While he declined to give specifics, Gobeli said Samsung BCS, or Business Communication Systems, responded to questions about the company’s roadmap by saying video telecommunications will be a differentiator in the very near future. He said a cost-effective, IP-based videophone would be an excellent market opportunity by the end of the year for the SME market.

He also said he expects new cost effectiveness in voice over wireless LAN, but again would not give details. What has been an adjunct in the voice over WLAN is truly an internalized piece of our convergence, he said.

Gobeli said Samsung BCS is better positioned than many of its rivals to tap into the SME market, for several reasons.

Of course, Samsung BCS has the backing of its mammoth parent Samsung Electronics, and many of the other players may not have the same brand equity, Gobeli noted.

Even so, most are not specifically targeting the SME market. Gobeli reckons. Most want to play in the larger, upscale enterprise market and they may provide products in SME as an afterthought that is not Samsung’s intention here, he said.

While networking specialists, such as Cisco and Avaya, are all formidable competitors, he said Samsung BCS’ advantage is its stability and focus solely on the SME market.

But he admits that, while Samsung has broad brand recognition, it doesn’t have the same pull in business communications environments for SMEs. As we move forward, we’re obviously going to change that, he said.

That will include new marketing, potentially including trade advertising and public relations, as well as greater trade-show attendance, he said.

Samsung BCS, which has fewer than 500 employees, grew revenues about 20% last year and Gobeli expects much the same in 2006.

The company defines an SME as one with fewer than 500 stations. And it hopes to capture that market by addressing the core components of what it sees as the coming wave of mobile, office and home network convergence, Gobeli said.

We’re seeing that convergence occur, he said. After all, the voice and data convergence is by now a foregone conclusion if you don’t have that you can’t play, Gobeli said.

That home, mobile and business network convergence includes wireless, wireline, data, voice and mobile communications, he noted.

To address these five components, Gobeli said most of his competitors need to partner, while Samsung BCS already has the product breadth.

The company began launching converged platforms last year, more than a decade after debuting its first homegrown telecommunications business products in 1994.

Currently, wireless local area network for both data and voice communications is a trend in business comms convergence, Gobeli noted. Wireless and wireline are going to be key, he said.

When we look at the SME, its not just voice and data; there are IP solutions for multi-site networking, applications, unified messaging, desktop control, terminals which we think will be a cornerstone in this business, he said. We believe the next step will be video telephony we believe in demand for SIP [Session Initiation Protocol] functionality.

Samsung SBC also expects WiFi dual-mode demand.

The company currently runs phones that comply with the existing WiFi standards 802.11 a, b and c, and is looking at n as that standard evolves, Gobeli noted. This sets Samsungs BCS apart from several of its peers, which are launching 802.11n-ready products on the assumption the draft standard won’t differ much from the ratified one, which is yet to be passed.

The problem with doing something like this is when the standard gets set firmly and you miss it then you have to retrofit. We see people asking for n … we’re going to wait a little bit, Gobeli said.

Regardless, dual-mode WiFi is on the horizon, but carriers first must resolve billing issues, which Samsung BCS has no control over, he said.

Still, the company sees dual-mode as an opportunity and because it provides the handset as well as the SME network, Samsung BCS is uniquely positioned to take advantage of that opportunity, Gobeli reckons.

While initial dual-mode opportunities for the company may surface as early as next year, Gobeli said it likely would take longer than that. The company is working with various Samsung business units and some of their carrier customers to determine what the functionality and capability will need to be, he said.

Basically, Samsung BCS is working on the control link between the cellular and WiFi networks in order to enable call hand-off with a dual-mode device. That’s part of what we’ll have to define and work on, Gobeli said.

And he hinted at more security products in the company’s labs.

Convergence will include not only routers and data switches, but also those which heretofore have not been in convergence vernacular firewalls, intrusion protection and data protection, he said. Samsung BCS began its foray into security last October, with its OfficeServ 7200 voice, data and wireless platform. During the summer it launched a higher-end version, the 7400, for larger SMEs, which has more power and additional capacity.