After more searches and after getting comments about more CTI Companies,

[With the price hike in Dialogic, many of my clients have been asking me about alternatives. I have also started searching for some alternatives of Dialogic. I will be building a list and comparative article on them. Kindly send me any company.]

Here is another company I am looking at:-

Synaway Information Engineering Co. Ltd

About the company :

Synway specializes in designing hardware/software building blocks for use in Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) applications, such as IVR,Call Center, Recording, Unified Messaging and Value-Added Service (VAS) in both PSTN and IP environments. Our products feature rich media processing resources including Fax, conferencing, Codecs, echo cancellation and call control with an array of signaling capability for SIP, SS7 packets, ISDN and CAS in worldwide IP/T1/E1/Analog networks.

In the past two decades, Synway has attracted CTI solution providers through superior service, field-proven products and matchless pricing for the highly reliable Telco and enterprise communications platform. With internally coordinatedMaximal Support Value (MSV) System, our service engineers provide pre-sales consulting, development support, and after-sales service, so you can monitor the service process effortlessly. Synway’s competitive pricing will ensure your matchless competitiveness in any project bidding or distribution-channel expansion globally. Our products have been applied by hundreds of customers worldwide.

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In fact, I am trying to configure and handle few calls using a card from them HD-240 using SS7 and ISUP.

After more searches and after getting comments about more CTI Companies,

[With the price hike in Dialogic, many of my clients have been asking me about alternatives. I have also started searching for some alternatives of Dialogic. I will be building a list and comparative article on them. Kindly send me any company.]

Here is another company I am looking at

PIKA Technologies

About the Company

PIKA Technologies’ reliable media processing building blocks connect computer systems to TDM and IP networks. Brand name companies design groundbreaking IVR, call center, custom PC/IP PBX, fax and logging solutions using PIKA Technologies’ components.

With two decades of experience in this industry, we are recognized for earning strong relationships with our customers around the world by delivering direct, expert technical support. Headquartered in Ottawa, ON, Canada, our company has ranked in The Branham300, an authoritative ranking of successful Canadian high tech firms, for six consecutive years.

Expertise on demand

We are made up of employees who possess experience across a range professional expertise, whether that be engineering, technical support, operations, etc.. Each employee is ready and willing to help our customers be successful. “Our employees are our greatest asset,” explains Jim Pinard, Co-founder and President. “It is because of our reliable and knowledgeable people that we are able to earn a reputation for delivering technical expertise when it is needed.”

Quality commitment

We are committed to quality leadership and continuous improvement within all aspects of our design, product development, manufacturing and customer care activities. Our focus is to meet or exceed the expectations of all our customers, in a cost effective and competitive manner. We believe quality is the responsibility of every individual, function and position.

After more searches and after getting comments about more CTI Companies,

[With the price hike in Dialogic, many of my clients have been asking me about alternatives. I have also started searching for some alternatives of Dialogic. I will be building a list and comparative article on them. Kindly send me any company.]

Here is another company I am looking at
TelcoBridges :

TelcoBridges is an innovative provider of enabling communications technologies for telecom system integrators, solution providers, and telecom equipment manufacturers worldwide.

TelcoBridges’ hardware and software products support VoIP, TDM, and IVR technologies enabling the rapid development of carrier-grade telecom systems.

Founded in 2002, TelcoBridges and its customers have deployed systems in more than 30 countries for some of the world’s largest telecom operators.

Technology
Supporting the most widely accepted industry standards and protocols, our technology is integrated by our system integration partners to build the industry’s most cost-effective, high-performance telecommunications systems marketed to fixed, mobile, and IP-based telecom operators.

Architecture
TelcoBridges delivers scalability, high-availability and unmatched redundancy into the design of carrier-grade telecom solutions by its solution partners.

Platform
Using our development tools our customers minimize development costs and reduce their development cycle, bringing innovative telecom solutions to market in record time.

Headquarters
Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, where TelcoBridges performs its R&D and production activities, the company has further sales representation and technical support staff in three regional offices: USA (San Jose, CA), China (Hong Kong), and Korea (Seoul).

A bad news to all !

The big boss, Dialogic is increasing prices of all its products by 15% to 20% from 1st October 2008! The old prices will not be applicable from 1st October 2008 and if anyone wants to avail the old prices, s/he has to place order on their respective Dialogic Vendors on or before 20th Sept. 2008.

Here is the complete price revision details : ( As sent to me by email by Mr. Pankaj Sodhi, GOIP TELNET SOLUTIONS Pvt. Ltd)

A] The following Dialogic® product families will increase in price 10% for all products

shipped after September 30, 2008:

1. All Dialogic® T1/E1 JCT Media Boards and the Dialogic® D/120JCT-LS Media Board series.

2. D4PCIUF will be increases in prices by almost 15% to 18%

2. All Dialogic® PBX Integration Boards

3. All Dialogic® Station Interface Boards, including DISI and HDSI Board series

4. All Dialogic® DM3 Media Boards

5. All Dialogic® DM/IP and IPT Boards

B] The Dialogic® Diva® Media products will increase in price between 10% and 25% for all

products shipped after September 30, 2008:

The Diva Media Board price increase is divided into two principal components:

1. General Price increase for Diva Media Boards (approximately 10%)

2. Adjustment of Diva Media Board prices in order to align them to market prices for similar

products (approximately 25%)

At the same time Dialogic will introduce the new UM-Series products, which are priced lower

than the Universal Series Diva products. This leads to a Diva product line offering 4 versions

of Diva media boards, which are listed here from lowest functionality and price to highest –

(1) the CTI Series (2) the V-Series, (3) the new UM-Series, and (4) the Diva Universal

Series.

NOTE: The acronym “UM” stands for Unified Messaging, because the Diva UM-Series feature

set has been tailored for UM-applications.

C] The Dialogic® Host Media Processing products will increase approximately price 33%  to 35% for

all orders received after September 30, 2008:

D] Dialogic don’t  increases the prices of Dialogic Media Gateway, DNI boards,SS7 Low density and High density Boards,SIUG21,SIUG22, MMP,IMG, SS7 Host Protocol licenses and SS7 licenses button.

Note:-Earlier prices are no more applicable from 1^st of OCT 08.If you want to buy any Dialogic products @ earlier prices you need to place the order to us by 20^th Sep 08 ,so that we can ship it before 1^st of  Oct 08.

Developing an IVRS for fun and developing an IVR Application for enterprise use are quite different! There are many tools ( I listed a few in my previous post TOOLS FOR DEVELOPING IVRS ( CTI CARDS & SOFTWARE )), using which you might be able to develop an IVR Application in few minute. But the question is can they be customized enough to meet requirement of a customer? How much flexibility you have in terms of using any CTI card available in the market on which your Application will run ?

Here are few points one must consider for choosing the right development for right kind of application:-

1. TIME TO DEVELOPMENT
For fast development, use a RAD(Rapid Application Development). You might be constrained in customizing the IVRS features, but it will be really fast to develop a working IVR application. Some RAD tools like Voice Guide, EuroVoice, widely used and seem quite stable.

2. CUSTOMIZATION
One must use the native SDK supplied by the hardware vendor. Normally hardware vendors provide SDK for C++ on both Windows and Linux. Since one uses C++, many features can be implemented like database connectivity, OOP, .Net remoting etc.

3. APPLICATION DOMAIN
Many IVRS do not need much customization. For example, a typical complaint booking IVRS is quite simple. It records customer complaint and provide the customer a randomly generated complaint ticket. This complaint ticket is then stored in text file which is used by the complaint management software. RAD should be used for this kind of application. IVR applications to be used in Call Center or Voice Portal, one has to use the native SDK and develop the software only in C++ in Windows or Linux.
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4. Windows or Linux
I personally prefer Linux as it is free! But then main drawback with Linux is, you do not find trained manpower easily. IVR industry itself is quite small, and then manpower trained in Linux IVRS will be a tiny population.! Windows systems are prone to failure intermittently and without any reason! Also I have observed that many IVR applications need to be restarted periodically say once I 2 days or so. Wide variety of tools are available for Windows. Most people are comfortable using Windows.

5. Latest Technologies
Many recent technologies have developed for exploiting various telecom protocols. Voice XML is such tool which has gained wide use recently for IP Based exchanges. I will write more about in future.

So, the bottom line is, for a serious and customized IVR application, you will have to develop using the native SDK supplied by the CTI vendor. For smaller and simple IVRS, it is better to use RAD tools. Using SDK has one more advantage over RAD tools. That is, the vast resources of the well documented C++ language can be used to customize the application to any extent. IVRS become flexible to be integrated with almost any existing applications which might need IVR facility too!