The Enterprise is where a common infrastructure for voice and data becomes apparent, thus the adoption of SIP in the Enterprise is a logical conclusion. This panel addresses the issues surrounding the benefits of this common infrastructure as well as the Enterprise’s decision to implement it.

Mr. Howe brings over 15 years of telecommunications engineering experience to Versatel. Prior to joining the company as CTO, he was CEO and Founder of Tangerine Inc., a leading maker of call agents for small IP telephony service providers. Mr. Howe also founded Howe Digital, a VoIP engineering design consulting organization responsible for designing over 50 VoIP products. At PictureTel/Polycom, Mr. Howe designed the audio and video software of the first PC-based video conferencing system, the first H.323 implementation and the program that became Microsoft NetMeeting. He also served as PictureTel's engineering manager responsible for all software development for the next generation H.323/H.320/H.324 SwiftSite product line.

Jack Jachner is currently with Alcatel as Senior Director leading an Internal Venture focused on development of an innovative Presence-based product. While at Alcatel, Jack has led an innovation team on next-gen. communication applications, has served as CTO for North America for enterprise Communication Servers, and has been responsible for engineering groups supporting the OmniPCX enterprise IP telephony product in North America.

Jack has a Doctor of Science in Digital Signal Processing and a Master of Science in Data Networking both from MIT, and a Bachelor of EE from McGill University. With over 20 years in Telecommunications R&D, he has implemented VoIP in Xylan data switches, implemented wireless basestations for Tellabs, researched signal identification and detection for DoD at AAEC, and researched vocoders for Bell Northern Research.

As Senior Product Manager, Converged Communications, Matt Lazaro brings over 15 years of communications industry experience to Avaya, where he is focused on developing SIP-based applications and services for the Enterprise market. Prior to joining Avaya, he served as Director of Marketing and Product Management at dynamicsoft, Inc., delivering push-to-talk and broadband voice applications to service providers, and held product management and product development positions within Lucent Technologies. He holds an MS and BS in Electrical Engineering.

As senior director of solutions architecture, Erik Papir oversees a global team of technical pre-sales specialists that design secure, converged networks comprised of 3Com Internet Protocol (IP)-based products and services for large enterprises.

Since joining 3Com in 1999, Papir has held various technical management positions of increasing responsibility including serving as network consultant for some of 3Com’s largest accounts.

Papir has more than 13 years of experience in the networking and telecommunications industries and extensive experience in designing and installing products and services for Fortune 500 companies.

Papir earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a member of Florida International University’s MS-MIS Advisory Board.