Packet8 has always been at the leading edge of cool VoIP applications and products. Packet8 was the first to offer a videophone for their residential VoIP customers (see my review of the Packet8 Videophone) They're had several other firsts to their name along with several patents to boot. Packet8 is like the dark horse when it comes to VoIP. While they don't have their name in lights like big bad Vonage, Packet8 has been slowly growing their customer base while adding cool new features. One advantage Packet8 has over Vonage and other VoIP broadband players is that Packet8 has gone after both the residential and business phone market simultaneously. These are vastly different markets, and would seem to many that Packet8 is biting off more than they can chew. But again, they keep steadily adding more customers. You know what they say - slow and steady wins the race.
Well, today I learned about another interesting VoIP application that Packet8 is offering - namely integration with Salesforce.com. You can call any of your Salesforce.com contacts to your Packet8 Virtual Office extension with the new salesforce.com plug-in application, which is available free to Virtual Office subscribers. Simply click the link next to a contact in the Salesforce.com browser window and you can instantly call your contacts. Just as nifty, incoming calls are displayed with pop-up screens based on the user's Salesforce contacts (using CallerID info).
Packet8 Virtual Office and salesforce.com partnered together to offer small businesses an integrated CRM telephony solution that lets subscribers place calls over the Packet8 Virtual Office service directly from their Salesforce application by either clicking the contact's phone number or using the dialpad on the Packet8 interface window.
The Packet8 Virtual Office Interface for Salesforce is currently supported by Internet Explorer 6.0 or later on Windows XP or Vista - sorry Mac fans. It also won't run on other browsers such as Opera, Firefox, or Opera. Limited browser support aside, Packet8 continues to add interesting VoIP applications that make VoIP a much more compelling argument to switch from PSTN other than simply cheaper voice minutes. Well done Packet8.
