend the protocol support in its instant messaging and presence server in order to open up its back end to more client choice and VoIP options.
With the release of the Rivoli server, the company also is introducing a name change for the platform that was previously called OPN System XT.
The company plans to announce its changes and ship Rivoli next week at the VON conference in Boston on Sept. 12.
Rivoli features native support for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). The company is extending that support to include VoIP and presence integration with VoIP.
It also is adding support for Microsoft Office Communicator and Windows Messenger instant messaging clients and presence integration with SharePoint Server, which Microsoft plans to ship later this year to corporate customers. Users will be able to see if the author of a file shared in SharePoint is online and start an IM session with that user. The presence capabilities will also extend to Office applications Outlook, Excel, and Word.
In addition, the company is supporting white boarding, application sharing and VoIP via the SIP protocol, which also supports connections to IP PBX servers.
Antepo also is adding support for SIP-based soft phones, including certification of support for Counterpath’s eyeBeam soft phone.
Antepo’s changes are already drawing interest from end-user and existing customers, who say the greater range in client choices will help them extend their systems.
“The external connectors would allow us to add our customers into our instant messaging,” says Alfonso Linares, product systems manager for eRx Networks in Fort Worth, Texas. The company provides third-party claims management and analysis services to the retail pharmacy industry and Linares says the company does not want to dictate software choices for its customers. “Those users won’t have to have the OPN client. They could have GoogleTalk, Yahoo or any client they want.”
Linares says he scrapped a rollout of Microsoft’s Live Communications Server because it lacked a feature for adding groups of users into an instant messaging session. He is hoping to use that feature to allow users to join a group from a Web site regardless of the client software they are using.
“We are looking down that road and starting our own development around SIP and looking how that might work for us,” says Linares, who plans to roll out Rivoli after it is released.
Antepo is but one of many vendors with SIP support including Microsoft, IBM/Lotus and WiredRed. Also, major IP PBX vendors have included SIP support within their wares
But Antepo also continues in Rivoli its support for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, (XMPP), which is supported by Jabber and clients such as GoogleTalk.
Rivoli ties into Microsoft’s Active Directory and runs on Windows. It also has versions for Linux, Sun Solaris, and Unix.
The cost for the software is $18 per user.