Natural Convergence Receives Product of the Year Award from Communications Convergence

Carrier-hosted silhouette service for small businesses and branch offices honored among industry’s best technologies

Ottawa, Canada, December 3, 2003 – Natural Convergence, a pioneer of Voice over IP software for Service Providers, has been honored with one of Communications Convergence’s prestigious Product of the Year awards. The magazine has recognized Natural Convergence for its silhouette product offering: a carrier-hosted VoIP service designed specifically to address the unique needs of small businesses and branch offices of larger enterprises. As the driving and defining voice of enterprise telecom, Communications Convergence annually recognizes the innovation and merit of companies that have played a dominant role in the advancement of the IP telephony industry over the last year.

Natural Convergence was selected by the publication’s editors for demonstrating vision, leadership, and a strong commitment to silhouette’s target market. The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market makes up 48% of business in the United States and generates $43 billion in revenue in telecom products and enhanced services. Natural Convergence’s silhouette unlocks a huge opportunity for Carriers to better serve SMEs by offering a virtual key system to replace their aging phone systems.

In its December 2003 issue, Communications Convergence applauded silhouette, noting that “the real genius is simply that Natural Convergence’s platform lets carriers go to…[key system] owners with a ‘new, new thing’ (i.e., hosted telephony), show them how it’s going to save them money, and sign them up. Great product, symphony of turnstiles.”

While phone services for larger enterprise are rapidly evolving to packet-based systems, the SME market – currently dominated by key systems – has been left without an appropriate upgrade option. Instead, SMEs are forced to accept complex solutions designed for big business, which many cannot afford and are unable to manage for themselves due to a lack of technical resources. silhouette is a simple to use, packet-based service that is hosted in the Carrier’s network and delivered to the user’s desktop over existing data networks to cost-effective IP phones. The service delivers many benefits to the SME including cost savings, control, and the ability to customize their service to meet their specific needs.

“We are very proud to receive this award, and thank Communications Convergence for its recognition of the value we bring to the industry,” said David Cork, CEO of Natural Convergence. “This award acknowledges the dedication and ground-breaking leadership that Natural Convergence has demonstrated since its inception in 2001. As we enter a new year, we remain committed to bringing high quality solutions to our customers, and to helping shape the IP telephony industry.”

The list of this year’s Product of the Year Award winners is featured in the December 2003 issue of Communications Convergence, available at www.cconvergence.com.

About Natural Convergence

Natural Convergence Inc. develops and markets hosted broadband communications software for Service Providers, enabling them to rapidly address the underserved small business market with compelling, cost effective and profitable voice applications. The company’s hosted IP solution; silhouette, is the only ‘next generation’ key system available to successfully address the vast market that has already adopted the key system as their preferred voice solution. Natural Convergence was founded in April 2001 with offices in Allen, TX and headquarters in Ottawa, Canada.

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