Friday, December 17, 2004
Interview with Kerry Shih, President of SyncVoice
Kerry Shih is President of Huntington Beach-based SyncVoice (www.syncvoice.com), which is developing a network management platform for Voice over IP networks. I caught up with Kerry to better understand the company's business.
BK: What is SyncVoice, and what does your product do?
KS: SyncVoice makes a network management platform for the Voice industry, specializing in monitoring Voice Over IP networks. Our VXTracker product is a turnkey solution for managing all communication technology including routers, switches and phone systems. The package is purchased by corporate IT departments to maximize uptime and reliability of their voice network. In particular the product allows them to Instantly Replay every IP business application that was running on each communication device on their data network. When combining this performance trail with a monitoring layer that can pinpoint network problems before they harm call quality we effectively enable IT managers to troubleshoot their own network and definitively solve issues.
BK: Who are your typical customers, and how do they use your product?
KS: IT departments in medium to large businesses. The product physically integrates with their network devices and provides the management function that they enjoy on the PC/data side but for Voice Over IP.
BK: How do you currently sell your product - direct or through resellers?
KS: Our product is sold through channel partners.
BK: How is the company funded, and where are you in terms of funding?
KS: The company is privately funded. We have had 53% sales growth quarter over quarter since inception so our go forward plan is to grow on revenues. However we are considering a venture round with a few strategic players.
BK: What would you use the capital for, if you did raise a venture round?
KS: Capital would be used to continue our profitable growth which includes hiring more sales representatives and marketing.
BK: What is your company's core technology? I see you are leveraging lots of open source software?
KS: Our core technology is Enterprise Java (J2EE). Open source software is important in bringing truly value-added software to the market since our team can focus on business code instead of standard infrastructure layers. All of our IP is in the proprietary network management software we have created on top of standards based application servers.
BK: What kind of Voice over IP networks and equipment can your product manage?
KS: The VX platform has no dependency on one vendor or another due to the way we integrate. As such this includes Cisco, HP, and Nortel switching/routing products plus every PBX manufacturer.
BK: Can you explain a bit on how your product attaches to a physical device? Is it a software agent or hardware?
KS: Java agent deployed on a hardware appliance. The Agent appliance physically integrates with managed switches and through serial or IP ports on PBXs.
BK: Finally, what's the next big goal for your company?
KS: Our next big goal is to focus and execute on several major distribution agreements now that we have product recognition and consumer demand. Early on we focused on procuring and qualifying deals, now that we have them its a matter of getting the job done.
BK: Thanks!