COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, MAY 21th – SmartShare Systems today announced that it has received accreditation under the MSPAlliance’s (MSPA) Vendor Accreditation Program (VAP). VAP is the first program of its kind, specifically designed by managed service providers (MSPs) as a benchmark for vendors who sell to the MSP community. Vendors who bear the VAP seal have shown they abide by the highest principles of quality in areas such as financial stability, positive channel practices, product research and development, and MSP customer satisfaction.

"The Vendor Accreditation Program is important to MSPs, since companies that receive accreditation have demonstrated their ongoing commitment to the channel,” said Charles Weaver, president of the MSPAlliance. "We are very proud to have SmartShare Systems as a part of this prestigious body of vendors.”

VAP was created using a wide base of criteria considered as critical by MSPs when selecting a vendor. Criteria examined during the accreditation process include:

• Business practices: Focusing on channel development, channel competition safeguards, experience in the managed services industry, etc.
• Product Roadmap: Examining the vendor's willingness to invest in their products in order to ensure continued relevance for the MSPs on a continued basis.
• Financial: Examination of financial stability to ensure adequate support of channel initiatives and product development.
• Client References: Vendor must provide at least three MSP specific client references.

“Earning the MSPAlliance’s accreditation clearly testifies the commitment SmartShare Systems has towards our MSP partners,” said SmartShare Systems CEO Michel Thorsen. “Our WAN optimization products have been designed around the needs of the managed service providers and the inherent requirement of their SMB customers. With our built-in bandwidth measuring, reporting and monitoring functionality the MSP can offer additional value added services to their customers.”


About MSPAlliance
The MSPAlliance is a professional association of 8,000 managed service providers and service-enabling technology vendors, who work in a collaborative effort to define, promote and educate the Managed Services Industry and the end-user consumer on the adoption and successful use of technology through Managed Services. MSPAlliance member companies’ are able to achieve Green IT Certifications, Disaster Recovery Certifications, and ultimately achieve MSPAlliance Accredited Provider Status. The MSPAlliance also offers many member benefits, such as Insurance, leasing programs, educational workshops and an online Managed Services Institute. For more information about the MSPAlliance please visit www.mspalliance.com

For information on SmartShare Systems:
Jesper Knudsen
VP Marketing and Business Development
+45 8993-5025
jkn@remove-this.smartsharesystems.com

For information on MSPAlliance:
Celia Weaver
Co-Founder, MSPAlliance
+1-530-891-1340
Celia@remove-this.mspalliance.com

For Press Inquiries:
Mostafa Razzak                
For MSPAlliance            
+1 (212) 786-6036                     
m.razzak@remove-this.jmrworldwide.com

"A low-cost WAN optimisation appliance that does a fine bandwidth balancing act straight from the box" said Dave Mitchell, editor of PCPro

Upgrading business net connections can be expensive, so it can pay dividends to make better use of existing resources. One method is bandwidth management, and Danish company SmartShare Systems offers a range of affordable solutions for SMBs.

The StraightShaper family delivers intelligent bandwidth management that aims to give all users a fair slice of the internet pie. They identify users by their IP address and apply load balancing so each one is serviced in turn. Integral QoS also identifies timing-critical traffic such as VoIP and automatically prioritises it.

SmartShare's download and upload optimisers monitor bandwidth, and in times of plenty allow users to have as much as they want. When bandwidth is tight, the optimisers kick in and make sure each user gets an equal share.

The StraightShaper 310 is licensed for ten IP addresses. All excess users are bundled together as a virtual user and treated as one IP address. The 310 software can be upgraded to a 320 or a 350, which can handle up to 20 or 50 IP addresses respectively.

Deployment is a cinch, since the appliance is completely transparent. We connected it between our LAN and WAN and suffered only a brief interruption to services while we connected cables. The 310 doesn't offer a hardware bypass switch, so if it fails or is powered off then you'll lose your internet connection.

The appliance needs to be where it can see all LAN devices. If you put it in front of a router or gateway performing NAT then all the users on the other side will have the same address and only be considered as one device.

