CHANNEL PARTNERS — Hosted PBX provider RingCentral (Booth #2038) is hoping the addition of an indirect sales model will help the company ring up additional sales. The launch will be announced at the 2010 Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
The company, which provides Internet-based phone systems for small and medium businesses, has added a Sales Agent Program to its go-to-market strategy that enables new agent partners to sell RingCentral Office and earn commissions. Previously, the company relied on online sales to drive its business.
The Sales Agent Program allows partners to earn competitive upfront and residual commissions based on their customer’s monthly recurring revenue. Since RingCentral does not charge any setup fees, partners also can capitalize on opportunities to provide value-added or managed services that deliver incremental revenue on top of RingCentral’s commission.
According to the company, RingCentral Office is a complete, cloud computing-based business phone system, combining a hosted multiextension business phone system with auto-receptionist, advanced voice and fax functionality, unlimited calling and full-featured phones that arrive pre-configured and ready for use.
RingCentral Office is offered at a flat, fixed monthly fee with no contracts and no setup costs. RingCentral Office Sales Agent partners can set their customers up on the RingCentral Office phone system within minutes with the click of a mouse.
Resources Partner Series – Bringing Cordless Communications to SIP Telephony
PHONE+ Master Agency Buyer’s Guide 2010
Education Series – The Ins & Outs of Energy Sales
Channel Executive of the Year Awards 2010
Fact Book 2010
Channel Compensation Survey 2010
PHONE+ YOU Edition 2009
View the original article here
View the original article here
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Intermedia: Integrated voice, e-mail, and UC services
September 15, 2010
By Mark A. Miller
Intermedia.net, Inc., headquartered in New York, New York, is a privately held firm that has developed an interesting niche in the communications services business: hosting Microsoft Exchange services, along with other enhanced communications services to small and mid-size businesses. For one monthly fee, customers get VoIP telephony, smartphones, business e-mail, instant messaging, fax, and other communications functions delivered as a service.
Founded in 1995, Intermedia claims to have been the first company to offer cloud-based, business-class e-mail; it now has over 250,000 premium, hosted Exchange mailboxes under management.
This interesting combination of hosted voice and e-mail service has brought in a number of industry recognitions, including a 2007 Perfect Score in Technical Support from HosTest.net; a 2007 Reader’s Choice Award from MSExchange.org; a 2008 Dedicated Server Hosting award from Web Host Directory; and a 2009 Fastest Growing Company award from HostReview.com.
Intermedia also empowers thousands of smaller value added resellers (VARs) and managed service providers (MSPs)—as well as select Fortune 500 companies—to sell communications services under their own brand. Intermedia has 200 employees with additional operations in Sunnyvale, California, St. Petersburg, Russia, and London.
Intermedia offers its services throughout the United States, primarily targeting companies with 50 or fewer users. The company qualifies its customers based upon the type of communications solution that they are presently using. For example, for companies that are currently running their business using POTS (plain old telephone service), Intermedia provides an alternative that includes advanced features such as an automated attendant, hunt groups, and extension dialing, without having to set up and manage complex equipment, plus cost savings from with no local and regional tolls charges.
Businesses that are run from mobile phones can have a system that provides all the employees with consistent features, management, and costs—plus integration with hosted Exchange. Potential customers that are using Skype or other free online VoIP services can port their phone number over to Intermedia, which provides directory assistance listings that help potential customers find them, plus unlimited calling to anyone in the United States or Canada, without the customer having to purchase off-net minutes. Customers that currently are served by another hosted PBX provider are also welcomed into the fold, with the additional advantage of the hosted Exchange service, with both voice and e-mail services managed from a centralized console.
That management console, called the HostPilot Control Panel; enables online administration of all communications services. This interface provides a centralized point of management for all Intermedia services, including the Exchange server, POP/IMAP e-mail, SharePoint, Fax via e-mail, SpamStopper, Hosted PBX, and Domain Names. Using this control panel, users can add and manage hosted PBX use, set and configure the voice menu and hunt groups, manage music on hold, and view six months of call history for all users.
Each Intermedia hosted PBX account includes hunt groups, so that calls to a specific department, such as sales or customer support, can be answered quickly. Each user account receives a direct dial phone number; unique extension and extension dialing for calls within the company; unlimited calling to the United States and Canada; caller ID, call waiting, call transfer, call forwarding and three-way calling; find-me/follow-me service—which can forward calls to a mobile or additional phone when away from the office—plus voice-mail to e-mail conversion, with Outlook integration. In addition, Intermedia also provides consistent customer support on a 24 x 7 basis, meaning that their system does not default to an “emergency support” call center during off-peak hours. Cost for the service runs $34.95 per user per month.
The hosted PBX service can be expanded into a full unified communications service when customers add hosted Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and the OCS Calling feature. With Intermedia’s service, calls can be placed to any instant messaging contact in OCS or any contact in Outlook just with a click of the mouse.
The company does not include telephones as part of their service, but recommends Linksys and Polycom models or the free X-Lite softphone, and will assist customers in configuring these devices. Other SIP-compatible devices may be used with the system, but net managers are on their own for installation and configuration functions.
Further information on the Intermedia solutions can be found at www.intermedia.net . Our next tutorial will continue our review of various service providers hosted voice solutions.
Author’s Biography
Mark A. Miller, P.E. is President of DigiNet Corporation®, a Denver-based consulting engineering firm. He is the author of many books on networking technologies, including Voice over IP Technologies, and Internet Technologies Handbook, both published by John Wiley & Sons.
View the original article here
View the original article here
By Mark A. Miller
Intermedia.net, Inc., headquartered in New York, New York, is a privately held firm that has developed an interesting niche in the communications services business: hosting Microsoft Exchange services, along with other enhanced communications services to small and mid-size businesses. For one monthly fee, customers get VoIP telephony, smartphones, business e-mail, instant messaging, fax, and other communications functions delivered as a service.
Founded in 1995, Intermedia claims to have been the first company to offer cloud-based, business-class e-mail; it now has over 250,000 premium, hosted Exchange mailboxes under management.
