Voice Management Company Tone Software Looks Back on 2011

From SIP to VoIP to virtualization, one company that remained ahead of all of these technology curves this year was voice management leader Tone Software (News - Alert), a software development firm specializing in global business, telecommunications, and IT infrastructure management solutions.

Tone Software boasts a variety of IT and telecommunications management solutions including its flagship product line, ReliaTel. ReliaTel is capable of managing a company’s entire voice environment across VoIP, PBX (News - Alert), IP Telephony, and IT networks to ensure reliable, quality voice communications are always available.

“2011 was a progressive year for Tone’s ReliaTel VoIP Quality and Converged Service Level Management solution,” Tracey Whitney, director of marketing for Tone Software, told TMCnet.

One of the biggest areas of development for Tone Software was the introduction of its SIP management capabilities that provide end-to-end visibility and control over the quality and performance of SIP-based trunks in converged VoIP environments.

ReliaTel’s SIP management affords significant value in SIP deployments, allowing enterprises to monitor the quality of service of their VoIP call traffic as it enters their corporate WAN/LAN, as well as the physical health and performance of the SIP connected devices and links.

“Armed with this critical data, voice teams can engage SIP providers earlier and work directly with their carrier or Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) to resolve the correct quality problems, rather than wasting time chasing the wrong root cause of quality issues they assume are originating within their own network,” Whitney said. “As a result, quality issues are resolved more rapidly, with far less negative impact to overall business communications.”

Also this year, the voice management company announced ReliaTel’s support for virtualized deployment which now permits businesses to leverage the benefits of virtualization when deploying the ReliaTel solution to manage their VoIP QoS and converged network service levels.  As a result, companies can enjoy higher ROI from their overall converged communications investments. 

Another highpoint for the company was when Tone’s ReliaTel was certified compliant for Avaya Aura Communications Manager 6.0 through the Avaya DevConnect (News - Alert) program. Thanks to the compliance testing with industry leaders such as Avaya, Tone’s mutual clients can be assured of interoperable solutions that leverage the latest technologies and provide value to drive business success.

With such a bustling 2011, Tone Software has one key message it hopes those in the industry take away about the company for the year.

“Overall, we hope the industry learned that Tone is comprised of highly skilled, knowledgeable technology experts that can assist enterprises and managed service providers alike in achieving their converged communications goals, both technically, and from a business standpoint,” Whitney said.   

In an effort to spread the word about its latest work this year and in years past, Tone Software launched several key initiatives in 2011 to expand its communication and interaction with the industry, starting with the Tone Facebook page.

Moreover, the voice management company recently launched its ReliaTel Convergence Community Blog, where ReliaTel technology experts discuss trends and various aspects of the industry, convergence technologies, and the various issues communications professionals face today.   

When asked how Tone Software has grown this year, Whitney said that Tone was able to grow it market share and expand into additional territories such as India and EMEA.

“ReliaTel has also been deployed and is now managing the communications infrastructure for several military bases, both domestically and around the world,” she said. “More and more we find that companies share similar challenges as they build out their strategic communications environments – and Tone’s ReliaTel technology and our team of engineers has been very valuable in helping these organizations overcome those challenges as they successfully deploy, manage, and utilize their communications technologies to meet and drive their business goals.”

As Tone Software readies to say goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012, the voice management company is already placing bets as to where the industry is headed.

One major trend the company anticipates seeing more of are businesses moving forward with VoIP and UC deployments. According to Tone Software officials, more and more of the businesses it talks with are either beginning the transition to UC as their confidence in their business and the economy grows, or they’re expanding the pilot VoIP and UC deployments they started in 2011.  

Tone Software is also eager to see how the adoption of cloud-based solutions and its abilities to introduced cost efficiencies will play out in 2012.  

 So what can we expect from Tone Software in 2012?

“In 2012, you can expect new product announcements from Tone, for more advanced communications management capabilities, and further expanded interoperability with additional Unified Communications (News - Alert) offerings,” Whitney said. “We’ll also continue to work with our strategic partners on ReliaTel certification for the latest offerings from Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft (News - Alert), and others.”

To learn more about Tone Software and its current offerings, click here.

Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny