VoIP Software for the Enterprise

VoIP software takes all forms: conferencing software, peer-to-peer applications and mobile forwarding and transfer capabilities, among other feats. But the one thing all converged data programs have in common is that they allow end users to save bundles by making phone calls on an IP phones from an interface on a PC.

Many VoIP software programs give users complete flexibility to take calls at their desks or on their mobile phones, and to move within a facility or among multiple locations while maintaining just one main phone number. It also allows users to transfer cell phone calls by pressing their desktop phone line. Sound like the mobile worker's dream setup?

Keep reading for more information about essential VoIP software for your business from the best vendors in the industry.

Cisco Unified Call Manager

From Cisco: Cisco® Unified Communications improves operational efficiency and contributes to a consistent and superior customer experience by making communications more effective, secure, mobile, and personal. More than just a voice solution, Cisco Unified Communications is a strategic business investment that integrates voice, data, video, security, and mobility into a single, smart solution that works with existing business applications to make the organization more competitive. It transforms the business with advanced messaging; virtual contact centers; integrated voice, video, and Web conferencing; mobile IP soft phones; and voicemail. Employees can communicate how they want and when they want - from one easy-to-use interface.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly Cisco Unified CallManager) is the powerful call-processing component of the Cisco Unified Communications solution. It provides voice, video, mobility, and presence services for businesses with up to 60,000 users, Unified Communications Manager is a scalable, distributable, and highly available enterprise-class IP telephony call-processing system.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager creates a unified workspace that extends enterprise telephony features and capabilities to packet telephony network devices such as IP phones, media processing devices, voice over IP (VoIP) gateways, mobile devices, and multimedia applications. Additional services, such as unified messaging, multimedia conferencing, presence, collaborative contact centers, and interactive multimedia response systems, are made possible through open telephony APIs.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager hincludes the following features:

• Highly scalable, supporting up to 60,000 lines per server cluster
• Able to support a full range of communications features and applications, including SIP-based applications
• Highly available for business continuity, supporting multiple levels of server redundancy and survivability
• Support for a broad range of phones to suit varying user requirements
• Choice of operating system environments: Windows server-based implementation or Linux-based appliance model implementation
• Available in an easy-to-manage single-server solution, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition, that combines call processing and unified messaging

Cisco^® Unified Communications is a comprehensive IP communications system of voice, video, data, and mobility products and applications. It enables more effective, more secure, more personal communications that directly affect both sales and profitability. It brings people together by enabling a new way of communicating-where your business moves with you, security is everywhere, and information is always available...whenever and wherever it is needed. Cisco Unified Communications is part of an integrated solution that includes network infrastructure, security, mobility, network management products, lifecycle services, flexible deployment and outsourced management options, end-user and partner financing packages, and third-party communications applications.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly known as Cisco Unified CallManager) is the powerful call-processing component of the Cisco Unified Communications system. It is a scalable, distributable, and highly available enterprise IP telephony call-processing solution. Customer needs are continually evolving, and Cisco Unified Communications Manager evolves to meet those needs. Version 6.0 of Cisco Unified Communications Manager includes features that will benefit enterprise-sized business customers as well as smaller businesses.

Microsoft Unified Communications Software

From Microsoft: Software-based VoIP solutions from Microsoft avoids expensive forklift replacements of your existing systems and work with your IPBX—and legacy PBX—with software that's compatible with your present infrastructure.

Microsoft's software-based VoIP solution integrates with Active Directory, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange Server, and your PBX. It maximizes your current PBX investment and gives your company the enterprise IM, VoIP, and conferencing solutions it needs without creating a lot of unnecessary complexity for your IT department. It's big change, without changing it all.

Software-based VoIP is the next generation of voice communications. And that's a good thing for you and your end users. Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 provides a streamlined experience that integrates into whatever your users are doing, at their desks or on the road. Office Communicator 2007 integrates with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office applications, letting you deliver VoIP, presence, enterprise IM, and Web conferencing with your existing PBX. It also provides the operational control you've always wanted, and can be implemented at a fraction of the time and cost it would take to put in new hardware solutions.

And thanks to the familiarity of a common user interface—whether on a PC, the Web, or a mobile device—Office Communicator 2007 allows your company's users to find and communicate with the right people, right now, without a steep learning curve.

You'll no longer be tied to one provider and a limited line of products. Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 lets you deploy the latest communications technologies. Features can be added together or deployed individually, based on the needs and preferences of your users.

