Recently in Unified Communications Category

Now that OCS 2007 R2 has RTM (released to manufacturing), I thought I'd share Microsoft's brand new Unified Communications Tips and Tricks Flashcards for End-Users which includes some cool tips for their Office Communications Server 2007 platform. The image above is a sample. The slide deck is specific to OCS 2007 and not OCS 2007 R2. However, there is lots of feature overlap, so I'm sure they're still useful for the early birds using OCS 2007 R2 and those still using OCS 2007 of course. Microsoft told me that flashcards for R2 will be available after R2 ships.

The 54 slides are a very nice overview on how to use OCS 2007. Just click the link below to download the Powerpoint deck of "tips and tricks" for Microsoft's Unified Communications. Each card provides step-by-step instructions for how to best utilize Microsoft's Unified Communications software and technology to its full potential.

OCS 2007 tips and tricks PPTDeck.pptx

Truphone has added a new Skype feature that will allow iPhone and iPod Touch users to make calls and instant message other Skype users.  This new feature is scheduled to go live to consumers the week of Jan. 12, but it's available for a select few media that inquire. I'm going to try it very shortly.

You now will have the ability to make and receive Skype calls and instant message Skype users from your iPhone or iPod touch. Truphone customers on both Apple devices can contact their Skype friends via their Skype IDs.

In what could portend several acquisitions in the VoIP space, Broadsoft has acquired rival competitor Sylantro Systems, both makers of softswitches and both heavily involved in carrier infrastructure, IMS, and converged services. TMCnet's Greg Galitzine has the full details on the acquisition.

With the global slowing economy, even the VoIP industry which has had exponential growth over the last 13 years, is being affected by the global downturn. No doubt we will see more consolidation within the VoIP space and likely a few bankruptcies as well.

I for one can't believe it's been 13 years since VoIP was first invented. It's amazing to think I've been covering the VoIP industry for over a decade, when most people have only heard of VoIP in the last 5 years or so. I still believe VoIP has not reached its full potential and will still be one of the few bright spots in the near future because of its cost-savings potential and other factors that will drive customer and carrier adoption.

As you may have read, Digium announced a sharp rise in Asterisk downloads for 2008 registering in a whopping 1.5 million downloads for 2008. That got me thinking just how does Asterisk & AsteriskNOW compare with Fonality's trixbox CE distro? Arguably trixbox CE is the either the #1 or the #2 downloaded Asterisk-based distribution. But are they #1 or #2? Let the Fonality vs. Digium download battle commence...

First, we head to Sourceforge, which tracks trixbox CE downloads and see how trixbox CE stacks up against Digium's claimed 1.5 million downloads.

Date (UTC)	Downloads	Bytes Served
Dec 2008 *	18,050	6.8 TB
Nov 2008	31,000	12.2 TB
Oct 2008	35,187	15.6 TB
Sep 2008	19,449	9.6 TB
Aug 2008	6,948	3.3 TB
Jul 2008	8,329	3.7 TB
Jun 2008	19,993	9.3 TB
May 2008	21,822	13.3 TB
Apr 2008	18,238	11.0 TB
Mar 2008	41,085	25.2 TB
Feb 2008	27,725	16.9 TB
Jan 2008	43,942	26.4 TB
Total	291,768	153.8 TB

^* Partial data: End of month not yet reached.
Taking a daily average, the final 2008 total downloads should be ~292,587.

That's 292,587 (year-end estimate) vs. 1.5 million (so far) for Asterisk. So it would appear Digium's Asterisk beats Fonality trixbox CE by over 5X!

Not so fast though. I was pretty sure the Digium download numbers were for Asterisk and AsteriskNOW combined. AsteriskNOW and trixbox CE are more comparable to each other, since both have FreePBX installed, both are .iso bootable CDs, they're both nearly plug-and-play distros, etc.

So to be fair to Fonality's trixbox CE, I should compare AsteriskNOW to trixbox CE. I contacted Digium's Bill Miller, VP, Product Management, and asked him for the breakdown in their 1.5 million downloads.

I told Bill my intentions of making a side-by-side download comparison, but also pointed out I had to wear my skepticism hat:

"The only caveat to any comparison I make between Asterisk/AsteriskNOW & trixbox CE is that you host your own downloads - not a 3rd party like Sourceforge. So there I have to have a healthy level of skepticism for any numbers Digium cites. Nevertheless, I think it'll be an interesting discussion if I post these comparative stats in an article."

