Aplio Expands North American Distribution; Award-Winning Internet Phone Appliance Now Available through Merisel.SAN BRUNO San Bruno (săn br  `nō), city (1990 pop. 38,961), San Mateo co., W Calif., a suburb on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1914. There is light manufacturing and petroleum refining. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 25, 1999--Aplio, the leading provider of Internet phone (1) See IP phone and softphone.(2) (Internet Phone) The first VoIP telephone service in the U.S., introduced in early 1995 by VocalTec Communications Ltd., Fort Lee, NJ (www.vocaltec.com). Using a Windows softphone, calls could also be made to a regular phone. appliances, today announced that El Segundo El Segundo (ĕl sēgŭn`dō), industrial city (1990 pop. 15,223), Los Angeles co., S Calif., on Santa Monica Bay; inc. 1917. Its products include navigation and computer systems, aircraft parts, office machines, telephone apparatus, and , Calif.-based Merisel, Inc., a leading distributor of computer products, has signed an agreement to distribute the Aplio/Phone, the award-winning, stand-alone Internet telephone appliance. The Aplio/Phone allows consumers and small businesses to make long distance and international phone calls via the Internet avoiding long-distance carriers' charges, without needing a computer. Merisel will offer the award winning Aplio/Phone to its vast customer base of computer resellers throughout North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . Olivier Zitoun, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Aplio, said, "Distribution is key to Aplio's plans for growth in 1999. We are very excited about our partnership with Merisel, whose strong retail and reseller channel presence will allow us to quickly and effectively strengthen our leadership in the Internet Appliance Also called "information appliance," "smart appliance," and "Web appliance," it is a device specialized for accessing the Web and/or e-mail. Designed for ease of use, it plugs into a telephone jack or LAN connection for Internet hookup. market." "We are very pleased to add the Aplio/Phone to our offering," said Tim DuBois, Merisel's director of peripherals. "Our resellers and dealers have been asking for easy-to-install products that offer voice communication via the Internet and we look forward to offering Aplio's award-winning products in this category." Using the award-winning Aplio/Phone and a standard telephone at each end of the conversation, businesses and individuals that frequently place long-distance calls to the same locations can easily reroute their calls through the Internet, without a computer. The Aplio/Phone uses Internet Service Providers Internet service provider (ISP) Company that provides Internet connections and services to individuals and organizations. For a monthly fee, ISPs provide computer users with a connection to their site (see data transmission), as well as a log-in name and password. (ISPs) who charge a flat monthly rate, rather than long-distance carriers who charge by the minute. The latest version of the appliance, Aplio/Phone 2.0, delivers state-of-the-art IP telephony, including the much anticipated 'Open Aplio' upgrade which delivers industry standard H.323-compliance, making it the first standalone Internet telephone. With Aplio/Phone 2.0, users can now make Internet calls between Aplio/Phones and PCs or other compliant devices, realizing as much as 100% savings on their long distance phone bills. About Aplio/Phone Aplio/Phone makes long distance dialing free. It is a standalone, smart Internet telephony appliance that reroutes calls over the Internet without a computer, delivering breakthroughs in technology, quality and savings. Aplio/Phone connects to any regular telephone just like an answering machine. Full-featured, with a built-in processor and modem, Flash RAM, hardware-based full-duplex voice compression, Aplio/Phone uses a patent-pending meeting process. About Merisel Merisel, Inc., (Nasdaq:MSEL MSEL Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory MSEL Milton S. Eisenhower Library (Johns Hopkins University) MSEL Master Scenario Events List MSEL Master of Studies in Environmental Law ) is a leader in the distribution of computer hardware and software products. Based in El Segundo, Calif., Merisel is a Fortune 500 Company with reported 1998 sales of approximately $4.6 billion. Merisel distributes a full line of 25,000 products and services from the industry's leading manufacturers to resellers throughout North America. In addition, the company provides a full range of customized, value-added services. Merisel also offers dedicated support to high-end resellers through the Merisel Open Computing Alliance (MOCA MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA Multimedia over Coax MoCA Museum of Chinese in the Americas MOCA Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance MOCA Montezuma Castle National Monument (US National Park Service) ) and the company's Enterprise Computing Division. Merisel's corporate Web site is located at www.merisel.com. |
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