Management is via the dedicated network port or through the LAN port. On first contact with the simple web interface you need to enter the real upload and download speeds of your WAN connection. You'll find a useful online utility for this at www.speedtest.net, which offers measurements of true upload and download speeds.

We fired up big downloads from five LAN systems and watched the pie charts in the top screen showing them all getting an equal share. These Java apps provide a near real-time status display, although general usage line graphs were difficult to interpret.

There's no need to manually prioritise VoIP traffic, but if you want it to get the lion's share then select the extra priority tickbox, which will take as much bandwidth as needed to ensure call quality is maintained. User groups allow the appliance to handle traffic coming from different subnets. These define IP address ranges to be considered as a single user, and applying weightings to each one means you can decide what bandwidth resources they can have.

The StraightShaper 310 offers out-of-the-box WAN bandwidth management at a price that will appeal to small businesses. It lacks a hardware bypass, but scores well for ease of use and its ability to handle VoIP traffic automatically.

Author: Dave Mitchell

PCPro review online

DVCOM Technology is an established IP telephony solution distributor and already represents several international IP telephony centric companies. DVCOM provides services for designing, installing, configuring, customizing and supporting Asterisk™ based IP PBX solutions through their extensive reseller network.

We are very enthused about the step into this market as it gives us an outstanding possibility to profile us in this growing region representing a large potential in the telecommunication industry. We look very much forward to collaborating with DVCOM, as their products are a perfect match to our solutions that ensure high-quality IP telephony, even on congested internet connections. In addition to this, the Middle East has an excellent business climate with a lot of activity and a rapidly growing use of internet based services.

For further details, please contact:

SmartShare Systems A/S
Jesper Knudsen
Phone: +45 89 93 50 25
E-mail: jkn@remove-this.smartsharesystems.com

About SmartShare Systems
SmartShare Systems is a leading and innovative supplier of WAN Optimization Appliances delivering intelligent bandwidth management products which guarantee all users a fair share of the available bandwidth, while at the same time significantly reducing delays in all IP-based traffic. This consequently improves overall Quality of Experience (QoE) when using IP telephony, thin clients and other SaaS-based applications. All SmartShare products are powered by SmartShare patented technologies including Dynamic QoS™ and User Load Balancing™. With technology development started in 2004, SmartShare Systems is a privately held Danish company backed by international venture funds with channel partners globally. 

For more information about SmartShare Systems, please visit www.smartsharesystems.com

The responsible product manager at ALLNET Johannes Haseneder is excited about this new partnership and says: “The innovative and intelligent products fit perfect into ALLNET’s VoIP and Unified Communications Portfolio. Optimized bandwidth management including perfect sound quality in IP telephony is a very heavy sales argument and will add value for our resellers”.

„ALLNET’s strategic focus on VoIP and Unified Communications, which is also our core focus area, makes them a perfect fit for SmartShare Systems’ expansion plans in Germany,” says Jesper Knudsen, VP Marketing and Business Development at SmartShare Systems. “Our products will complement ALLNET’s existing product portfolio and provide their customers with an excellent sound and video experience when using UC solutions”.

The WAN optimization Appliances SmartShare StraightShaper, SmartShare FairRouter and SmartShare MultilinkBalancer provide - through the patented algorithms - all users on a network a fair share of the available bandwidth and reduce at the same time delays when using IP telephony.
 

The advantages of Unified Communications solutions have primarily been available for larger organizations due to the complexity of installation, configuration and maintenance, and to a large extent the cost of the often necessary network infrastructure upgrade. With the combined solutions from SmartShare Systems and Secomea it has never been easier to deploy a manageable, secure and cost effective alternative.

SmartShare Systems’ appliances provide automatic and dynamic QoS for Unified Communication solutions, and hereby ensure high quality video and voice communications, even on congested internet connections. The SmartShare products come in a range of sizes to ensure that each office has a properly sized bandwidth management appliance. Plus, with an upgradeable licensing capability, the customer doesn’t need to oversize a box for remote offices, but has room to grow while protecting the investment.
 