Bill explained, "19.8% are AsteriskNOW. We are close to par with them.". Indeed at 19.8% of 1.5 million equates to 297,000 downloads or roughly 6500 more than trixbox CE. Although, I said above I had to wear my skepticism hat, I think the numbers Bill gave me sound credible.

Bill Miller ads, "Due to the other open source packages they have integrated, and the head start they had, we suspect that they have more in trixbox than AsteriskNOW in production but we are taking downloads and share from them."

I would agree with Bill that there are indeed more trixbox CE boxes in production, but it does appear from these numbers that Digium's AsteriskNOW is closing fast in production numbers and already exceeding Fonality's trixbox CE in downloads.

To be perfectly frank, I'm a little bit surprised AsteriskNOW has surpassed trixbox CE, since I'm sure even Digium would admit that trixbox CE, which was formerly Asterisk@Home, had a huge head start and developed a strong community (see trixbox forums and the sheer number of posts & threads). In fact, Bill Miller mentioned the head start in our conversation. Still, the number of downloads between the two is very close and they are neck-in-neck.

Of course, if you add in regular Asterisk downloads it's no contest. Digium wins by a landslide.

Some good news from my company TMC and Digium, the founder of Asterisk that I thought I'd share. If you're an Asterisk fan, you need to be at Asterisk World, which is co-located with the #1 VoIP tradeshow in the U.S., namely TMC's ITEXPO.

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) and Digium, the Asterisk Company, today announced the educational program for Digium|Asterisk World, scheduled to take place February 2-4, 2009 in Miami. The event is collocated with TMC's ITEXPO East 2009.

TMC and Digium also announced that although the conference content and exhibiting opportunities are more than 90 percent complete, additional opportunities remain for interested Digium partners.
Digium|Asterisk World at ITEXPO is the conference that addresses "Everything Asterisk" for business users, resellers and executive decision-makers. The initial conference sessions featured in the program include:

1. Web-Aware Unified Communications with Switchvox
2. Asterisk for Enterprise
3. Enterprise Pitfalls: Lessons Learned
4. The Case for Asterisk: Call Center App Integration with .NET
5. Multi-Site Open Source Call Center Deployment: A European Case Study
6. Asterisk as a Regulatory Compliance Toolkit
7. Website Identity Management and Authentication Using Asterisk
8. VoIP Transparency: Asterisk and the Economics of Monitoring
9. The Asterisk VoIP Conversion and the Opportunity for Substantial ROI
10. Druid: Case Study for Selling UC Solutions
11. Ingredients for Successful Asterisk PBX Sales

Limited booth space and sponsorship opportunities are still available for companies to showcase their offerings and provide training to Digium|Asterisk World and ITEXPO attendees. Companies exhibiting in the showcase include: Asteria Solutions; Camrivox; Freeside Internet Services; High Powered Help; Interlink Communications Systems; OpenLine Networks; Orecx; TransNexus; Voice Pulse; and Xorcom.

Registration for Digium|Asterisk World and ITEXPO is now open.
"Now in our third year, Digium|Asterisk World's content is evolving to reflect the maturity of the world's most widely used open source telephony software," said Mark Spencer, CTO and founder of Digium and the creator of Asterisk. "Our three-day event at ITEXPO will provide the hands-on training and education that Asterisk developers need to build more advanced and more flexible telephony solutions."

"We're proud of several new and innovative programs that will make the 19th iteration of ITEXPO one of the best ever," said Rich Tehrani, TMC president and ITEXPO East 2009 conference chairman. "Digium|Asterisk World bolsters an already strong developer focus, and other programs like TMC University, the 4GWireless Evolution event, TMC Editors' Week and the balance of the conference content make ITEXPO the one-and-only 'must-attend' event in the communications industry."

ITEXPO East 2009 is the world's largest and most significant communications technology event, featuring hundreds of companies exhibiting on the EXPO floor and hundreds of sessions led by the industry's most prominent thought leaders. The show helps attendees identify the issues and challenges affecting the deployment of communications technologies. It provides a comprehensive forum for evaluating the latest products and services and delivers a face-to-face networking opportunity that service providers, carriers, resellers, distributors, equipment manufacturers and IT executives from enterprise and SMB companies need to cultivate new business relationships. For more information on ITEXPO East, please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference/.