This interesting combination of hosted voice and e-mail service has brought in a number of industry recognitions, including a 2007 Perfect Score in Technical Support from HosTest.net; a 2007 Reader’s Choice Award from MSExchange.org; a 2008 Dedicated Server Hosting award from Web Host Directory; and a 2009 Fastest Growing Company award from HostReview.com.
Intermedia also empowers thousands of smaller value added resellers (VARs) and managed service providers (MSPs)—as well as select Fortune 500 companies—to sell communications services under their own brand. Intermedia has 200 employees with additional operations in Sunnyvale, California, St. Petersburg, Russia, and London.
Intermedia offers its services throughout the United States, primarily targeting companies with 50 or fewer users. The company qualifies its customers based upon the type of communications solution that they are presently using. For example, for companies that are currently running their business using POTS (plain old telephone service), Intermedia provides an alternative that includes advanced features such as an automated attendant, hunt groups, and extension dialing, without having to set up and manage complex equipment, plus cost savings from with no local and regional tolls charges.
Businesses that are run from mobile phones can have a system that provides all the employees with consistent features, management, and costs—plus integration with hosted Exchange. Potential customers that are using Skype or other free online VoIP services can port their phone number over to Intermedia, which provides directory assistance listings that help potential customers find them, plus unlimited calling to anyone in the United States or Canada, without the customer having to purchase off-net minutes. Customers that currently are served by another hosted PBX provider are also welcomed into the fold, with the additional advantage of the hosted Exchange service, with both voice and e-mail services managed from a centralized console.
That management console, called the HostPilot Control Panel; enables online administration of all communications services. This interface provides a centralized point of management for all Intermedia services, including the Exchange server, POP/IMAP e-mail, SharePoint, Fax via e-mail, SpamStopper, Hosted PBX, and Domain Names. Using this control panel, users can add and manage hosted PBX use, set and configure the voice menu and hunt groups, manage music on hold, and view six months of call history for all users.
Each Intermedia hosted PBX account includes hunt groups, so that calls to a specific department, such as sales or customer support, can be answered quickly. Each user account receives a direct dial phone number; unique extension and extension dialing for calls within the company; unlimited calling to the United States and Canada; caller ID, call waiting, call transfer, call forwarding and three-way calling; find-me/follow-me service—which can forward calls to a mobile or additional phone when away from the office—plus voice-mail to e-mail conversion, with Outlook integration. In addition, Intermedia also provides consistent customer support on a 24 x 7 basis, meaning that their system does not default to an “emergency support” call center during off-peak hours. Cost for the service runs $34.95 per user per month.
The hosted PBX service can be expanded into a full unified communications service when customers add hosted Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and the OCS Calling feature. With Intermedia’s service, calls can be placed to any instant messaging contact in OCS or any contact in Outlook just with a click of the mouse.
The company does not include telephones as part of their service, but recommends Linksys and Polycom models or the free X-Lite softphone, and will assist customers in configuring these devices. Other SIP-compatible devices may be used with the system, but net managers are on their own for installation and configuration functions.
Further information on the Intermedia solutions can be found at www.intermedia.net . Our next tutorial will continue our review of various service providers hosted voice solutions.
Author’s Biography
Mark A. Miller, P.E. is President of DigiNet Corporation®, a Denver-based consulting engineering firm. He is the author of many books on networking technologies, including Voice over IP Technologies, and Internet Technologies Handbook, both published by John Wiley & Sons.
View the original article here
View the original article here
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Virtual PBX Adds Call Recording for No Extra Cost
Virtual PBX (News – Alert)®, inventor and supplier of hosted PBX services, has included call recording in all its standard plans for no additional charge.
“With the addition of call recording, Virtual PBX extends our leadership in providing clients with the most flexible and diverse set of features at the lowest cost. The new feature gives our users the ability to improve their own customer satisfaction and ensure that high priority calls are properly managed,” said Greg Brashier, CEO of Virtual PBX.
Call recording is a valuable tool for many small and mid-size business “SMB” clients, particularly as it relates to improving the performance of customer-facing staff. With Virtual PBX call recording, any or all calls can be recorded, saved, and played back later to assist in training employees or to meet legal or other requirements. The system can be set to automatically record all calls or allow individual selection of which calls to record to respond to unique business needs.
Every Virtual PBX extension owner has the ability to record all calls automatically or select calls to record manually with the simple touch of a button. Administrators can also decide to control call recording for all users or give each user the ability to manage his or her recordings. In addition, the company’s built-in selective recording architecture allows calls to be recorded for pre-selected extensions and/or departments.
Moreover, recordings can be sorted by date/time, length, caller ID, user name or extension number; recordings can be played back or deleted at the convenience of the user and; recordings can be downloaded to a PC for future playback.
ENSO Bottles, the producer of environment-friendly biodegradable bottle solutions, recently announced plans to implement Virtual PBX’s business-class phone system in its organization, giving them the freedom and flexibility for conducting business flawlessly into its isolated working environment.
Trupti Kamath is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
View the original article here
View the original article here
“With the addition of call recording, Virtual PBX extends our leadership in providing clients with the most flexible and diverse set of features at the lowest cost. The new feature gives our users the ability to improve their own customer satisfaction and ensure that high priority calls are properly managed,” said Greg Brashier, CEO of Virtual PBX.
Call recording is a valuable tool for many small and mid-size business “SMB” clients, particularly as it relates to improving the performance of customer-facing staff. With Virtual PBX call recording, any or all calls can be recorded, saved, and played back later to assist in training employees or to meet legal or other requirements. The system can be set to automatically record all calls or allow individual selection of which calls to record to respond to unique business needs.
Every Virtual PBX extension owner has the ability to record all calls automatically or select calls to record manually with the simple touch of a button. Administrators can also decide to control call recording for all users or give each user the ability to manage his or her recordings. In addition, the company’s built-in selective recording architecture allows calls to be recorded for pre-selected extensions and/or departments.
