MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – APRIL 30, 2007. LignUp Corporation, the communications platform company for Web 2.0, today announced Release 4.0 of the LignUp Communications Application Server, delivering the industry’s most comprehensive suite of telephony Web services deployed within enterprise service-oriented architectures (SOA) and existing telecom infrastructures. LignUp 4.0 features 125 call control and media control functions exposed through LignUp Communications Web Services. The Web services are implemented by the J2EE-compliant1 LignUp Communications Integration Server, a new component of the LignUp Communications Application Server. The 100% software, standards-based (SIP, RTP, HTTP, SOAP, WSDL2) LignUp Communications Application Server enables developers to use their favorite programming languages and development environments to incorporate IP-based communications into Web applications, Web portals, business processes, mashups, blogs and wikis – often within a day or less.

With LignUp 4.0, developers can quickly and easily integrate communications into applications using LignUp Communications Web Services for fine-grained access to telephony, real-time media, interactive voice response (IVR), text-to-speech (TTS), voicemail, unified messaging and presence capabilities. LignUp 4.0-powered applications can be used to ring any phone – IP phones, mobile devices or fixed land line handsets – independent of the enterprise PBX, carrier switch or network to which they are attached. By extending the reach of voice-enabled applications and services to a broad community of consumer and business users, LignUp 4.0 is empowering enterprises, Web 2.0 companies, and service providers to realize the promise of communication-enabled business processes (CEBP) for greater personalization, productivity, collaboration and efficiency.

“'Telephony middleware’ platforms that expose media- and communications-rich activities as services for use in enterprise applications bind together the best of SIP and SOA. LignUp's Release 4.0 of its Communications Application Server, for example, helps developers, ISVs, and enterprises quickly add IP-based voice communications to business processes,” said Dana Gardner, founder of IT research firm Interarbor Solutions, and author of Dana Gardner’s BriefingsDirect blog on ZDNet.com. “Much as application servers helped redefine distributed ecommerce in the mid-1990s, telephony integration platforms like LignUp's will help automate the insertion of voice into today's business processes for richer communications, collaboration and workflow.”

“We have invested in high quality systems to manage our service and sales operations, but traditionally telephony has been entirely detached from the core business functions due to the lack of interfaces. The open Web service architecture of LignUp 4.0 now allows us to easily weave communications into any of the applications we run,“ said Paul Wignall, group IT director at Zycko, a value-added distributor of IT infrastructure solutions. “For example, now within our Siebel CRM application, the salesperson uses click-to-call functionality to initiate a customer call. Once the call is in progress, a popup screen appears in Siebel where the salesperson can either note the conversation or record it, and then store this against the contact for future reference. This is a win for business efficiency and customer service.”

LignUp 4.0 Raises the Bar with Comprehensive Communications Web Services LignUp 4.0 provides an extensive library of LignUp Communications Web Services with both lower-level Web services for fine-grained control and LignUp VoIPlets – higher-level Web services that deliver popular functionality out-of-the-box for easy integration into business processes. LignUp Communications Web Services extend across seven major categories:

• Call Control: Click2Call, Hold, Park, Pickup, Blind and Supervised Transfer, Disconnect
• Media Control: Record, VoiceDrop
• Screen Pop: with CallerID, Reject, Redirect
• Call State and Presence Notifications: Ringing, Busy, Connected, and other Presence States
• Personalization: Ability to set personal preferences for Call Routing, Screening, Forwarding, Notifications, Personal IVR menus and View Call Logs, and Voicemails
• Provisioning: Ability to setup and dynamically adjust Extensions, Voicemail boxes, IVR menus/Auto Attendants, Hunt Groups, Dial Plans and Routing Rules
• VoIPlets: Click2Record, VoiceNotification, VoiceConfirmation, VoiceApproval, VoiceBroadcast

Examples of the rich business and consumer experiences that can be created with LignUp Communications Web services include:

• Real-time bank approvals: When a bank transaction exceeds a threshold that you’ve set as a customer, the banking application will automatically call you, prompt you for your secure PIN, and then let you verify the transaction, cancel it, or connect to the first available customer service representative.
• Real-time site surveys: Call in to record your observations while onsite at a construction project, and attach the audio commentary to the project blog. Let authorized team members go to the blog, view diagrams, plans, contracts or other content and click to hear your commentary.
• Real-time logistics alerts: When a truck is delayed, the system broadcasts the news, calls all members of the distribution center operations team and notifies them of the delay and the new estimated delivery time. If the truck is out of service, the system can identify one or more available drivers and send alerts to their mobile phones.
• Department hotlines: Customers can call the hotline or click-to-call from the department’s Web page. Based on a caller’s phone number, the call can be directed to dynamic IVR menus for access to commonly asked questions, automated database lookups and text-to-speech responses to queries. If a caller needs additional assistance, rules can be defined to reach the first available subject matter expert, based on time zone and work schedule. If no one can be reached, “VIP” callers can be directed to any available department manager and all other callers could be directed to the receptionist or voicemail.