Office Communications Server 2007 also can help with compliance with both internal and regulatory controls by allowing you to archive and manage multiple forms of communication. Integration with Microsoft Exchange Server and Active Directory can enable a single user directory for all communication, and the provisioning of presence, software-powered VoIP, Web conferencing, and enterprise IM from a single infrastructure.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007

From Microsoft: Office Communicator 2007 is a unified communications client that helps people be more productive by enabling them to communicate easily with others in different locations or time zones using a range of different communication options, including instant messaging (IM), voice, and video. Integration with programs across the 2007 Microsoft Office system — including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Groove, and SharePoint Server — gives information workers many different ways to communicate with each other via a consistent and simple user experience.

Connect with others
Office Communicator 2007 provides easy access to rich presence, IM, and other real-time communications capabilities to enable information workers to communicate with each other more easily and quickly.

Integration with existing address books and corporate directories means that it's not necessary to maintain separate and disconnected contact lists just for real-time communications. You can find anyone in your contact lists, see information about their availability, and communicate with them right away.

Rich presence capabilities enable you to share information about your availability with other contacts, and to view their availability. Office Communicator 2007 integrates presence information from multiple sources — including your calendar and out of office message — to provide better information so people know if you're available to communicate, and if so, which method would be best.

Consistent experience
Office Communicator 2007 helps to keep things simple by integrating varying modes of communication into a single user experience, centered on the person who the communication is being conducted with.

A communication might start with a simple IM. With Office Communicator 2007 you can add other modes of communication. If voice or video would be more effective, you can add those modes without opening new windows or starting another program.

Office Communicator 2007 focuses on the people in a conversation and provides a consistent experience regardless of whether the conversation is using IM, voice, video, or other modes.

Communicate contextually
Office Communicator 2007 is part of the Microsoft Office system and is closely integrated with other Microsoft Office programs. This integration helps ensure that communications can occur in the context of the program being used, without having to switch to a different program for a different form of communication.

From an e-mail message received in Office Outlook 2007, users can view presence information about other users and initiate real-time communication from within the message, avoiding the need to switch applications and search for users.

When working on a document in Office Word 2007, users can see a list of the people associated with the document along with availability information for those users. From this contextual list and based on this availability information, users can initiate a conversation directly with the appropriate people.

Talk is Cheap for Small Businesses with VoIP

We've noticed a trend among the small- and mid-sized companies we serve: you're responding to very similar challenges. Your businesses are growing. Your customers expect consistently great service. Your employees are increasingly mobile. Your budgets are stretched.

There are technology solutions that can help you rise to these challenges. And one in particular that our customers inquire about more and more: Voice over Internet Protocol.

Better known as VoIP (and pronounced voyp), the technology is changing telecommunications by allowing people to make voice calls—including local, long distance, mobile, and international numbers—for a fraction of the price using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular phone line.

With VoIP, small- and medium- sized businesses are drastically reducing monthly telecom expenses, cutting capital expenditures, improving productivity and exploring new business applications. Case in point: We installed VoIP for Integra Logistics nearly two years ago and the company realized a 200 percent savings in phone service cost almost immediately.

This article will provide you with the answers to basic questions about the technology (What is VoIP? Is it right for my business? What equipment do I need? What are the costs and benefits?) and recommendations for VoIP hardware, software and freeware. Read on to learn the basics of VoIP.

What is VoIP and How Does it Work?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the family of technologies that allow IP networks to be used for voice applications, such as telephony, voice instant messaging, and teleconferencing. VoIP entails solutions at almost every layer of an IP network--from specialized voice applications (like Skype) all the way down to low-level quality measures that keep those applications running smoothly.

VoIP is a new communications technology that brings with it several new capabilities that really change the meaning of the term telephone call. Basically, it means voice transmitted over a computer network and is often spoken in the same breath with another term, IP Telephony.

Simply put, your voice is converted into data packets and transmitted over a network. So what does this mean for you and your business?

IP Telephony can help lower costs by moving all your communications—voice and data—to a single manageable network. Site-to-site call costs are eliminated and teamwork is vastly improved. You can link people, products, office sites and customers in more efficient, more effective ways, making you highly competitive. Email, voice calls and voicemail, calendars and conferences all come together in one integrated system.

This convergence of data has been invaluable for Tony Johnson, Chief Financial Officer at Integra Logistics, who said the added flexibility and quicker response times translate into even greater customer satisfaction.

“Having the phone functionality and interface on our PCs has made a huge difference,” Johnson said. “The ease of taking my computer wherever I go and being able to answer a call on it is great. I was working from home on my laptop and got a call to my office phone number that I was able to answer, real-time, on my computer, without mobile forwarding, voice mail or waiting. My calls automatically forward with me wherever I am.”

