Today Nortel announced a new version of its Software Communication System (SCS) open and easy to use unified communication solution that is based on the sipXecs IP PBX open source project.

To quote the Nortel press release: "Prompted by strong demand from customers and partners, Nortel* [TSX: NT | OTC: NRTLQ] is expanding its  Software Communication System (SCS)  solution to accommodate enterprises beyond small and medium-size businesses."

A new SCS product specific Web site was launched as well in conjunction with this announcement. Software Communication System (SCS) is available for sale through the Nortel channel, as well as through IBM and Dell. This announcement is a fantastic proof point of the quality, scalability and value of the sipXecs IP PBX system.

There of course is a change log of things 'changed' during the development phase of sipXecs IP PBX 4.0. It includes just about 600 (!) items that were tracked and resolved. You should expect a bug fix release to come out within the next 6 to 8 weeks that will resolve some of the remaining issues that were and will be found. To track progress towards 4.0.1 monitor our tracker. This is also the place where you can see whether an issue you might encounter is already known and in the pipeline. Make sure you vote on your most urgent issues.

The roadmap in our tracker also gives you an idea of release 4.2, which is our next major release. The list currently includes too many items and needs to be scrubbed some more. Make sure you vote on issues important to you. The roadmap on the Wiki will give some more details on 4.2 once it is updated.

And a last nuget: Pawel Pierscionek just published the first version of a PHP API on top of the sipXecs SOAP interface. The ACD wallboard application that comes with it is very nice and has been asked for many times. Thanks Pawel!

This is a big release! Major new items include:

1. SIP trunking and remote worker support (far-end and near-end NAT traversal) with support for an optionally redundant media relay for media anchoring
2. New voice conferencing solution based on the FreeSWITCH media server. Thanks to Michal Bielicki and Pawel Pierscionek from VoiceWorks and of course the FreeSWITCH team (Anthony Minessale, Michael Jerries and Brian West). Conferencing solution supports HD Voice and offers dynamic Web based conference controls
3. sipXecs cluster management now allows creating a fully distributed system that is centrally managed
4. New IVR / Auto-attendant also based on the FreeSWITCH media server
5. Support for 64 bit CPU architectures for both Interl/AMD as well as PPC
6. A new integrated reporting solution based on Jasper reports
7. Source routing that allows call routing based on where the call originates (i.e. in a branch office)
8. Lot's of updated phone and gateway profiles with plug & play management (Linksys, Cisco (thanks to Sen Heng), Grandstream, Aastra, Polycom, Audiocodes, and others)
9. Improved operations including certificate management, log and snapshot management, patch and upgrade management, DNS/DHCP configuration assistance, backup/restore to FTP, time and DST management
10. Bulk provisioning of Counterpath Bria Professional phone
11. Click-to-call from the user portal