Moreover, recordings can be sorted by date/time, length, caller ID, user name or extension number; recordings can be played back or deleted at the convenience of the user and; recordings can be downloaded to a PC for future playback.
ENSO Bottles, the producer of environment-friendly biodegradable bottle solutions, recently announced plans to implement Virtual PBX’s business-class phone system in its organization, giving them the freedom and flexibility for conducting business flawlessly into its isolated working environment.
Trupti Kamath is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
View the original article here
View the original article here
NeboWeb Redesign of Vocalocity Site Wins Best Telecommunications Website Award
ATLANTA, GA–(Marketwire – September 17, 2010) – The Web Marketing Association has presented its 2010 Best Telecommunications Website Award to NeboWeb, an award-winning interactive marketing agency, in recognition of NeboWeb’s outstanding achievement in website development for the Vocalocity small business VoIP website. The site received 63.5 out of a possible 70 points with one judge remarking, “Beautifully designed. Great color scheme, easy and clear navigation, clear message and easy tools. Also, nice use of graphics and design elements. Well done.”
“It’s really rewarding when we are able to create a great website for a great client, and help them grow,” says Adam Harrell, President of NeboWeb. “Our challenge with Vocalocity was to make sure that their potential clients not only understood their product, but how it could benefit their business.”
Vocalocity is a business VoIP provider that services small business, providing them with phone systems that grow with them, while providing support that is reliable, authentic, and talented. Vocalocity needed a website that would help them leverage their brand into new opportunities, provide clear communications of their products and services, and provide assurance that they are a company that could be trusted. NeboWeb met their needs by creating a site that features slow-motion video, interactive features, and an enterprise level content management system.
“It’s fantastic to see NeboWeb recognized for the excellent work they’ve done redesigning our website,” says Nick Ogawa, Director of Marketing, Vocalocity. “We challenged them to create a website that explained our Hosted PBX offering in simple terms, expressed Vocalocity’s personality and culture, and led to greater conversions. NeboWeb truly exceeded our expectations on all fronts.”
Since 1997, the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition has been helping interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world. Now in its 14th year, the WebAward Competition has become the premier award event for Web developers and marketers worldwide. The Vocalocity website was evaluated by a panel of judges based on Design, Innovation, Content, Technology, Interactivity, Copywriting and Ease of Use. In selecting award winners, judges assumed the role of the target audience and scored the sites based on their experiences. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, content providers, and webmasters.
To learn more about NeboWeb or its award-winning projects, visit NeboWeb’s interactive portfolio.
About NeboWeb
NeboWeb is an award-winning interactive marketing agency that helps companies make the most of the web. NeboWeb works with clients of all sizes — from Fortune 500 brands to emerging firms — to create interactive strategies that bring results. With expertise in interactive marketing strategy, creative direction and web design, user experience, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click management (PPC) and content management systems, NeboWeb has helped its clients achieve their online goals. Visit www.neboweb.com for more information.
View the original article here
View the original article here
Landscape Is Changing to Better Accommodate SIP
It’s not too surprising that SIP Trunking hasn’t taken off over the past few years, says Matt Vlasach,mobile UC architect at Unwired Revolution (News – Alert), which is an integrator of mobile infrastructure solutions.
Although many businesses have been eyeing SIP trunking for its cost savings potential for years, there has been a lot of hesitation by customers and system integrators due to upgrade costs and interoperability fears. But Vlasach says that the landscape is changing to better accommodate SIP trunking. Customers now are seeing the allure of Unified Communications, which generally involves moving to a VoIP-based phone system that supports native SIP trunking. There is also improved interoperability between PBXs and SIP trunking providers, leading system integrators to be more comfortable with recommending native-SIP trunking solutions over traditional PRI, Vlasach added.
Vlasach (pictured above) will be speaking during Ingate’s SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit collocated with ITXPO, Oct., 4-6, 2010, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, CA.
Vlasach recently spoke with TMCnet’s Erik Linask (News – Alert) in an interview provided in full below.
Erik Linask: What factors are boosting adoption of SIP Trunking?
Matt Vlasach: I believe there are several interconnected factors at play that are resulting in the ramping of SIP Trunking adoption in SMB and Enterprise: cost reduction, improvements in PBX (News – Alert) and carrier interoperability, and adoption of UC-enabled PBXs.
Although many businesses have been eyeing SIP trunking for the cost savings potential for years, there has been a lot of hesitation by customers and system integrators alike due to upgrade costs and interoperability (proper functionality) fears. For many, the return on investment to support native SIP trunking hasn’t been significant or rapid enough to justify taking the leap during this recessionary time. Additionally, many have felt that deploying native SIP trunking is simply too risky due to interoperability and implementation problems, regardless of cost saving potential. Finally, there exists a low-risk and attractive alternative to native SIP trunking: a dynamic-T carrier offering that delivers many of the same benefits as SIP trunking (namely cost savings) with a tried-and-true PRI handoff to connect to existing PBXs, with little or no capital expenditure necessary. With these factors in play, it’s not too surprising that SIP Trunking hasn’t taken off over the past few years.
However, the landscape is changing to better accommodate SIP trunking. Catalyzing the change from the customer’s perspective is the allure of Unified Communications, which generally involves moving to a VoIP-based phone system that supports native SIP trunking. In tandem to this movement is the improvement of interoperability between PBXs and SIP trunking providers, leading system integrators to be more comfortable with recommending native-SIP trunking solutions over traditional PRI. These factors, combined with normal PBX turnover, are helping drive widespread SIP trunking adoption.
EL: How much has SIP Trunking penetrated the SMB market so far — and how far do you think it will go?
MV: I think native SIP trunking has had limited penetration in the small business market, but larger success in the medium-sized business market. Medium-sized businesses (with 100+ employees) have larger and more complex trunking requirements that offset the cost of implementing SIP trunking. Small businesses, on the other hand, have a harder time justifying the upfront costs and are increasingly moving towards Hosted PBX VoIP offerings instead.