Interesting new product from from ADTRAN whose aim is to simplify remote management of VoIP networks with their n-Command MSP. It sounds very similar to NetQoS Unified Communications Monitor 2.0 I wrote about last month, except NetQoS UC Monitor 2.0 is designed for Cisco UC and Microsoft OCS environments, while the ADTRAN offering seems targeted exclusively to managing ADTRAN NetVanta or Total Access converged networking solutions.

One of its core features is centralized collection and reporting for Voice Quality Monitoring (VQM) for QoS monitoring. The n-Command MSP system includes an ADTRAN NetVanta Server 450 on a compact, 1U, 19-inch rackmount server, which can support up to 5,000 remotely managed devices.For ADTRAN VoIP shops this network management platform sounds like a no-brainer, but I'd have to check it out in more detail to be sure. For now check out the news release after the jump...

Rich Tehrani has a very interesting post about Nortel's foray into virtualized business meetings. Think Second Life virtual world meets business world...

Rich participated in a virtual world demo with Nortel where they showed him web.alive. This business-oriented virtual world looks eerily similar to Second Life, including the 3D avatars, and 3D world but under the covers it sports something else - namely 3D audio powered by DiamondWare 3D stereoVoIP technology. Both Rich and I have espoused DiamondWare's technology over the years and recently their technology was acquired by Nortel. No doubt Nortel was impressed as well, and this virtualized business meeting world with 3D audio appears to be the fruits of that acquisition.

Rich explains, "I have touted DiamondWare's patented technology for over half a decade and it is as impressive now as it has ever been. It allows you to have your voice volume increase and decrease as you get closer or move farther away from others. It also allows you to hear people on the left or right when they talk and it seems these people are really speaking from one direction or another."




Rich goes on to explain that the technology could be used to power virtual tradeshows, as seen by the screenshot above showing what could be a keynote room complete with full Powerpoint and video & telepresence support. Does this mean no more Internet Telephony Expo in sunny Miami in the middle of winter here in the Northeast? Nomore pressing the flesh? Say it ain't so, Rich!

Rich seems excited by the technology when he says, "I really feel like Nortel is onto something here. This could just be a short-lived fad but it just seems like there is just so much productivity boosting that can be done with virtual business worlds - it just has to happen."

Rich is one of the busiest guys I know - a true multitasker, so he's always looking for the most efficiency in business. Considering how many internal & external meetings Rich participates in, I can see why he likes the idea of 3D virtualized meetings.

I'm a little more skeptical. Reading Rich's demo, I like the idea of "the room of silence", the ability to 'dress up' to indicate to co-workers that you are an an important meeting with clients (so they don't interrupt), and the ability for 3D voice is certainly cool & sexy. I'm just not sure these features replace the good ole' telephone with a WebEx session. I suppose for meetings larger than 6 people, this idea makes more sense, since I've been in conference calls where you get too many people talking at once and you can't tell who is the one talking. The 3D audio with animated avatars could certainly help for larger meetings. Though meeting software such as WebEx allows you to raise your hand to speak. Maybe if I held a few meetings in Nortel's Web.Alive I'd be less skeptical. Definitely has the coolness factor though.

In any event, check out Rich's blog for more details, including a plethora of screenshots.

Grandstream just announced the GXV3005 IP video phone is coming this month. The GXV3005 features an additional FXO port and is part of the GXV3000 IP video product line series.

The GXV3005 features the same design and all of the functionality as the GXV3000 model, but it comes with the advanced versatility of an FXO PSTN line port, which enables customers to receive both video telephony service over an IP network and their home land-line. One thing I like about Grandsteam is they follow industry standards, such as SIP, but also H.263 & H.264, so in theory their video phone will work with other H.263/H.264 compliant video phones. We don't need a videophone war, after all.

The GXV3005 is based on the same feature set as the GXV3000, including a 5.6 inch TFTP adjustable LCD screen, a VGA camera which allows nearly all viewing angles, support for real-time high-quality video (up to 30 frames per second) using H.264/H.263 video standard at bandwidths as low as 32kbps and up to 1Mbps. The additional FXO/PSTN port supports calling over and between two networks (IP and PSTN network) from a single phone and
offers both a layer of security and back up for IP video phone communication by providing the option of a PSTN life line.