What Equipment Do I Need?

Surprisingly, the list of equipment needed to enable and support VoIP is rather short. And chances are you already have most of the required components.

A broadband (high speed Internet) connection is required. This can be through a cable modem, or high speed services such as DSL or a local area network. A computer, adaptor, or specialized phone is also required.

Some VoIP services only work over your computer or a special VoIP phone, while other services allow you to use a traditional phone connected to a VoIP adapter.

If you use your computer, you will need some software and an inexpensive microphone. Special VoIP phones plug directly into your broadband connection and operate largely like a traditional telephone. If you use a telephone with a VoIP adapter, you'll be able to dial just as you always have, and the service provider may also provide a dial tone.

Is VoIP Right For My Business?

Successful companies, large or small, are always looking for new ways to solve problems. It goes without saying that technology is a key business enabler, helping businesses do more, communicate better, and increase both productivity and revenue.

It doesn't matter whether you've only got one office, or if your production or distribution facilities extend across the state or world. At some stage you'll need to pull together colleagues or suppliers from different locations to talk things through. This is where VoIP technology really shines.

VoIP technology makes collaboration effortless and cost effective, bringing all your communications tools—voice, email, instant messaging and more—into one interface. Your employees can call in from anywhere to join a conference call that won't cost a bundle.

So what types of businesses truly stand to benefit from VoIP? If, for example, your company manufactures products and sells them through nation-wide sales representatives, or if you communicate daily with a network of customers around the globe and phone service bites a big chunk out of your overhead, then VoIP is a cost-saving technology you should seriously consider using.

Our client Integra Logistics is an Alpharetta, Georgia-headquartered supply chain services provider with office, staff, customers and vendors throughout North America. Daily long-distance contact with these people is critical to Integra's business. Johnson reports that with VoIP, Integra Logistics realized about 200 percent cost savings over the traditional phone system. “VoIP was easy to manage because it dealt with networks, which an IT guy could take care of, versus a specialty phone system,” he said. “We immediately saved 20 percent on long distance costs, which was huge.”

On the other hand, if your company conducts its business locally and doesn't spend much on long-distance telephone service, then VoIP may not be the best communications technology for you.

What Are the Costs and Benefits of VoIP?

The benefits for a business in using VoIP are usually broken down into three basic areas: cost savings, improved features and capabilities, and simplification of operations and business applications. While many aspects of the first two categories are clear, there are hidden benefits that may not have occurred to those new to the VoIP market.

Today, VoIP is best known for its ability to cut telecom expenses. The capital and operating cost savings associated with VoIP can be substantial and often reduce the costs of a traditional PBX-based service by between 30 percent and 60 percent.

While VoIP equipment is usually cheaper, it is an additional capital expenditure and you will also need to purchase new end user equipment such as hand- and headsets. The ongoing operational cost savings is very clear and you should be prepared to evaluate any plan you consider against your existing plan to see concretely your ongoing cost savings.

Although VoIP has clear advantages in terms of price, capabilities, features and long-term extensibility, there are still some issues with the technology. Most of these are short-term in the sense that solutions to the problems are being explored and over the next year or two these will disappear as issues.

The biggest issue is inconsistent service quality. You've got to put up with the occasional hiccup in your voice service, caused by the one thing legacy telephone technology has built-in that VoIP doesn't: guaranteed quality. Because VoIP uses packets to transmit data like other services on the internet, it cannot provide the quality guarantees of old-fashioned, non-packet-based telephone lines.

Johnson mentioned that Integra Logistics has had some issues with quality of service with regards to the size of voice data packets being handled over a small amount of bandwidth; overall that's been the only hardship. “We rarely have quality issues except during conference calls,” he said. “But overall the service has been great.”

Bottom Line

VoIP has the power to improve your company's telecommunications environment by reducing communication costs and delivering features that truly improve productivity. The promise of reduced telecom costs is real and compelling, often creating the business case to move to VoIP. Having said that, in our experience, most VoIP business customers see the largest benefit from the productivity boost delivered by IP-enabled features such as unified messaging.

In the long run, VoIP networks will become the industry standard. The decision you make is whether or not now is the right time to make the move. You will need to look at how the change will affect your business. Will you need to change data networks and other infrastructure? Will you need to change your internal processes? If so, how? And finally, where and how will your business benefit from this new service?