In medium businesses, I expect SIP trunking to replace PRIs in nearly all cases within the next five to 10 years. For companies of that size, adopting SIP trunking yields superb benefits by being able to scale trunking capacity (concurrent calls), reduce per-minute costs, and take advantage of virtual telephone numbers.
For small business, I think there is a trend towards moving to hosted PBXs, eliminating the need for trunking altogether. For your average small offices (1-30 users) with normal telephony requirements, there is simply too much initial and on-going cost compared to a hosted solution. However, for those small businesses (1-100 users) that require an on-premise PBX, SIP trunking will be very pervasive care of low-cost calling plans, national DID number selection and bundling of voice and data services in one package.
EL: What is the relationship between UC adoption and SIP Trunking?
MV: SIP trunking is a crucial element to the evolution of Unified Communications over the next decade. As UC adoption increases, the usage of SIP trunking will expand beyond simply access to the voice PSTN, but will enable service providers to extend rich media capabilities to their customer’s UC platform, including video, messaging, presence and other emerging cloud-based services. Additionally, “private SIP trunks” will be utilized to establish federations between different companies’ UC systems to enable direct and seamless inter-company Unified Communication capabilities.
Customers and integrators that use SIP trunks today are laying the foundation for this exciting new future. They are also learning early and important lessons about interoperability, security, network engineering, and Quality of Service considerations that are inherent to SIP trunks and important elements of a successful UC infrastructure today and into the future.
EL: How do vendors and service providers overcome the lack of consistency of definition around UC?
MV: Vendors and service providers overcome the loose interpretation of UC by rigorously marketing their own definition and vision of UC technology. So long as their offering provides multiple forms of real-time communication, they consider their product to be “UC”. Ironically, there isn’t much communication or collaboration between the key industry players to put a stake in the ground and call a defined subset of capabilities “Unified Communications”.
This is actually a real problem because it makes product selection for customers substantially more complicated. The buying process is typically extended while the customer breaks apart the feature sets of various UC offerings to make sure they get the features they want. There is also substantial risk of customer dissatisfaction if they assume a specific feature is a “given” in all UC platforms when that may not actually be the case.
EL: How important is the latest generation of smart phones to the growth of UC?
MV: As I see it, there will be two branches of growth for UC in the upcoming decade: mobility and interoperability. As UC becomes de facto on the corporate LAN, expanding rich UC capabilities to mobile users will be one major progression of the technology. The other front will be in terms of interoperability, which will allow end-users to seamlessly utilize UC features across companies, regardless of equipment manufacture or service provider.
In terms of Mobile UC growth, the latest generation of smart phones satisfies one of the major outstanding technology milestones required for the realization of enterprise-ready Mobile UC: the mobile form factor and platform. These new phones have the processing power and software architecture to support real-time and asynchronous communication to the mobile workforce. Just as importantly, end-users have fully embraced these smart phones as a tool to complete business, which will help drive mobile UC adoption and acceptance. The capabilities of these devices, combined with the quality of the networks they connect to, will predominately shape the evolution and success of mobile unified communications.
EL: What about video? How often is video deployed in a UC environment?
MV: From my experience, desktop video has been the slowest to catch on in a UC deployment for two reasons. First, the availability of high quality and sufficient bandwidth to support video media over the WAN for all users at any time is still somewhat hard to come by. Many mid- to large organizations still grapple with QoS issues for voice calls, let alone voice plus video media. Unless sufficient network resources are available, customers will hold off on deploying desktop video to avoid the potential of a poor end-user experience.
The second reason is not a technical one, but based out of social preference. For the majority of internal business communications, most users want to have rapid, efficient interactions. This leads users to take advantage of IM, voice, and presence since those technologies provide only the most essential means of communication. Video, on the other hand, is unique from its other UC counterparts insomuch that by using it, you generally slow communication instead of making it more efficient. This in turn makes desktop video a novelty in the eyes of most users. Of course there are occasions where video is highly desirable, which is why room or cart-based video conferencing technology will continue to evolve and play a major part in the UC environment.
EL: Do users understand the security concerns around UC?
MV: From my experience, users are generally unaware of the security implications of UC. As with many business technologies users are instructed to use, the primary focus of the user is on the performance and availability of the system. Security is rarely a consideration because most users assume that the systems they are provided are reasonably secure for use wherever it “works”. Although this is sound logic, this isn’t always the case in practice. In general, increased security creates increased complexity and deployment struggles, and different products have varying levels of minimum-security requirements to operate. A common practice of product manufactures is to have most security mechanisms disabled out of the box to simply implementation, yielding insecure communication channels for end users.
EL: Why have you chosen to participate in the SIP Trunking-UC Summit?
MV: I wanted to share my real-life experience with the deployment of SIP trunking and Unified Communications. I think there is an incredible amount of marketing hype and misunderstanding of what is actually possible with SIP and UC technologies. Therefore, I thought it would be valuable for an audience to see a real and operational example of a UC deployment examined from a business and technology perspective. Additionally, I just love this stuff and it is exciting to share what I have learned to help drive the industry forward.
EL: What will attendees get out of your session?
MV: I hope that attendees get a stronger grasp of what is actually possible with today’s available technologies in terms of UC and SIP trunking. Beyond sharing a real business case for UC, I plan to share some practical tips and caveats to watch out for when considering and deploying a UC system. Finally, I hope to paint a picture of where UC is heading, specifically in the mobile space.
To find out more about Matt Vlasach (News – Alert) and Unwired Revolution, visit the company at ITEXPO West 2010. To be held Oct. 4 to 6 in Los Angeles, ITEXPO (News – Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. Matt Vlasach is speaking during Ingate’s SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit. Don’t wait. Register now.
Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Ed Silverstein
View the original article here
View the original article here
Although many businesses have been eyeing SIP trunking for its cost savings potential for years, there has been a lot of hesitation by customers and system integrators due to upgrade costs and interoperability fears. But Vlasach says that the landscape is changing to better accommodate SIP trunking. Customers now are seeing the allure of Unified Communications, which generally involves moving to a VoIP-based phone system that supports native SIP trunking. There is also improved interoperability between PBXs and SIP trunking providers, leading system integrators to be more comfortable with recommending native-SIP trunking solutions over traditional PRI, Vlasach added.