“We are looking forward to collaborate with Secomea to provide our mutual customers with a secure and manageable infrastructure solution”, says Jesper Knudsen, VP of Marketing at SmartShare Systems. “Secomea is one of the market leaders in centrally managed Firewall/VPN appliances that enable customers to provide secure and continuous communication of data sharing, video and VoIP over the internet.”

Central management and provisioning capabilities are mandatory to accommodate customer requirement for easy deployment and instant service. “With the GateManager from Secomea and its built-in support for SmartShare’s WAN optimization appliances, it adds a new service dimension to Unified Communication” says Jesper Knudsen.

“Secomea is excited about the cooperation with SmartShare Systems and their innovative technology”, says Michael Ferdinandsen, Sales Director at Secomea. Their WAN optimization appliances will provide our customers with a leading technology for Unified Communication. This partnership fits perfectly into our business strategy of being a leading supplier of centrally managed Office Network Security solutions”, he continued.

About SmartShare Systems A/S:
SmartShare Systems is a leading and innovative supplier of WAN Optimization Appliances delivering intelligent bandwidth management products which guarantee all users a fair share of the available bandwidth, while at the same time significantly reducing delays in all IP-based traffic. This consequently improves overall Quality of Experience (QoE) when using IP telephony, thin clients and other SaaS-based applications. All SmartShare products are powered by SmartShare patented technologies including Dynamic QoS™ and User Load Balancing™. With technology development started in 2004, SmartShare Systems is a privately held Danish company backed by international venture funds, and has channel partners globally. For more information about SmartShare Systems, please visit www.smartsharesystems.com

About Secomea A/S:
Secomea A/S is a privately owned Danish company and one of the market leaders on Office Network Security. Over the years, Secomea has built a strong line of Firewall/VPN and Remote Device Management solutions with a unique emphasis on making the solutions easy to install, setup and use. That is why the company is named Secomea – which means Secure Communications Made Easy. Secomea are driven by a spirit of innovation, which we define as the ability to be constantly inquisitive and curious - not only about discovering new technologies but, even more importantly, about finding effective new ways to adapt and refine existing technologies. For more information about Secomea, please visit www.secomea.com

For further details, please contact

SmartShare Systems A/S
Jesper Knudsen
Phone: +45 89 93 50 25
E-mail: jkn@remove-this.smartsharesystems.com

Secomea A/S
Michael Ferdinandsen 
Phone: +45 41 39 71 75
E-mail: mif@remove-this.secomea.com 

John is an industry recognized Chief Technology Officer and thought leader with a track record of running and improving both focused and extremely large R&D organizations. In addition to his roles as CTO, John has been a Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Information Officer in publicly traded companies.

 “The expansion of SmartShare Systems Board of Directors with a capacity such as John provides us with incredible insight into the industry, and will help strengthen our international strategy and expansion,” said SmartShare Systems CEO, Michel Thorsen.

“SmartShare Systems is addressing the imminent need to assure fairness on the broadband up-link,” said John Roese. “With the rapidly increasing use of Unified Communication technologies, I believe SmartShare is extremely well-positioned towards the future, and I look forward to contribute with my perspective at the board level to help leverage their technology.”

John currently runs ICT Advisory Group LLC advising private equity and venture groups as well as incubating technology startup companies.

About SmartShare Systems
SmartShare Systems is a leading and innovative supplier of WAN Optimization Appliances delivering intelligent bandwidth management products which guarantee all users a fair share of the available bandwidth, while at the same time significantly reducing delays in all IP-based traffic. This consequently improves overall Quality of Experience (QoE) when using IP telephony, thin clients and other SaaS-based applications. All SmartShare products are powered by SmartShare patented technologies including Dynamic QoS™ and User Load Balancing™. With technology development started in 2004, SmartShare Systems is a privately held Danish company backed by international venture funds with channel partners globally.
For more information about SmartShare Systems, please visit www.smartsharesystems.com

Press Contacts:

SmartShare Systems A/S
Jesper Knudsen
Phone (+45) 8993 5025
jkn@remove-this.smartsharesystems.com