Call on Hardwyre to help you find the answers to these pressing questions. We're standing by to analyze your business processes and IT infrastructure, and then recommend, install, configure and support the right technology solution for you. Give us a call at 501.851.2880 to talk with a highly trained and certified Hardwyre Network Engineer. 

P2P Internet Phone Software for the Home

Getting in touch with friends and family is easy and free with Internet telephone software. Of the many apps available, Skype is our favorite tool for making free computer-to-computer phone calls. It's also a no-brainer solution for long-distance international phone call bills.

Just download Skype, plug in a headset, and call your friends right from your computer. Check out these tools that let you take Skype on the road and into the board room:

• Skype (home use)
• PrettyMay Call Center for Skype (office use)
• iSkoot (Skype for mobile phones)

Skype

From Skype: We all love something for nothing. With Skype's free software – by the way, it works seamlessly with your internet connection – you can chat away with free Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or distance. Share the love and get your friends to download Skype so you can talk, chat or make video calls for nothing. You can also make local, long distance and international calls to phones and cell phones at great rates too.

Getting started is simple. There are many ways Skype can help you connect:

• Finding people. Adding friends and family to your contact list is simple – search, select, add.
• Making a call. Calling is easy – select the Call Phones tab, enter a number and click the green button.
• Free video calls. See who you're talking to for free. Also, be sure to check out our new High Quality Video feature.
• Great call quality. Get a headset for superior sound quality. Much better than in-built speakers and microphones.

Skype is jam-packed with great features to help you stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers, share your thoughts and views and find the information you need. You can use it on your computer and on both WiFi and cordless phones.

Just for starters you can instant message with anyone on your contact list or even use group chat to chat with up to a hundred people. You could hold a conference call with up to nine other people to organize a get-together and then use SkypeFind™ to search for the perfect venue to hold it.

There are also really cool video features. All you need is a webcam to make free video calls or even take photos of yourself to personalise Skype.

Finding friends

If you use Microsoft Outlook®, Outlook Express®, GMail™, Hotmail® or your mail account with Yahoo! then it's a simple task to import contacts and get them all onto your Skype. If they don't have Skype yet you can send them invite to download it – then you can talk for free (and maybe you'll even get a nice bouquet of flowers and a chocolate bar from your them to say thanks for getting them onto Skype? We'd like to think that's in order).

Adding someone to your contact list is easy. But you can also add people who are not yet on Skype and call them on their phones and mobiles at pretty cheap rates wherever they are.

Also, if your Microsoft Outlook® contacts have phone numbers, you can have them show up on your contact list so you can call them. You'll need Skype Credit or Skype Pro™ to make calls to phones and mobiles.

Download Skype for free from Download.com

PrettyMay Call Center for Skype

From PrettyMay System: PrettyMay Call Center for Skype (PMCCS) is a 100% software-based call center solution for Skype. It allows small or medium sized businesses to quickly and affordably implement a Skype PBX (aka PABX) system with auto-attendant, interactive voice response (IVR), extension transferring, call recording and personalized voicemail capabilities - and a lot more as well.

Your customers contact you by calling your Skype Name, a Skype Button displayed on your website, or a SkypeIn number , PMCCS automatically answers the call, and leads the caller into the built-in IVR system, then transfers the call to the appropriate agent or staff member depending on the button the caller pressed.

You can have up to 30 simultaneous Skype or SkypeIn lines supported with the PrettyMay Call Center for Skype. The diagram below shows how the system works for inbound calling.

Business-friendly features:

• Skype calling – skype-to-skype are free. Remove the cost of internal calling.
• Call phones and mobiles- make a low-cost call to landlines and mobiles
• SMS – send text messages from your computer instead of your mobile
• Business Control Panel – manage Skype Credit for your company/allocate online numbers
• Conference calling- 3-10 people
• Group chats- discuss ideas with customers or colleagues
• Video calls – see the person you are talking to with a webcam
• Voicemail – takes your calls and you can check them wherever you have internet access
• View Outlook contacts – all your Microsoft Outlook contacts directly from the contact list
• Shared groups – set up so it's easy to add new contacts to a group
• Chat History – keeps a record of all chat messages so you can easily search through
• Call forwarding – away from your computer? Forward to your cell phone.

Security:

Windows installer package – MSI installer makes it easy to deploy the Skype software to many computers in your networkSkype calling. Skype-to-Skype calls are absolutely free. By switching your employees to Skype you remove the cost of internal calling. If clients or business contacts are using Skype you can call them for free as well.Call phones and mobiles. An easy way to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles directly from Skype at nice, cheap rates.

