Lod, Israel – April 09, 2014 - AudioCodes (NasdaqGS: AUDC), a leading provider of converged voice solutions that enable enterprises and service providers to transition to all-IP voice networks, today announced that the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) has approved in principle a 3-year program (2014-2016) for AudioCodes for approximately 100 million NIS (equal to approximately $29 million based on the current NIS US$ exchange rate) to establish an advanced innovative research and development center for cloud technologies. The Israeli OCS approved a budget of approximately $6.4 million for year 2014, of which nearly two thirds will be supported by the OCS.
AudioCodes cloud delivery network architecture (CDNA) program includes the establishment of infrastructure for a new research and development center and hiring of engineers, to reach a R&D staff of 100 engineers by 2016. AudioCodes expects that a significant portion of the cost of this project will be reimbursed to it through grants from the Office of the Chief Scientist pursuant to this program. The grants are subject to conditions relating to grants by the Office of the Chief Scientist. Funding for the whole term of the program is subject to the continued review and approval of the progress of the project by the Office of the Chief Scientist.
Under the CDNA program AudioCodes plans to develop a set of technologies, infrastructures, platforms and services that will be designed to operate in challenging cloud environments and will enable delivery of real time communication (RTC) as well as value added services. These platforms and products will utilize principles of network functions virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN) architectures. Cloud-deployed components will support both private clouds as well as public clouds. The latter being particularly challenging, and for which special methods for voice quality enhancements will be developed.
The CDNA solution will enable AudioCodes and its business partners to develop and provide innovative cloud based RTC services with on-demand scale, high voice quality and business continuity. Business partners will be able to focus on the application and rely on the CDNA to provide interworking with other unified communications (UC) systems, Connectivity to WebRTC (Browser based RTC), security, anti-fraud and identity management, quality of service monitoring and enhancements and a selection of advanced cloud based services such as UC mobility, recording, speech recognition enabled auto-attendant and more.
Shabtai Adlersberg, AudioCodes President and CEO, stated “As a successful high-tech Israeli company that believes in the value and importance of developing state–of-the art technologies in Israel, we are proud to be a part of this national initiative to advance the vision of the Negev and the human capital in peripheral communities of Israel. With this program, AudioCodes is positioning itself as a leading cloud based UC and mobility player, utilizing NFV and SDN technologies for advanced real time communications to enable its business partners to deliver advanced services and solutions.”