Vlasach (pictured above) will be speaking during Ingate’s SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit collocated with ITXPO, Oct., 4-6, 2010, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, CA.
Vlasach recently spoke with TMCnet’s Erik Linask (News – Alert) in an interview provided in full below.
Erik Linask: What factors are boosting adoption of SIP Trunking?
Matt Vlasach: I believe there are several interconnected factors at play that are resulting in the ramping of SIP Trunking adoption in SMB and Enterprise: cost reduction, improvements in PBX (News – Alert) and carrier interoperability, and adoption of UC-enabled PBXs.
Although many businesses have been eyeing SIP trunking for the cost savings potential for years, there has been a lot of hesitation by customers and system integrators alike due to upgrade costs and interoperability (proper functionality) fears. For many, the return on investment to support native SIP trunking hasn’t been significant or rapid enough to justify taking the leap during this recessionary time. Additionally, many have felt that deploying native SIP trunking is simply too risky due to interoperability and implementation problems, regardless of cost saving potential. Finally, there exists a low-risk and attractive alternative to native SIP trunking: a dynamic-T carrier offering that delivers many of the same benefits as SIP trunking (namely cost savings) with a tried-and-true PRI handoff to connect to existing PBXs, with little or no capital expenditure necessary. With these factors in play, it’s not too surprising that SIP Trunking hasn’t taken off over the past few years.
However, the landscape is changing to better accommodate SIP trunking. Catalyzing the change from the customer’s perspective is the allure of Unified Communications, which generally involves moving to a VoIP-based phone system that supports native SIP trunking. In tandem to this movement is the improvement of interoperability between PBXs and SIP trunking providers, leading system integrators to be more comfortable with recommending native-SIP trunking solutions over traditional PRI. These factors, combined with normal PBX turnover, are helping drive widespread SIP trunking adoption.
EL: How much has SIP Trunking penetrated the SMB market so far — and how far do you think it will go?
MV: I think native SIP trunking has had limited penetration in the small business market, but larger success in the medium-sized business market. Medium-sized businesses (with 100+ employees) have larger and more complex trunking requirements that offset the cost of implementing SIP trunking. Small businesses, on the other hand, have a harder time justifying the upfront costs and are increasingly moving towards Hosted PBX VoIP offerings instead.
In medium businesses, I expect SIP trunking to replace PRIs in nearly all cases within the next five to 10 years. For companies of that size, adopting SIP trunking yields superb benefits by being able to scale trunking capacity (concurrent calls), reduce per-minute costs, and take advantage of virtual telephone numbers.
For small business, I think there is a trend towards moving to hosted PBXs, eliminating the need for trunking altogether. For your average small offices (1-30 users) with normal telephony requirements, there is simply too much initial and on-going cost compared to a hosted solution. However, for those small businesses (1-100 users) that require an on-premise PBX, SIP trunking will be very pervasive care of low-cost calling plans, national DID number selection and bundling of voice and data services in one package.
EL: What is the relationship between UC adoption and SIP Trunking?
MV: SIP trunking is a crucial element to the evolution of Unified Communications over the next decade. As UC adoption increases, the usage of SIP trunking will expand beyond simply access to the voice PSTN, but will enable service providers to extend rich media capabilities to their customer’s UC platform, including video, messaging, presence and other emerging cloud-based services. Additionally, “private SIP trunks” will be utilized to establish federations between different companies’ UC systems to enable direct and seamless inter-company Unified Communication capabilities.
Customers and integrators that use SIP trunks today are laying the foundation for this exciting new future. They are also learning early and important lessons about interoperability, security, network engineering, and Quality of Service considerations that are inherent to SIP trunks and important elements of a successful UC infrastructure today and into the future.
EL: How do vendors and service providers overcome the lack of consistency of definition around UC?
MV: Vendors and service providers overcome the loose interpretation of UC by rigorously marketing their own definition and vision of UC technology. So long as their offering provides multiple forms of real-time communication, they consider their product to be “UC”. Ironically, there isn’t much communication or collaboration between the key industry players to put a stake in the ground and call a defined subset of capabilities “Unified Communications”.
This is actually a real problem because it makes product selection for customers substantially more complicated. The buying process is typically extended while the customer breaks apart the feature sets of various UC offerings to make sure they get the features they want. There is also substantial risk of customer dissatisfaction if they assume a specific feature is a “given” in all UC platforms when that may not actually be the case.
EL: How important is the latest generation of smart phones to the growth of UC?
MV: As I see it, there will be two branches of growth for UC in the upcoming decade: mobility and interoperability. As UC becomes de facto on the corporate LAN, expanding rich UC capabilities to mobile users will be one major progression of the technology. The other front will be in terms of interoperability, which will allow end-users to seamlessly utilize UC features across companies, regardless of equipment manufacture or service provider.
In terms of Mobile UC growth, the latest generation of smart phones satisfies one of the major outstanding technology milestones required for the realization of enterprise-ready Mobile UC: the mobile form factor and platform. These new phones have the processing power and software architecture to support real-time and asynchronous communication to the mobile workforce. Just as importantly, end-users have fully embraced these smart phones as a tool to complete business, which will help drive mobile UC adoption and acceptance. The capabilities of these devices, combined with the quality of the networks they connect to, will predominately shape the evolution and success of mobile unified communications.
EL: What about video? How often is video deployed in a UC environment?
MV: From my experience, desktop video has been the slowest to catch on in a UC deployment for two reasons. First, the availability of high quality and sufficient bandwidth to support video media over the WAN for all users at any time is still somewhat hard to come by. Many mid- to large organizations still grapple with QoS issues for voice calls, let alone voice plus video media. Unless sufficient network resources are available, customers will hold off on deploying desktop video to avoid the potential of a poor end-user experience.