"We are excited to announce the availability of GXV3005, which further enhances the versatility and convenience of telephony-over-any-network on top of our popular GXV3000 IP video phone," said David Li, CEO of Grandstream Networks. "The GXV3005 is the second model in the GXV3000 product family and we will continue to introduce more innovative enhancements to the GXV3000 series of advanced IP video phones in the near future."

The GXV3005 is priced at $325 and it will be available through Grandstream's worldwide distribution channels beginning mid December 2008.

With a slowing global economy, one of the cost-cutting measures desired by IT personnel appears to be the desktop phone, including desktop IP phones. That at least according to an OnRelay survey that shows 88% of cost-conscious IT Professionals would ditch the desktop phone. Apparently, the desire for for mobile working makes desktop tools a low priority expense. I should point out that OnRelay offers a hosted PBX solution with mobile phone only extensions, so you might think this survey has a conflict of interest. However, OnRelay's solutions can work with existing PBXs and desktop phones, so there isn't necessarily a conflict.

In any event, today OnRelay published results from a survey revealing the personal business tools IT professionals couldn't be without, and the equipment they would give up as corporate budgets tighten. Their answers show a clear preference for the mobile office, and question corporate spend on technologies that those in IT have already left behind.

OnRelay surveyed 330 IT professionals in UK enterprise. Reflecting today's tougher economic choices, they were asked to select the four office IT tools they see as essential - out of a list of nine items.

Those surveyed were asked to choose from: the laptop; desktop PC; virtual private network (VPN) access; mobile phone; Blackberry™, desk phone; video conferencing; or their own personal desk.

The top three items chosen by the IT professionals were all mobile office technologies. The laptop came in as the most essential item - making the must-have list of 88% of respondents. The mobile phone came second at 74% of respondents, followed by VPN access (69%).

The least chosen items emphasise the low priority end-users place on fixed desktop equipment. The office desk phone was the tool those questioned were most willing to give up, with only 18% listing the desk phone as essential. This is akin to the 20% who prioritised a desktop PC, and the 22% who chose video conferencing as a must-have.

OnRelay's survey provides insight into IT professionals' disengagement with desktop tools. Although the majority of those questioned (87%) currently had an office desk phone, if given the choice, 88% said they would choose the mobile as their one business phone.

The underuse of the desk phone is already apparent from the fact that only 3% of those surveyed said they forwarded their calls to mobile when away from their desk. A full 54% of IT professionals admitted to never forwarding their desk phone calls, whilst only 10% forward their calls when away from the office.

"This survey shows that IT decision makers want wireless, use wireless, and will lead the drive to cut the cord as budgets tighten," comments OnRelay, CFO Marie Wold. "Costly desk phones will rapidly be phased out of IT budgets to be replaced by mobile-only telephony. The current economic climate is accelerating this shift towards mobile integration in the corporate."

We do indeed live in a mobile world, but do I see the desktop phone going the way of the dinosaur anytime soon? Not likely. There are just too many advantages to a desktop phone, including a larger LCD, higher quality speakerphone, more feature buttons & speed dials, and more. Still, it was an interesting survey worth sharing.

Back in September I wrote about Fonality's trixbox Unified Agent Edition (UAE) and how it can automatically match all inbound and outbound calls with the corresponding record in salesforce.com's AppExchange, and call data is captured and logged. Apparently, this was still a yet-to-be-announced product I wrote about that resulted in a call from Fonality's CEO Chris Lyman asking how I found out about it. Woops, my bad, Chris.

Well, today, Fonality has officially launched UAE. I spoke with Chris Lyman to learn more about this product. Chris told me, "What we've done is allow managers and agents using CRM and a phone system to make some pretty serious decisions about how they run their business and what we consider some major cost savings."

Chris explained that they pumped the CDR (call data records) from Fonality's PBXtra into Salesforce.com. Once the CDR data is housed in Salesforce.com obvious business benefits can be realized. You can for instance know when customers called you or when you last called a particular customer. Importantly, with the reporting mechanisms you can understand how long it takes to call a lead or opportunity and how that affects your close rate. The reports allow you to for example easily see "neglected opportunities" such as 'opportunities that have not been contacted in XX minutes'.  This lets you see how long does it takes an agent to make a first contact for a lead/customer/opportunity that been created inside the CRM system. Here's a screenshot of some of the reports:
[click for larger image]


Fonality UAE brings a whole new level of CRM integration with PBXtra, an Asterisk-based system. This tight-level of integration with an Asterisk-based system with the popular Salesforce.com hosted CRM platform is great news for the Asterisk community. While Asterisk-based systems have made in-roads in the contact center space, heavyweights like Nortel and Avaya still win a huge share of the contact center space because of their advanced CRM integration. So the more Asterisk-based solutions offer advanced CRM applications, the better for the Asterisk ecosystem. We'll see more Asterisk deployments in contact centers as a result.

