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May 10, 1999 Collaboration Over IP Voice Persystant develops BitRoom architecture for conferencing over Net connections By Mary E. Thyfault Related links: Networking Resource Center And from our sister publications: InternetWeek Lucent Details Collaboration App InternetWeek Lucent, Nortel Add Voice To Existing Devices InternetWeek VPNs, Voice-Over-IP Products new company with backing and technology from Lucent Technologies last week introduced a system that lets users collaborate from wired and wireless phones and PCs over an intranet or Internet connection. Persystant Technologies will be jointly owned by Lucent and Unixpros, a software development and network-integration company. The two companies are using Bell Labs software and server technology to link all kinds of devices, even if users are working behind firewalls. Persystant's BitRoom architecture lets users collaborate over IP voice from multimedia PCs and, if the voice-over-IP quality is poor, the servers can automatically route calls over the traditional phone network. "People want to collaborate more and they want it to be seamless," says David Dines, an analyst at the Aberdeen Group. Data collaboration is growing at a compounded annual rate of 65%, according to Collaborative Strategies LLC. The BitRoom architecture is based on open standards, including T.120 for data collaboration and H.323 for conferencing. It includes Lucent's Elemedia H.323 protocol stack, which is used for transporting audio over low-bandwidth links. The software is priced at $35,000 for 50 users. Companies must pay $5,000 more for a T1 card to integrate their PBXs, plus $5,500 for a set of server and PC Cards. The software initially runs on Windows NT, but will run on Unix later this year. The first application to run on top of the architecture is BitRoom Class 1.0, which is available now. Others will be available in the third quarter. Back to This Week's Issue Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page Home | Career | Financials | Date Book Resource Centers | Search | Subscriptions