The second reason is not a technical one, but based out of social preference. For the majority of internal business communications, most users want to have rapid, efficient interactions. This leads users to take advantage of IM, voice, and presence since those technologies provide only the most essential means of communication. Video, on the other hand, is unique from its other UC counterparts insomuch that by using it, you generally slow communication instead of making it more efficient. This in turn makes desktop video a novelty in the eyes of most users. Of course there are occasions where video is highly desirable, which is why room or cart-based video conferencing technology will continue to evolve and play a major part in the UC environment.
EL: Do users understand the security concerns around UC?
MV: From my experience, users are generally unaware of the security implications of UC. As with many business technologies users are instructed to use, the primary focus of the user is on the performance and availability of the system. Security is rarely a consideration because most users assume that the systems they are provided are reasonably secure for use wherever it “works”. Although this is sound logic, this isn’t always the case in practice. In general, increased security creates increased complexity and deployment struggles, and different products have varying levels of minimum-security requirements to operate. A common practice of product manufactures is to have most security mechanisms disabled out of the box to simply implementation, yielding insecure communication channels for end users.
EL: Why have you chosen to participate in the SIP Trunking-UC Summit?
MV: I wanted to share my real-life experience with the deployment of SIP trunking and Unified Communications. I think there is an incredible amount of marketing hype and misunderstanding of what is actually possible with SIP and UC technologies. Therefore, I thought it would be valuable for an audience to see a real and operational example of a UC deployment examined from a business and technology perspective. Additionally, I just love this stuff and it is exciting to share what I have learned to help drive the industry forward.
EL: What will attendees get out of your session?
MV: I hope that attendees get a stronger grasp of what is actually possible with today’s available technologies in terms of UC and SIP trunking. Beyond sharing a real business case for UC, I plan to share some practical tips and caveats to watch out for when considering and deploying a UC system. Finally, I hope to paint a picture of where UC is heading, specifically in the mobile space.
To find out more about Matt Vlasach (News – Alert) and Unwired Revolution, visit the company at ITEXPO West 2010. To be held Oct. 4 to 6 in Los Angeles, ITEXPO (News – Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. Matt Vlasach is speaking during Ingate’s SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit. Don’t wait. Register now.
Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Ed Silverstein
View the original article here
View the original article here
Telesphere: Communications as a Service For MSPs?
Every now and then, MSPmentor gets an early tip from our readers about a company doing something really interesting in the service provider space. Enter Telesphere, which is developing a hosted PBX voice over IP (VoIP) offering for the MSP space. Here’s the lowdown on Telesphere.
Like other cloud internet telephony services, Telesphere says their business advantage is in taking the “brains” out of the phone closet and into a managed data facility where engineers watch over your phone system 24 x 7.
And with the “Telesphere Complete” service, the company will even provide the equipment and maintenance for a flat fee. And in the event of power loss at the local site, Telesphere keeps voicemail working and will reroute calls to customer-specified numbers.
Normally, I worry about oversaturation in SaaS and business services markets – everyone down to local telecoms are building hosted telephone services for the channel and otherwise. But I have a hunch that many enterprises value locality when it comes to their phone service, putting the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Telesphere in a good position in its market.
The only thing I’m left wondering is how pure voice hosted deployments can stack up against the kind of unified communications that Microsoft is pushing in the channel.
Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS,Facebook, Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.
View the original article here
View the original article here
Like other cloud internet telephony services, Telesphere says their business advantage is in taking the “brains” out of the phone closet and into a managed data facility where engineers watch over your phone system 24 x 7.
And with the “Telesphere Complete” service, the company will even provide the equipment and maintenance for a flat fee. And in the event of power loss at the local site, Telesphere keeps voicemail working and will reroute calls to customer-specified numbers.
Normally, I worry about oversaturation in SaaS and business services markets – everyone down to local telecoms are building hosted telephone services for the channel and otherwise. But I have a hunch that many enterprises value locality when it comes to their phone service, putting the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Telesphere in a good position in its market.
The only thing I’m left wondering is how pure voice hosted deployments can stack up against the kind of unified communications that Microsoft is pushing in the channel.
Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS,Facebook, Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.
View the original article here
View the original article here
Comparison of Hosted PBX, Centrex, VoIP Options
“Can Centrex survive or perhaps even thrive in the era of convergence?”
Industry observer Jay Brandstadter thinks it can, but maybe not in the form you’ve known it: “For those considering IP telephony alternatives, the hosted PBX (News – Alert) offers the key advantages and economies of scale of the centralized approach and the rich feature capability and flexibility of the IP-PBX,” he noted reently.
Hosted or “centralized” voice services, often called Centrex, Brandstadter explains, were declining when voice over Internet protocol came along in the late 1990s: “The capabilities and possibilities of the emerging IP-PBX added to the attractiveness of premises-based offerings for the enterprise.”
As he notes, Centrex does offer value, it “eliminates most of the expense of buying and operating a PBX, and it has key central-solution attributes, such as easy growth/ scalability and use of highly reliable carrier-class platforms.”
Much good stuff in the paper, far too much to go into here, but one useful part is where he provides a qualitative comparison of VoIP options:
The Centrex IP and IP Centrex options are fairly close, but the edge is given to the IP Centrex approach because of its flexibility in external servers, lower reliance on legacy Centrex, and migration ease to more robust hosted alternatives.
IP Centrex and hosted PBX provide Web integration for a variety of purposes, including browser-based tools for customer management of MACs and phone features. This is faster and more economical than previous Centrex offerings in which these functions were the responsibility of the service provider.
The hosted PBX alternative shares the economies of scale of Centrex, such as carrier-class reliability, scalability, and support, and the feature/application richness of the IP-PBX. In addition, it is, typically, the lowest cost option because of factors like access costs (T1 vs. PRI), use of open, standard CPE, and operational and maintenance staff and support cost reductions.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Erin Monda
View the original article here
Monday, September 20, 2010
Hip Innes Clothing Selects SimpleSignal for Its Phone System
As a manufacturer in the skate industry and its “laid-back” image, outsiders might think Innes Clothing is not serious about its business. Nothing could be further from the truth, says Glenn Brumage, vice president of the company’s sales and marketing section. And this seriousness can be seen when the company was selecting a phone system.
First, some history. Innes was founded in 1996 by brothers Matt and Chris Hensley. Innes is the Scottish clan name of Matt and Chris’s late mother. The Innes clan dates back to 1160 A.D. and they played their full part in the tumultuous and bloody history of Scotland. The clan motto is “be traist” or “be faithful”. This simple message can be both an inspiration in everyday life, and a reminder of the ancestry and history behind every Innes Clan member.
The Hensley brothers named the company in her honor.
The Innes brand represents an attitude that has always been inspired by its roots in music and the skateboarding lifestyle. All the collections focus on timeless silhouettes as well as some more daring contemporary themes. Its objective is to provide the world with creative and authentic lifestyle/streetwear.
With over 500 stores that sell its product line, Innes invests heavily in systems that make sure its loyal customers remain loyal.
When they looked into SimpleSignal, they at first didn’t fully understand the benefits of a hosted PBX (News – Alert) solution. Their old phone system had lots of voicemail issues, and moves, adds and changes were expensive and time-consuming. Mobile access to the system was close to impossible.
“I have to confess that we were absolutely hooked seven minutes into the presentation. Our only concern was whether their product worked as well as they said it did. Those fears went away after talking with some of their enthusiastic references,” Brumage said.
“The outcome has been fantastic. Simultaneous ring, remote office and our softphones ended up being much more useful and practical than we anticipated with a huge leap in efficiency,” he added. “And voicemail to email has proven priceless for accountability and responsiveness to our customers.”
“This is more than a phone system to us,” Brumage concludes. “What can I say about SimpleSignal (News – Alert)? It just works … Dude.”
Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Ed Silverstein
View the original article here
View the original article here
First, some history. Innes was founded in 1996 by brothers Matt and Chris Hensley. Innes is the Scottish clan name of Matt and Chris’s late mother. The Innes clan dates back to 1160 A.D. and they played their full part in the tumultuous and bloody history of Scotland. The clan motto is “be traist” or “be faithful”. This simple message can be both an inspiration in everyday life, and a reminder of the ancestry and history behind every Innes Clan member.
The Hensley brothers named the company in her honor.
The Innes brand represents an attitude that has always been inspired by its roots in music and the skateboarding lifestyle. All the collections focus on timeless silhouettes as well as some more daring contemporary themes. Its objective is to provide the world with creative and authentic lifestyle/streetwear.
With over 500 stores that sell its product line, Innes invests heavily in systems that make sure its loyal customers remain loyal.
When they looked into SimpleSignal, they at first didn’t fully understand the benefits of a hosted PBX (News – Alert) solution. Their old phone system had lots of voicemail issues, and moves, adds and changes were expensive and time-consuming. Mobile access to the system was close to impossible.
“I have to confess that we were absolutely hooked seven minutes into the presentation. Our only concern was whether their product worked as well as they said it did. Those fears went away after talking with some of their enthusiastic references,” Brumage said.
“The outcome has been fantastic. Simultaneous ring, remote office and our softphones ended up being much more useful and practical than we anticipated with a huge leap in efficiency,” he added. “And voicemail to email has proven priceless for accountability and responsiveness to our customers.”
“This is more than a phone system to us,” Brumage concludes. “What can I say about SimpleSignal (News – Alert)? It just works … Dude.”
Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Ed Silverstein
View the original article here
View the original article here
Unified Communications and Hosted VoIP for Business
Unified communications (UC) has become a popular term used to describe the vast family of technologies and organizational practices used to streamline communication. These include different processes such as phone conversations, email, video and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM), voicemail, fax, and SMS messages.
Hosted VoIP allows employees to instantly access and reply to messages anywhere from any type of compatible device, making VoIP an important component of unified communications. This reduces response time, making every facet of your company run more efficiently. VoIP can be used for both internal and external phone based communications, and be combined with voicemail options that can be retrieved via PC browser or mobile device.
Hosted VoIP ushered in the era of the true telecommuting worker, reducing costs of setting up work-from-home employees by allowing them to tap into the company PBX. There is no loss of effectiveness, and overhead expenses can be reduced significantly in terms of office space and equipment.
Unified communications can be implemented in some way in nearly every structured situation. Even with limited budgets, there are things you can do to streamline your operation. From large companies to small businesses, non-profits to grass root campaigns, utilizing VoIP and leveraging other types of technology to facilitate real time communication can make any organization work more efficiently and effectively.
UC strategies allow you to be ‘present’ even when you’re physically somewhere else. You can provide real time input and conference with colleagues throughout the day no matter what your physical location is. This ‘telepresence’ can be invaluable during times of crisis when you need to ‘be’ several places at once.
UC is also a valuable tool when you have several branches to your office and need team members to be able to communicate quickly and effectively. Mobile technology lets one team member access messages from home or on the road, while another team member is at their desk in a different time zone. This versatility makes it easier for employees with varying schedules to work together.
While many view unified communications as a collection of hard and software solutions that can be mixed and matched to suit the needs of their company, the term is also used to refer to best practices. Hosted VoIP can make everyone’s workday a little easier, but the concept of real time communication goes beyond the actual nuts and bolts and concerns how you run your business.
Take a look at what modes of communication your employees already use both in-office and with customers (email, voicemail, phone) and how closely they stay connected to the office when away from their desk (mobile devices, home phones connected to the office VoIP system, fax). This will help you determine exactly how to unify your own communications to work in the most cost effective and productive manner possible.
Saiju is a unified communications and business software expert specializing in hosted business VoIP services and hosted PBX implementations.
View the original article here
Hosted VoIP allows employees to instantly access and reply to messages anywhere from any type of compatible device, making VoIP an important component of unified communications. This reduces response time, making every facet of your company run more efficiently. VoIP can be used for both internal and external phone based communications, and be combined with voicemail options that can be retrieved via PC browser or mobile device.
