>if I am correct, Octel aquired Rhetorex in 94 to add to a then fairly strong arsenal of voice messaging (VM) products
You are correct. It is interesting to note that in 94, Rhetorex was considered the leader in CT. Since then, they have no major prooduct upgrades. They are pretty far behing DLGC, NMSS, and BRKT. There is plenty of room for speculation as to why. I certainly have my biased opinions. Some possible unbiased reasons:
1) Very few VM companies would want to pad the pockets of Octel by using Rhetorex cards (nor would they want to risk having their #1 competitor responsible for supplying critical components of VM system).
2) It is pretty well known (among users of line cards) that most of the Rhetorex innovators have left company.
IMO: Octel made mistake buying Rhetorex as they were not in linecard business. Over time, the net effect was to push VM companies to competitors, leaving Rhetorex mostly a supplier to Octel.
This is why I think that Lucent is making a mistake getting into VM. historically, every switch maker (including Lucent) has failed miserably with messaging. Most of Lucent's competitors will form partnerships with Octel competitors (or buy them), leaving Octel primarily as a VM supplier for Lucent. As such, they will have a hard time remaining competitive (as opposed to independent VM's who can sell through many channels, and OEM to many PBX vendors). Lucent, while big, does not have sufficient market share to support the bulk of Octel, even if all new Lucent switches sell with Octel VM (which they will not).
The technology involved in mesaging (voice, email, fax, etc) is getting increasingly complex. No company can have all of the expertise (even Lucent). The cost is prohibitive. Increasingly, partnerships will be neccesary to remain competitive. COmpanies like Dialogic, NMSS, BRKT, are best left independent. If the messaging and CT business gets swept up in a buying binge, us share holders will make out in the short term, but the technology will suffer over time.
Relative to Dialogic, I am a user of DLGC, NMSS, Rhetorex, and BRKT boards (platform independence is a marketing requirement for a 1.0 product I am working on). DLGC, by far, has best line cards (Analog, T1, and E1), BRKT has best fax, and SC-Bus is miles ahead of MVIP (there are some die-hard MVIP users, however). Dm3 is very promising, and we believe we will be able to support 200+ ports/box when we move to Dm3 (as opposed to 96 or so now). |
