Tel Aviv-based VocalTec Inc – with US offices in Northvale, New Jersey – has won the marketing clout it needs for its Internet Phone offering for sending speech telephony over the Internet (CI No 2,601). In a deal that could pose the most serious threat yet to public telephone company’s voice monopolies, Motorola Inc’s Information Systems Group Transmission Products Division will offer the software for distribution worldwide in a bundle with its Power Class 28.8Kbps desktop modems. Ray Wright, Motorola’s director of marketing for analogue transmission products, said the combination of products will greatly expand modem applications in a number of areas. Examples he gave included foreign language students, who will be able to dial countries and strike up conversations without having to pay for international phone calls, and people browsing Web pages who would be able to speak directly with a company’s customer services department. VocalTec president and chief executive Elon Ganor said the rel ationship between the two is indicative of the excitement the product was generating, and indicated that the company will be seeking further collaborative projects in the future. One such is a joint marketing agreement between VocalTec and Cirrus Logic Inc, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Crystal Semiconductor Corp, under which Crystal and Cirrus will bundle the Internet Phone software with audio and modem chips sold to personal computer sound board and systems manufacturers. In addition, VocalTec and Crystal say they will jointly promote the technology, and explore options for voice communications over Ethernet local area networks, Asynchronous Transfer Mode and Frame Relay. The terms of the deals were not revealed.