• Secure. Information transferred over the Skype network is secure from unauthorized eavesdropping.
• Works with antivirus software. Inbound and outbound Skype file transfers are scanned by the major antivirus products.
• Protects privacy. Skype's encryption and authentication may help you meet enterprise and national privacy mandates.
• Firewalls stay secure. Skype doesn't require any inbound openings in your firewalls; often no change is needed at all.
• Skype puts you in control. You can turn off or configure a variety of Skype's functionality or settings, including file transfer and the API.
• Users are protected from spam. Permission-based communication settings prevents most unwanted communications.
• No adware or spyware. Neither the Skype software nor the Skype installer installs any software without the user's consent.
• Easy to deploy. The Skype for Windows - Business version download includes Windows Installer Package (commonly known as MSI). Making it easy for IT administrators to deploy Skype software within an enterprise network.
• Easy to manage. IT administrators can control how Skype behaves on their network. See the Network Administrators guide and group policy template file for more details.Skype documents for IT administrators

Download a free trial of PrettyMay Call Center for Skype from Download.com

iSkoot

From ITwire: Skype has taken another small but not insignificant step toward enabling it to become a user's primary telephone service: by signing a co-marketing agreement with iSkoot, a company that has developed software for mobile phones that enables them to be used to make and receive Skype calls. The software will be promoted to handset manufacturers for possible pre-loading onto new handsets and to cellular service providers.

iSkoot software enables users to receive and make Skype calls on their mobile phone via the cellular networks. Skype voicemail, however, must be de-activated.

Once a cellphone has the iSkoot software installed on it, the user can see their Skype contact lists and call them just as they do from a PC. They can also place outgoing calls to PSTN numbers at SkypeOut rates and receive Skype-to Skype calls from other Skype users.

The downside is that the final link in the communications chain uses the normal cellular network voice channel, so for every call they make users must pay their normal cellular charges. For SkypeOut calls, this is in addition to the normal SkypeOut charge. They also require GPRS or another packet data service to enable their buddy list to be kept up to datee.

The cost of the cellular hop on an incoming call, which is paid to the cellular operator by iSkoot, is recouped by iSkoot from the user's SkypeOut account.

This software has been available, but without Skype certification, for some time. Users can install it on their own compatible cell phones, register with ISkoot and start using it. iSkoot launched its service, independent of Skype in February, by making use of the Skype API.

iSkoot presently works on Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones that run J2ME, The company says it intends to add support for other J2ME phones including Treo and BlackBerry. The service is presently available only on US cellular networks. iSkoot also intends to support other free PC-PC VoIP services such as Google Talk.

Download iSkoot free from Download.com

Microsoft Launches Unified Messaging Platform

From Microsoft: At the Unified Communications Launch 2007 worldwide event in San Francisco, Microsoft launched the company's next generation of unified communications products and services, and described how partners and customers are benefiting from the company's unified communications software.

Microsoft unified communications technologies use the power of software to deliver complete communications—messaging, voice, and video—across the applications and devices that people use every day.

Integrating the experiences you associate with the telephone—phone calls, voice mail, and conferencing—into the work you do on a computer—documents, spreadsheets, instant messaging, e-mail, calendars—has the power to fundamentally change the way the world works.

How It Works 

Microsoft unified communications technologies deliver VoIP, e-mail, IM, voice- and videoconferencing, presence awareness, and messaging to the devices and tools you use at work.

Telephones run on switched networks, computers on IP networks. This fundamental challenge forces businesses to invest in two complex infrastructures, each with specialists and maintenance costs.

How it Impacts The 2007 Microsoft Office system

The 2007 Microsoft Office release gains many additional features, including fully integrated presence technology when it is deployed in a unified communications environment.

Microsoft Office 2007 is designed to take full advantage of Microsoft unified communications technologies. Presence technology appears throughout the Office system, from Document Workspaces inside Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 to team sites and My Sites on SharePoint Server 2007.

Because every person who works on a file stays associated with it, presence technology can provide multiple channels for communication. If you're working on a shared budget in Excel 2007, you can launch an instant message conversation with one or all of the budgets' owners with a few clicks. Users can escalate the conversation to a phone call, audio or video conference at any point.

When businesses deploy Microsoft unified communications technologies, they don't just add a stand-alone solution; they transform the entire Microsoft Office experience.

To find out more about Microsoft's Unified Communications Platform and how you can leverage the technology to help your company be more productive while cutting operational costs, call Hardwyre at 501.851.2880, or visit Microsoft.com.