AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- 12 February 2001 -- Cisco Systems is pleased to announce that GDC Communications Limited has met all the criteria to become IP Telephony Specialised in New Zealand, the first Cisco partner to achieve this status in New Zealand.
Publicly listed GDC, one of New Zealand's premier communications and e-commerce providers, offers a broad range of telecommunications and data communications solutions, which is increasingly focussing on the convergence of voice, data and video. It is in this 'new world' environment that Cisco Systems, the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, has become the leading player through its enhanced, leading-edge AVVID (architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) solutions.
Cisco Systems New Zealand Country Manager, Tim Hemingway, said GDC's achievement of IP Telephony Specialisation recognises its high level of commitment to increase GDC's Cisco IP Telephony sales and support capabilities. It also means GDC can offer their existing customers the option to transfer to an end to end IP telephone system or Call centre.
"They are only the third Cisco IP Telephony partner in Australasia, and the first in New Zealand to have met the rigorous Cisco certified personnel levels required to achieve this Specialisation," Mr Hemingway said. "This is an outstanding accomplishment and demonstrates GDC's desire to develop expertise in the New World of complex networking technologies."
GDC Communications Limited is New Zealand's largest seller of PABX's and last year established a new division, One Com. to work with existing clients and help them migrate to the IP enabled environment featuring the new generation Cisco Call Manager 3.0 software. The Call Manager software extends enterprise telephony features and functions to packet telephony network devices such as IP phones, media processing devices, voice-over-IP (VoIP) gateways and multimedia applications.
Additional data, voice and video services such as unified messaging, multimedia conferencing, collaborative contact centres, and interactive multimedia response systems interact with the IP Telephony solution through Cisco Call Manager's Open Telephony application programming interface (API).
One Com. general manager, Bruce Brown, says he "is delighted to be the first Cisco IP Telephony partner in New Zealand to be awarded this Cisco certification. When we started the business we committed ourselves 100% to showcasing the best-of-breed Cisco product range to our growing range of enterprise, SME and residential clients. This is proof that we have the people, the infrastructure and the skill set to deliver the Cisco convergence success story to the market."
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