Vertical Communications
{{Infobox company
| name = Vertical Communications, Inc.
| logo = Vertical_Communications_logo.svg
| type = Public
| traded_as = {{OTCPink|VRCC}}
| foundation = {{start date and age|1982}}
| location_city = Santa Clara, California
| location_country = United States
| location =
| key_people = Bill Tauscher {{small|(CEO, CFO, Chairman)}}; Peter Bailey, President and COO
| industry = Telecommunications
| products = Software PBX; business telephone systems; IP-PBX
}}
Vertical Communications, Inc. is a corporation that specialized in premises-based private branch exchanges, i.e., business telephone systems. Vertical Communications changed its name on January 1, 2005 from Artisoft, Inc. after acquiring Vertical Networks in September 2004. In September 2005, Vertical Communications acquired Comdial. On December 1, 2006, Vodavi Technology was acquired by Vertical Communications.
As of 2018/2019, limited products could be purchased of refurbished units from equipment brokers.DX-120: {{cite web
|title=Vertical Comdial DX-120 (IP-PBX) 2006 Description
|url=http://www.zerabox.com/vertical_comdial_docs/comdialdx-120.pdf
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160911004711/http://zerabox.com/vertical_comdial_docs/comdialdx-120.pdf
|url-status=usurped
|archive-date=September 11, 2016
|date=August 23, 2018}}Refurbished Vertical MP5000 units (as of 2019) continue in the marketplace, sold by equipment brokers. {{cite web
|title=Refurbished Products - Vertical MP5000 - Hoosier Equipment Brokers
|url=https://www.HEBusa.com/refurbished-products/vertical-mp5000}}
Partner programs
Vertical sells almost exclusively through a value-added reseller (VAR) channel.
History
=Artisoft=
{{pic|Artisoft logo.svg|Logo of Artisoft, Inc.}}
Tucson, Arizona-based Artisoft{{cite news
|newspaper=The New York Times
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/28/business/artisoft.html
|title=Artisoft |date=June 28, 1994}} was the first company to offer peer-to-peer networking.{{cite web
|url=http://huge.org/pulppdf/pulp04/mar04.pdf
|title=February Answers
|date=March 2004 |page=6}} The name of its network operating system was LANtastic.
In 1996 the company acquired {{Visible anchor|Stylus Innovation}} for $12.8 million.{{cite web
|title=USC Stevens Institute Names MIT's Krisztina Holly Executive Director
|work=USC
|url=http://pressroom.usc.edu/usc-stevens-institute-names-mits-krisztina-holly-executive-director
|accessdate=3 August 2013}} Stylus Innovation, noted for its Barcode-based remote shopping product, was founded in 1991 by Krisztina 'Z' Holly, Mike Cassidy and John Barrus.
Stylus Innovation came to public attention by winning the Grand-Prize in the 1991 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.
=Legacy=
Artisoft bought TeleVantage, and renamed the latter Artisoft TeleVantage. However, with Microsoft's Windows for Workgroups "eating into" LANtastic's lead (as was Novell).{{cite news |newspaper=Computerworld
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QZtKFFB8weQC
|title=LANtastic fighting two-front war |date=June 13, 1994 |page=86}} and then free "bundled networking software" in Windows 95 and 98, the company "saw the handwriting on the wall."{{cite web
|url=https://www.teamits.com/connection/main/artisoftgoesvertical.html
|title=Artisoft Goes Vertical |author=Steve Yates |date=January 2005}}
LANtastic's originator, Artisoft Televantage, sold "Legacy" technology ("LANtastic") to [http://www.spartacom.com Spartacom Technologies] in 2000. The latter, which subsequently was acquired by [https://www.PCMicro.com PC Micro], continued to market and maintain LANtastic. Version 8.01, released in 2006, can network PCs running MS-DOS (also PC DOS) 5.0 or later and Windows 3.x up to 7.(For case of Windows XP and 7, some limitations apply).
=Vertical redirect=
In September 2004 Artisoft, minus its former LANtastic technology, purchased Vertical and, effective January 2005, renamed itself
Vertical now had two non-competing main products, Televantage (for firms with under 1,000 phones and "one or more locations" and Vertical's "own" InstantOffice, "a Voice-over-IP phone system ... for large enterprises with many locations."