Hosted VoIP ushered in the era of the true telecommuting worker, reducing costs of setting up work-from-home employees by allowing them to tap into the company PBX. There is no loss of effectiveness, and overhead expenses can be reduced significantly in terms of office space and equipment.
Unified communications can be implemented in some way in nearly every structured situation. Even with limited budgets, there are things you can do to streamline your operation. From large companies to small businesses, non-profits to grass root campaigns, utilizing VoIP and leveraging other types of technology to facilitate real time communication can make any organization work more efficiently and effectively.
UC strategies allow you to be ‘present’ even when you’re physically somewhere else. You can provide real time input and conference with colleagues throughout the day no matter what your physical location is. This ‘telepresence’ can be invaluable during times of crisis when you need to ‘be’ several places at once.
UC is also a valuable tool when you have several branches to your office and need team members to be able to communicate quickly and effectively. Mobile technology lets one team member access messages from home or on the road, while another team member is at their desk in a different time zone. This versatility makes it easier for employees with varying schedules to work together.
While many view unified communications as a collection of hard and software solutions that can be mixed and matched to suit the needs of their company, the term is also used to refer to best practices. Hosted VoIP can make everyone’s workday a little easier, but the concept of real time communication goes beyond the actual nuts and bolts and concerns how you run your business.
Take a look at what modes of communication your employees already use both in-office and with customers (email, voicemail, phone) and how closely they stay connected to the office when away from their desk (mobile devices, home phones connected to the office VoIP system, fax). This will help you determine exactly how to unify your own communications to work in the most cost effective and productive manner possible.
Saiju is a unified communications and business software expert specializing in hosted business VoIP services and hosted PBX implementations.
View the original article here
Negatives of Hosted Phone System
Many companies are taking advantage of the features available with a hosted phone system which is often referred as virtual phone system. This is because they can still enjoy the flexibility and savings of VoIP system along with using the on-site offerings of hosted phone system. It can be roughly concluded that a hosted PBX system is a hybrid of standard voip and PBX systems. The benefits of hosted system are that the company would get automatic maintenance and system upgrades from online. There would be no need for physical equipment. The system ensures portability and mobility.
By using this system, there would not be any need for separate voice and data networks, conference calling, more call per single connection, location independence, multi modal access and single number to be presented for the entire company. However every system has its own pros and cons and it is not practical to have a flawless system. When you are enjoying the benefits of technological advancements, you must be ready to face the other side of the coin too. The negatives of the system are that it is less reliable and there would not be any guarantee for quality of service, time delay in its system and it may also suffer from jitter. There may be confusions during calls as a single number is used for the entire company regardless of the geographical differences.
The virtual phone system relies completely on internet and hence a single failure over the internet can isolate the communication and also have redundancy problem. If there is any disturbance in broadband connection, the voice quality would suffer. Local number portability and mobile number portability would have an impact on the system. There would also be problems related to impedance mismatch and echo. Since it is an internet connected device, it is prone to problems related to hacking and there are chances that the password would be lost and hackers may also seize your computer data packets and conceal your computer security. Furthermore, some of the systems don’t support encryption and face security problems too.
The main attractive feature of virtual phone system is that it is automated phone system and does not require any receptionist and provides other services like inward calling, call forwarding, call transfer, call screening and fax to email. Since everything is done automatically, there is no need for a receptionist or any human labor to handle the calls. The system however is not free from flaws. The features provided are good enough but not as efficient as manual one. The automatic call system has chances of call delay. There are chances that a customer calling to the number may get irritated when he needs to contact only one department and this automatic system will not provide immediate response to the callers.
Internet is a complex network and if there is a loss in signal the caller may not be able to contact soon and the connectivity may get lost. It is not scalable and a complete redo of infrastructure is needed for upgrades. Emergency calls cannot be routed to a nearby call center and it is not easy to locate the network users geographically.
To get more information about VoIP Service as well as finding more information about Toll Free Number and 800 numbers. To learn more visit: http://www.ringcentral.com/
View the original article here
View the original article here
By using this system, there would not be any need for separate voice and data networks, conference calling, more call per single connection, location independence, multi modal access and single number to be presented for the entire company. However every system has its own pros and cons and it is not practical to have a flawless system. When you are enjoying the benefits of technological advancements, you must be ready to face the other side of the coin too. The negatives of the system are that it is less reliable and there would not be any guarantee for quality of service, time delay in its system and it may also suffer from jitter. There may be confusions during calls as a single number is used for the entire company regardless of the geographical differences.
The virtual phone system relies completely on internet and hence a single failure over the internet can isolate the communication and also have redundancy problem. If there is any disturbance in broadband connection, the voice quality would suffer. Local number portability and mobile number portability would have an impact on the system. There would also be problems related to impedance mismatch and echo. Since it is an internet connected device, it is prone to problems related to hacking and there are chances that the password would be lost and hackers may also seize your computer data packets and conceal your computer security. Furthermore, some of the systems don’t support encryption and face security problems too.
The main attractive feature of virtual phone system is that it is automated phone system and does not require any receptionist and provides other services like inward calling, call forwarding, call transfer, call screening and fax to email. Since everything is done automatically, there is no need for a receptionist or any human labor to handle the calls. The system however is not free from flaws. The features provided are good enough but not as efficient as manual one. The automatic call system has chances of call delay. There are chances that a customer calling to the number may get irritated when he needs to contact only one department and this automatic system will not provide immediate response to the callers.
Internet is a complex network and if there is a loss in signal the caller may not be able to contact soon and the connectivity may get lost. It is not scalable and a complete redo of infrastructure is needed for upgrades. Emergency calls cannot be routed to a nearby call center and it is not easy to locate the network users geographically.
To get more information about VoIP Service as well as finding more information about Toll Free Number and 800 numbers. To learn more visit: http://www.ringcentral.com/
View the original article here
View the original article here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)