GENBAND 2012 Developer Challenge Winners Set New Benchmark for Ingenuity and Utility

Frisco, TX, April 25, 2013GENBAND, a leading developer of multimedia and cloud communications solutions, today announced the results of its second annual GENBAND Developer Challenge.  The challenge encourages third-party application developers to create and showcase innovative solutions that address common communication problems, both in the home and at work.  Leveraging GENBAND’s market-leading EXPERiUS™ Unified Communications (UC) platform, developers compete to enhance or redefine a consumer or end-user’s communications experience. For the 2012 Developer Challenge, GENBAND partnered with Polycom Inc., the global leader in open standards-based UC video and IP handsets, to offer additional incentives to contestants who developed applications that enhance the capabilities of Polycom IP voice solutions.

“The Developer Challenge is a great forum for innovation and creativity that reinforces GENBAND’s commitment to introducing SMART solutions to the marketplace, both from our own R&D efforts as well as members of our ecosystem,” said Sam Waicberg, Chief Marketing Officer for GENBAND.  “Our partners continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with these compelling applications that all offer unique revenue-generating opportunities to our customers.  We extend our congratulations to the top three winners as well as the honorable mention recipients, and we look forward to continued interaction with developers to enable feature rich applications for our customers and their end users.”

The Developer Challenge featured several strategic categories, including IP Phones, Family Applications, Converged Applications, Mobility and Business Productivity.  The three top applications, across all categories, were selected as overall contest winners.

Developer Challenge results:

  • Switchpoint Solutions took first place with its presence detection application, which lets users know when someone has entered their office, home or business – triggering an alert to their mobile device and allowing the user to initiate an automatic video call through their IP Phone.
  • MondaGocame in second place for its CRM integration application, which integrates 20 different CRM applications into GENBAND EXPERiUS to enable a unified CRM experience. This unified platform significantly increases productivity by providing a consistent user experience and advanced communications capabilities, including calling, directory access and Instant Messaging.
  • AiFlextook third place with its real-time translation service application. This innovative app allows users to automatically translate their instant messaging conversations from more than 25 languages to their preferred language. Applicable to both the enterprise and consumer markets, this translation application facilitates conversations between individuals that may not speak a common language.

“Partnering with GENBAND on its Developer Challenge was a tremendous opportunity to help developers accelerate creation of some amazing applications for people who use new Polycom® VVX® Business Media Phones on the GENBAND EXPERiUS platform as well as produce sources of revenue,” said Gary Testa, Vice President, Polycom Global Cloud and Service Provider Solutions Group.  “Switchpoint’s presence detection app illustrates the practical innovation that can be achieved when GENBAND and Polycom combine portfolios for developers.”

Honorable mention winners, by category:

IP Phones: Switchpoint for its Divert app

Family Applications: Skobalt for its TV Call Monitor app

Converged Applications: Switchpoint for its Photo Call app

Mobility: mPortal for its Mobile Office app

Business Productivity: AiFlex for its Quick Poll app

“It is gratifying to see developers put their creative minds to work to generate innovative applications that offer great use cases across multiple vertical and horizontal markets,” said Brian Partridge, Vice President of Research and Consulting for Yankee Group and a Developer Challenge judge. “By opening APIs to developers, GENBAND and Polycom are unleashing the potential of their platforms to enable cutting-edge applications with real market potential.”

EXPERiUS™, which encompasses GENBAND’s market-leading applications portfolio and is one of the world's most widely-deployed, carrier-grade unified communications solutions, powers GENBAND’s SMART OFFICE, SMART HOME and SMART LIFE solutions. The EXPERiUS family delivers fully integrated multimedia communications functionality for business and residential users, as well as Rich Communications Suite (RCS) services and VoLTE services.

For more information on the GENBAND Developer challenge winners visit:

http://www.genband.com/company/about-us/genband-2012-developer-challenge-0.

About GENBAND
GENBAND is a global leader in smart networking solutions from the Core to the Edge to the Experience for service providers and enterprises in over 80 countries. The company’s technology improves IP networks by making them more scalable, secure, profitable and efficient.  GENBAND’s market-leading technology supports multimedia voice, data and video sessions and fixed-mobile unified communications applications that scale on public and private networks. With a flexible, cloud-ready platform, GENBAND’s IMS, edge and application solutions help its customers compete effectively by increasing revenues, improving profitability, and attracting and retaining customers. To learn more, visit us on the web at www.GENBAND.com.

Contact:
Joe McGarvey
GENBAND
+1 (972) 521 5826
joe.mcgarvey@genband.com