Moore's law continues to hold, while the MIPS required to process a call's media stream, remain relatively constant. We've seen a surge of product announcements for so-called "host media processing" (HMP) media servers. These products do in software the functions that formerly required specialized hardware since the MIPS available on the host computer are large compared with those required to process a media server's call streams. HMP media servers are often less expensive than DSP-based systems, but are they just as good? Learn the pros and cons of each.

Herman Abel is a Product Manager at Aculab, responsible for development of media processing and signalling products portfolio, new products initiatives, definition of the next generation product strategy, markets analysis, and support of the global sales force. Herman has extensive multidisciplinary knowledge and experience in broadband telecom, wireless communications, consumer electronics and information technology. Prior to joining Aculab, he studied MBA degree at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France, and before that worked for Atrica, a carrier-class Optical Ethernet equipment company, where he led marketing and realization activities for DWDM optical products and services.

Mike is a co-founder of Commetrex, and has served as its CEO since its inception. Following receipt of his degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, he held engineering positions in computer design, mixed-signal system design, and computer-based process-control systems design. Since his move to marketing he has held positions in sales, product and market management, and marketing communications. Prior to founding Commetrex he was VP, Marketing and Sales, for NMS Communications.

Grant joined RadiSys in 2006. Before joining RadiSys, Grant was Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at Convedia Corporation where he was responsible for the company's marketing, business development, and product strategy. Grant has also held marketing and product-management positions at Newbridge Networks, Bell Canada, and Telecom Canada/Stentor. Grant is a frequent speaker at industry events such as 3GSM World Congress, Supercomm, and Voice on the Net (VON), and has published papers in IEEE Multimedia and IEEE's International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems. In addition, he holds a US patent related to IP media processing. Grant received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University in Canada and has completed postgraduate work at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

Mr. Myshrall is Managing Director in the firm’s communications technology practice. He brings 14 years of telecommunications experience to Mercator, including expertise in product development, operations, sales, marketing, and business development. Prior to joining Mercator, Mr. Myshrall held senior management positions at GlobalPhone Corporation, an international voice over IP telecom service provider, Civcom Inc., an Israeli-based fiber optic equipment company, and Corvis Corporation, a global telecom equipment company. Mr. Myshrall also worked as a management consultant for Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath (PRTM), where he provided consulting expertise to numerous clients in the communications industry such as Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies, CIENA, AT&T Wireless, Nextel Communications, Teligent, and IBM. Mr. Myshrall has also held engineering positions with Nortel Networks, and Newbridge Networks (acquired by Alcatel). He holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of New Brunswick (Canada) and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

John Smrstik is currently serving as the worldwide business manager, high density and core infrastructure product group within the Communications Infrastructure and Voice business unit at Texas Instruments (TI). In this role, he is responsible for developing solutions based on TI DSP products that address the needs of the company’s high density voice and wired network infrastructure OEM’s.

Smrstik joined TI in 1992 and began his career in the technical sales and business development group where he spent four years as a technical sales representative to major communications OEM’s, three years for start-up business unit and two years as the business development manager for DSP software solutions. Most recently, he served as the worldwide marketing manager for the wireless infrastructure group.

Smrstik received his Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical engineering as well as his MBA from Boston University.