Summit-Tech Communications is a Canadian company, based in Montreal, which develops converged applications for the internet, television industry, and the mobile space. It was founded in 1995 and has about 40 employees. 

Alido Di Giovanni, president of Summit-Tech Communications, says the company focuses on innovative technology with products in segments such as broadcasting, e-commerce, messaging and gaming.

“Recently, we started taking our next generation IMS products to the market,” Di Giovanni says. “Our IMS-gaming platform Nexos provides an application framework that offers mobile and desktop client SDKs to content publishers, which will simplify access to enhanced IMS-based services. Connect2Media, another Ericsson partner, provides the gaming content, while Ericsson provides the IMS infrastructure. IMS services, such as PTT, chat, video conferencing, and extended services, such as scheduling, lobbies, tournaments and advertising, can be easily integrated into games through socially connected communities.”

Summit-Tech Communications is now also including Rich Communication Suite (RCS) support into its mobile and desktop clients. 

The company became interested in IMS in 2003, when it started looking at the mobile segment, Di Giovanni says. It realized that IMS offered great opportunities, supporting internet and mobile convergence. Summit-Tech Communications’ specialty is user experience, and the company already had an existing relationship in that segment with Ericsson, which in 2004 proposed that the two companies should work together on an IMS ecosystem project. 

“We wouldn’t have been exposed to IMS so early if it hadn’t been for Ericsson,” Summit-Tech Communications’ CTO Eric Bellotti says. “For us, the partnership with Ericsson has been very fruitful. Ericsson has been a mentor, and a great IMS evangelist and ecosystem partner.

“Having access to Ericsson’s skilled IMS team in Montreal has proven very helpful. Together, we have resolved a lot of issues, and without the support of Ericsson we would not have achieved all that we have.”

Rolf Carlsson, head of Operations, Ericsson Developer Program, says: “Summit-Tech is a very creative partner that helped us to bring IMS gaming to the global market, together with Connect2Media. Together, we have formulated a long-term strategy that addresses the gaming market. In cooperation with publishers, we have also developed a high-level gaming SDK/API to facilitate the integration of IMS services.”

John Christopher, head of IMS Multimedia R&D at Ericsson in Montreal, has worked closely with Summit-Tech Communications. He says: “Summit-Tech is an innovative company comprised of a skilled team. Our respective competencies and thought leadership have resulted in a converged gaming solution that offers a winning proposition to the gaming segment. We have had a lot of requests throughout Europe, Asia and North America to demonstrate this solution. Operators are aware that the gaming space is a fast-growing segment and that mobile gaming is on the rise. Our converged gaming platform provides a 3GPP standards-based future-proof solution, based on IMS, that gives them a competitive advantage over other proprietary systems.”

Bellotti says: “IMS is the glue enabling equipment from different suppliers to communicate without cumbersome integration.” 

Both Di Giovanni and Bellotti believe strongly in IMS. 

“There is no true evolution to Web 3.0, including social networking, without real interoperability and converged mobile and internet communication, and IMS has the potential to make that leap possible,” Di Giovanni says.

Summit-Tech website
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