* Motorola collapses functions into common appliance
Push-to-talk pioneer Motorola is continuing to merge two-way radio and telephony features onto its Wi-Fi networks in a way it says helps connect islands of wireless communications within the enterprise.
The company says its latest PTT and telephony software modules for its Wireless Services Manager (WSM) appliance help enterprises appropriately match devices to workers without the management chaos often associated with supporting many different mobile device types. The new modules, Total Enterprise Access and Mobility (TEAM) Radio Link Solution Express and TEAM Radio Link Solution Module, collapse telephony and PTT functions into a single appliance, rather than requiring enterprises to buy separate appliances to gain both telephony and PTT functionality on their wireless LANs.
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About a year ago, the company introduced several WLAN PTT and telephony services products. One was a $50 software client, called TEAM Express, which allows two-way radios to communicate over Wi-Fi without upgrading their infrastructures. TEAM Express runs on 17 Motorola smartphones, mobile computers and communications badges, according to Imran Akbar, vice president and general manager of Motorola’s Converged Enterprise Communications group.
Around the same time, Motorola rolled out TEAM VoWLAN, which delivered both PTT and telephony features — such as call park, retrieve and transfer — to Motorola’s durable EWP1000 and EWP2000 Windows Mobile-based enterprise phones. This alternative requires the Motorola WSM appliance, which connects to the enterprise PBX. Some telephony features are delivered directly by the WSM and others are extended to the client devices via the WSM from the PBX, Akbar explains.
Then the Radio Link Solution (RLS) appeared, enabling PTT devices to communicate with non-PTT devices from Motorola over the WLAN. This solution required a separate appliance of its own.
Fast-forward to last week. Users of RLS can now add TEAM VoWLAN telephony features to their WLANs via a $4,999 software module to their appliance. Likewise, TEAM VoWLAN shops can add PTT-to-telephony intercommunication by adding a $2,999 software module to the appliance they already have.
Motorola will likely add support for traditional smartphones to its TEAM solutions in the future, Akbar says.
