card file image) with a telephone auto-dialer, plus an answering Pulver: Over 20 years ago, you co-founded (with Steve machine that included all the features of a one-line voicemail Simonoff, Wendell Bishop and Charles Foskett) what was origi-system, and which allowed users to leave personal messages for nally called Natural MicroSystems. What was your first product friends or business associates. NMS even added a scripting lan- offering and was it successful? guage, VScript, which allowed non-technical people to create Turner: The first product was Watson, a consumer product interactive voice response (IVR) systems with Watson. sold through computer stores. Watson did everything you could

NMS did a regional product launch in New England in October think of if you connected a telephone line to a PC; i.e. a phone-

1984 and a national rollout at Spring Comdex in Atlanta in book and auto-dialer, answering machine, voice mail system, May 1985. programmable interactive voice response system and a modem Turner also served as VP of Operations for the first eight years with terminal emulation software. We were way ahead of our of the company’s growth. time. Today you would call Watson a personal implementation In 1990 NMS introduced the VBX 400 board and entered the of “Unified Communications.” Back in 1984, we struggled with Computer Telephony (CT) market. It also launched MVIP (Multi- what category it fit into, finally settling on “voice-data modem.” Vendor Integration Protocol), an open standard digital telephony Watson failed as a consumer product, but because it was a bus for connecting voice cards together. MVIP was adopted by hot technology with a script-based programming environment, over 300 companies and was a precursor of the H.100 (PCI form people developed other products around it. That and some con-factor) and H.110 (CompactPCI form factor) CT Bus introduced tract development for a few big companies kept us alive through in 1997 and still in use today.

NMS’ IPO was in 1994.

Turner and NMS recognized the possibility of voice and data convergence as early as 1992, investigating technologies such as Voice-over-ATM (VoATM), Voice-over-Frame Relay (VoFR) and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). By March, 1996 NMS decided that VoIP would “win” and so they began development of Fusion 1.0, which went to beta in December 1996. (Fusion is a scalable, high performance development platform for standards-based IP telephony solutions.

It supports both PCI and CompactPCI
form factors, offers low-latency IP
trunking, supports T. 38 Fax-over-IP,
and provides a common software devel-
opment environment that can be used
to create IP telephony gateways, IP-en-
abled enhanced services platforms, and
wireless IP telephony gateways.)
NMS weathered the telecom market
collapse in the winter of 2000-2001 and customers soon began the 80s and formed the basis for a complete and very successful
asking for more complete sub-systems and systems, which has line of computer telephony products launched in 1990.
resulted in the launch of the NMS Vision line of media servers Pulver: If we dig, will we find the roots of Watson in NMS’
and gateways in early 2005. current product portfolio?
Additionally, Natural MicroSystems changed its name to NMS Turner: Yes. Watson’s core technologies included flexible
Communications in 2001 and soon focused on mobile commu- scripting-based development tools, media processing, tele-
nications; they are now heavily involved in the hot field of mo- phone network integration and a cool user interface. We have a
bile video. They’re also responsible for the MyCaller ringback much broader range of development tools today, but scripting
system distributed by LogicaCMG and Ericsson worldwide, environments like VXML and MSML are increasingly impor-
as well as a new wireless backhaul business built around their tant. Media processing and network integration are core NMS
AccessGate product, which will bring mobile phones to those competencies today, critical for our Vision line of media servers
most in need of basic communications in developing countries. and gateways, and a significant source of competitive advantage
Turner continues to oversee the evolution of NMS product for our MyCaller ringback offering and AccessGate, our wireless
technology and architectures, and he contributes to business backhaul optimizer. Finally, user interfaces (UIs) have shifted to
strategy and market development at NMS. Still, his principal the web or WAP, but UIs are a critical part of mobile applications
focus remains on engineering and technology. He maintains like MyCaller.
membership in the IEEE and the ACM; he also participates in Pulver: I know you’re a big fan of mobile phone technology.
industry and Internet bodies including the IETF, ECTF, GO- Do you really think that mobile is currently more important
MVIP and IMTC. globally than the Internet, and why?