Unified Communications to SMB IP PBX Springfield IL

By Robert Poe

Digium Inc.'s Switchvox division is bringing UC (unified communications) to its SMB (small- to medium-sized business) turnkey IP PBX platform. The just-announced Switchvox SMB 4.0, which runs on appliances serving from one to 400 users, adds fax, IMing (instant messaging) and video calling capabilities that are unavailable in the current version, 3.6. It also improves integration with Microsoft Office applications.

Faxing

SMB 4.0's ability to both send and receive faxes fills a big hole Switchvox users had faced. Previously, customers who wanted to do serious faxing had to look to third-party solutions, according to Tristan Degenhardt, Digium's Switchvox product line director. Faxing is notoriously unreliable through IP PBXes, even though older traditional PBXes handled it with ease. Switchvox has spent considerable time and effort to get it right, Degenhardt claimed. As a result, she said, "Now we are comfortable that it is rock solid."

IM

The new IMing capability results from the addition of a private chat server in version 4.0. It lets corporate users chat as they would on AOL or Yahoo! Messenger, but keeps all messages in-house, a significant security benefit. The users can IM one another through the chat window in the Switchboard desktop call-handling interface, or they can use one of the third-party applications that also work with various Web-based IMing services. Choosing the latter method lets users chat with outsiders as well as with each another, but still keeps messages between employees on the corporate server rather than a public system.

Video Calling

SMB 4.0's video calling feature supports any phone using the H.263 and H.264 codecs, though Digium/Switchvox recommends using the same phone on each end of the call for best results. The feature should be popular, according to Degenhardt, because companies trying to cut back on travel expenses are increasingly using video communication. She herself is using the feature to decrease cross-country travel for meetings. "They just point the [phone's] video camera at the whiteboard, and it's just like I'm there," she said.

Another addition, the "Switchvox Notifier," improves integration with Microsoft Office applications. When a call comes in, it pops up a window that uses the incoming caller ID to display the name of the caller as listed in the Outlook address book, as well as the history of calls to and from the person. An integrated IMAP server lets Outlook act as the Switchvox voice mailbox so that, for example, deleting messages in Outlook deletes them from the Switchvox mailbox as well.

Version 4.0 offers several other new features. For one, it now auto provisions snom phones in addition to Polycom phones. Extensions can now be up to six digits long, with three-, four- and five-digit lengths possible as well. Presence and status information about users is now visible across multiple Switchvox IP PBXes. And new IVR (interactive voice response) tools are available that make it possible to pass data and sound files to and from Web applications.

The


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