It's worth mentioning that Digium's Switchvox IP-PBX also offers integration with CRM apps, including Salesforce.com and SugarCRM. I saw a demo of Switchvox's web-based panels down in Huntsville, Alabama. I remember it supported querying Salesforce.com on an inbound call (screenpop), but don't recall if it supported querying Salesforce.com on an outbound call. I'm also not sure to what level Switchvox offers reporting on inbound & outbound calls tied to the CRM contact records. I don't believe Switchvox offers contact-based reporting based on CDR information. I've actually been meaning to do a full-review of Switchvox.

In any event, getting back to UAE, I should point out that Fonality queries a local cache of the Salesforce.com database for it's instant when it performs a contact record lookup and is not affected by any sort of Internet outage or Salesforce.com outage. Importantly, inbound calls can be automatically directed to the contact or opportunity owner. This prevents sales personnel from 'stealing' a lead.

"The Frankenstein, bolt-on products from other telephony vendors provide only basic screen pops or click-to-call features. Fonality has a much more sophisticated approach for delivering feature-rich, end-to-end contact center solutions," said Corey Brundage, vice president of marketing and product management at Fonality. "PBXtra Unified Agent is the only offering available today that immediately impacts a contact center's top and bottom line without the need for professional services or a six-figure capital expenditure."

Overview:

• PBXtra Unified Agent from Fonality combines phone system, call center, and CRM capabilities to provide a complete view of contact center operations. With Salesforce CRM and PBXtra Unified Agent, companies can increase close rates, revenue and profits, while providing much better customer service and dramatically reducing sales and support costs.
• For less than $20/user per month, PBXtra Unified Agent delivers an immediate return on investment. Agents benefit from productivity enhancements and timely access to more accurate and complete information so they can do a better job selling to and supporting customers. Managers gain deep visibility into real-time and historical agent call activity within Salesforce CRM so they can make more intelligent business decisions based on accurate data.

"Today, contact center managers are often faced with inaccurate or missing data and agents struggle with cumbersome CTI applications, resulting in a poor customer experience," said Richard Gonzales, president of Buvelo Solutions, a salesforce.com consulting partner. "PBXtra Unified Agent solves these problems with a unified solution that helps managers and agents use Salesforce CRM more effectively than ever before."

With PBXtra Unified Agent managers can easily measure, test, and improve sales and support processes, view the effectiveness of human resources, salvage opportunities or identify lapses in service level agreements. PBXtra Unified Agent includes the following features for managers:

• Track and record all call data in Salesforce CRM automatically
• View customer call histories
• Understand how call follow-up times impact profitability
• Find out the number of calls it takes to convert a lead to a sale
• Determine which agents are the most responsive
• Visually rank agent calling frequency and duration
• Instantly report all leads not called within a specified period

With HUD, Fonality's communications application, you can view desktop alerts with inbound caller name, number, even deal size. In the sample below, the sales agent can see an inbound $120,000 opportunity:


"PBXtra Unified Agent's deep integration with Salesforce gives our customers even more value from their CRM installations," said Clarence So, CMO, salesforce.com. "Thousands of customers have installed applications from the Force.com AppExchange because partners like Fonality are offering innovative tools that expand the capabilities of Salesforce CRM."

Chris explained that one of reasons why they called it Unified Agent Edition is because they created a unified agent creation and logon. When you make an agent on PBXtra, it displays a drop-down box of your Salesforce.com agents allowing you to map your extension on Salesforce.com account. So it matches username and password across the two platforms. That's how you know the name of the person making a call as opposed to the extension number.

For current PBXtra customers it's a $4,000 upgrade for unlimited agents. New customers the pricing starts at $6,995 for server hardware and software.  Interested parties may also participate in a Fonality-hosted informational webinar taking place on Friday, December 12 at 10 a.m. PT. To register for this webinar, head to www.fonality.com/UAEwebinar.