Company: Telarix Inc., Vienna, Virginia USA
Company Description: Telarix, Inc., was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Vienna, VA. Telarix provides software solutions to global service providers which enables them to effectively manage how they exchange large volumes of voice and IP/Data traffic with other carriers across the globe. The company has offices in Brazil, Dubai, Germany, Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best New Product or Service of the Year - Telecommunications

Nomination Title: iXLink

   1. Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 500 words). Describe its functions, features, benefits, and sales results to date. You may include here hyperlinks to product photographs and data sheets. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

          International carriers conduct business with other carriers by exchanging
          traffic to and from specific countries, cities or regions in order to smoothly
          and efficiently interconnect the world’s communications.  A typical carrier is
          interconnected to between 50 and 100+ carriers, each of which is sending
          multiple rate and dial-code change notifications as well as invoices,
          declarations and dispute letters each month. As a result, a carrier may have
          to track as many as 500,000 details per month; all delivered in different
          formats and often with varying dial code structures.

          The increase in the number of fixed and mobile carriers, as well as the
          tremendous volume of daily traffic that is routed on a carrier’s network has
          compounded the complexity of managing this process. Typically tracking
          traffic, costs and revenue has been done manually using Microsoft Excel,
          disparate software solutions or even faxing documents back and forth between
          carriers. The increasing complexity and volume of price lists, invoices and
          declarations and other business documents, combined with the variety of  data
          formats now being used, has created a challenging environment for service
          providers.  According to industry research firm Yankee Group, miscommunication
          arising from poor and/or lost data will collectively cost U.S. and European
          operators in excess of US$6 billion per year by 2010. 

          For years, the telecom industry has worked to establish common business
          processes and document standards in order to facilitate business transactions
          between carriers. However, each attempt has had limited success as most were
          voluntary or required significant changes to a carrier’s existing business
          processes or internal documents. 

          We believe iXLink creates a paradigm shift in how carriers conduct business
          with one another. As an open, neutral business information exchange service
          for the telecom industry, iXLink enables carriers to electronically exchange
          their business data and documents with other carriers— reducing the costs and
          complexities associated with managing international telecom traffic including
          the purchase and sales processes; international dial code management; billing,
          including invoice validation, and settlement.  

          iXLink facilitates the information exchange between carriers by using industry
          standard e-commerce technology (HTML/XML/FTP/VPN) and is deployed on an
          extensive, high availability platform to ensure all members have near real-
          time access to the critical information required to manage their international
          traffic efficiently - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Each carrier
          relationship, or Link, is configurable and is designed to seamlessly
          communicate with a service provider’s existing interconnect management
          system.   All business documents are sent electronically via iXLink where they
          are time-stamped and validated.  iXLink facilitates the information exchange
          between a carrier's partners without requiring any changes to a carrier’s
          existing business processes, OSS/BSS and/or document formats. The system
          automatically translates the sending carrier’s documents into the unique
          format required by the other carrier.  This reduces the delays and errors
          commonly found in receiving, handling and processing price lists, invoices and
          declarations. iXLink users can also apply business rules specific to each
          carrier and/or service to validate transactions, meet internal business
          objectives and capture errors so that the sender can be notified immediately. 
          More than 125 telecom carriers worldwide are now using iXLink to automatically
          exchange business information among their trading partners.  The 100th
          carriers milestone came just six months after iXLink became operational.

          http://www.ixlink.com/index.php?c=10&kat=iXLink+Price+List+Exchange

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

          http://www.ixlink.com/index.php?c=34&kat=Telarix+announces+iXLink
          http://www.ixlink.com/index.php?c=36&kat=DT+Joins+iXLink
          http://www.ixlink.com/index.php?c=43&kat=Yankee+Group+on+iXLink
         http://www.ixlink.com/index.php?c=45&kat=100+CARRIERS+NOW+USING+IXLINK%AE+SERVICE

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed the nominated product or service:

          Don Lynch is CEO of Telarix.  He was the former founder and CEO of
          Broadmargin, an application service provider.  Prevously, we served as Senior
          VP of Financial Operations at MCI, he built MCI’s basic financial
          infrastructures, including billing processes and core financial systems, and
          led efforts to prepare MCI for equal access in conjunction with AT&T’s
          divestiture.

          Shawn Zargham, Chief Technology Officer
          Shawn has over 15 years of professional experience in both business and
          scientific software applications. Previous experience as a research faculty
          member at Yale University has enabled him to successfully lead Telarix's
          research and development efforts to develop and deliver high-quality, scalable
          solutions for the carrier industry.  He obtained his BS in electrical
          engineering from Iowa State University and his PhD in Plasma Physics from the
          School of Electrical Engineering of Cornell University.

          Russ Burd, General Manager, iXLink
          Russ has over 21 years of experience in technology sales and marketing. 
          Previously, he was COO and co-founder of Broadmargin, a hosted software
          application and business process outsourcing company providing
          telecommunication spend management solutions.  Russ has held a number of key
          management positions at large companies in the areas of business development
          and marketing.

          Mark Hatam, Vice President, iXLink Product Development
          Mark oversees all product development activities for iXLink, including
          managing product roadmap and defining future releases. He has over 20 years of
          telecom and IT experience in product management and development of OSS and BSS
          solutions for the industry.  Prior to joining Telarix, Mark held several
          senior management positions in engineering, and marketing with leading telecom
          carriers including MCI, Avantel, Bell Atlantic, Teligent, and Winstar.