“In bringing voice to Web 2.0, we are seeing a new level of collaboration and connection between employees, customers and partners to streamline operations, drive innovation and deliver a superior customer experience, said Kevin Nethercott, founder, president and COO of LignUp Corporation. “When IT developers can create voice-enabled mashups with their enterprise applications in a day or two, the focus turns from ‘What will it take?’ to ‘What can we improve next?’’”

LignUp Communications Web Services are implemented by the J2EE-compliant LignUp Communications Integration Server, first available on Apache Tomcat and the IBM Websphere Application Server for easy deployment within existing enterprise SOA infrastructures. A new component within the LignUp Communications Application Server architecture, the LignUp Communications Integration Server streamlines application creation by providing a framework for using, creating, exposing and managing LignUp Communications Web Services, which serve as reusable software blocks for building communications-enabled applications across the enterprise.

LignUp Communications Web Services can be quickly consumed within developers’ preferred environments, such as Eclipse/Java, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft .Net Framework, and business process engineering language (BPEL) engines. LignUp interoperates with existing telephony infrastructures and manages the lower-level telephony communications, so developers don’t have to. With LignUp, developers with no CTI experience and no knowledge of SIP can create, mashup (combine), and integrate communications in a matter of hours. LignUp gives developers greater control and flexibility to change and blend services, experiment with a continuous stream of innovative applications, and build on those that stick. LignUp significantly reduces development costs and time to market, and it quickly delivers returns on investments – both in people and technology.

LignUp 4.0 Builds on Proven Platform LignUp 4.0 builds on the proven performance of the LignUp Communications Applications Server, now in use by more than 150 customers – enterprises and service providers – worldwide. It delivers the rich functionality demanded by enterprises, as well as the robust, carrier-grade scalability and reliability required of by service providers. In addition to the new LignUp Communications Integration Server, the LignUp Communications Application Server includes several components:

• LignUp Call Director, a SIP back-to-back user agent (SIP B2BUA), HTTP client and HTTP server used to join, hold, park, transfer, and disconnect calls. Programmable via CCTRL – an XML Call Control scripting language, it hides the details of SIP, enabling developers to focus on the business logic of their applications.
• LignUp Media Server, a software-only, high-volume media (RTP, g.711, g.729a) processing engine for cost-effective, scalable, and flexible media functions, such as audio recording and playback; dual-tone, multi-frequency (DTMF) digit collection and generation; automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) via third-party engines; and T.38 fax origination and termination. The Media Server is a SIP endpoint, so it can accept calls, and a built-in HTTP client makes it easy to post information, for example DTMF digits, to external applications. Programmable via MCTRL – an XML Media Control scripting language and VXML scripts, it hides the details of media processing, and also enables developers to focus on the business logic of their applications.
• LignUp ProCentrex, a full-featured, presence aware, multi-tenant IP-PBX built using LignUp Call Director and LignUp Media Server XML scripts.
• LignUp ProVoice, a voicemail application integrated with LignUp ProCentrex.
• LignUp ProMessenger, a unified communications application for browser-based access to voicemails, emails, and faxes. Users can set call screening and forwarding rules; click-to-call from call logs; and manage address books, calendars and to-do lists.

LignUp 4.0 Availability and Pricing General availability of LignUp 4.0 begins June 1, 2007. It can be deployed both as an enterprise or service provider solution. Pricing starts at $100,000 and includes all LignUp Communications Application Server components – the LignUp Communications Integration Server, LignUp Communications Web Services and VoIPlets, ProCentrex, ProVoice, ProMessenger, Call Director and Media Server – as well as development and deployment training and 100 session bundles. Subsequent session bundles start at $670 each.

CodeLign Program Lets Developers Experience LignUp 4.0 Capabilities Developers can get a rapid start with LignUp 4.0 through the LignUp beta CodeLign developer program. By participating in CodeLign, they get access to six of the most popular LignUp Communications Web Services, and 800 free phone minutes running on the Level 3 network to build and test their communications-enabled Web services, applications, mashups, wikis, and portals. LignUp is hosting the developer environment on the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2), and audio files created by LignUp-based applications are stored on the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). Through this hosted environment, developers can minimize their cost to build applications based on LignUp 4.0. Developers can learn more about CodeLign by visiting LignUp or calling (650) 265-2000.

About LignUp Corporation