But for a different class of buyer - those looking for top end functionality the Allworx truly excels. Here’s a few situations:

Site-to-Site Calling
Allworx can link up to 100 sites together and allow for 3 or 4 digit dialing between extensions in any location. Not only does this mean free calls between offices that could ordinarily be long distance, but a call coming into your Seattle office can be transferred to a staff member in the Portland office just as though you were in the same office.

For comparison, Talkswitch can do site to site calling but is fairly limited on calls directly to an extension in a remote office. Response Point doesn’t even support site to site calls.

Telecommuters
With high gas prices, more companies are looking to offer the option to telecommute some days of the week. Allworx blows the competition out of the water here, literally everyone can take their phone home and it works just as in the office - the biggest practical limitation is getting sufficient affordable bandwidth in cases of heavy use.

While Talkswitch also does a great job supporting telecommuters at a small scale, each system is limited to 8 simultaneous VoIP sessions, though up to 4 systems may be linked to grow that. Response point still lacks external IP phone support.

Computer Telephone Integration
Also known as CTI, this refers to a variety of features like software based attendant consoles, voicemail to email, click to dial and other TAPI integration. Allworx does all of these features while the competition only does one or two of these.

Presence Management
This isn’t a feature every business will use, but is quite nice in the right situation. Most phone systems have two modes for extensions - available and do not disturb, both go to the same voicemail greeting. With presence management you can set a variety of options like available, out of the office, on vacation, in meeting, etc. Each can have different call handling options and different voicemail greetings. Users can customize their own settings online and switch modes with just a button press on their phone.

Conference Center
Allworx is one of the few small business phone systems that can act as a conference bridge for up to 8 attendees. Obviously there are external conference services as well which are worth consideration, the best value depends on calling patterns. Evaluating the two options comes down simply to cost and scale - you have to consider the monthly fees and per minute fees of a conference service along with the line capacity for your staff to call out vs. the one time licensing of your own conference bridge along with the line capacity for those calling in.

T1/PRI Support
Though SIP trunking is the future and Allworx does it very well, T1/PRI is still in use by many companies and some aren’t willing to take the leap to VoIP. In fact a CRN survey found about 80% of SMBs have no plans to switch to VoIP - meaning for certain functionality T1/PRI will be the right solution. The Allworx 24x is probably the most future-proof small business phone system we’ve seen on the market as it has full support for PSTN lines, T1/PRI trunks, and SIP trunks. Talkswitch and Response Point don’t do T1/PRI trunks - few small business phone systems do. Beyond that on the matter of future proofing, the Allworx 24x supports up to 150 extensions, while Talkswitch tops out at 64 and Response Point at 50.

What really is a surprise is price. Allworx is a bit more expensive than systems like Talkswitch and Response Point, but understandably so given what it can do. When we’ve bid against comparable systems from Cisco, Shoretel, and Mitel the Allworx systems are often 30-50% less. Given that Allworx is a mature and well respected product in the industry, its an easy decision to save thousands by going with Allworx.

First, how they saved money. Their old phone system didn’t have voicemail, so they were paying about $250 per month for voicemail boxes with Qwest. The Talkswitch systems was able to provide all the voicemail boxes they needed without any monthly fees.

What was really terrific though was functionality. Most of the voicemail boxes were for their ministries which were lead by members of the church. Now instead of missing voicemails because of irregular checking, we email the voicemails to the ministry leaders.

We also included VoIP capabilities to allow for telecommuting. Given today’s high gas prices, telecommuting is an increasingly desirable feature - and one that’s now affordable to small businesses.

What separates this connection from DSL and Cable is a matching upload rate (a.k.a. synchronous). Cable and DSL can now offer download speeds of up to ~16Mb but their upload speeds still deliver a pokey .75-2Mb. For offices doing primarily web surfing this is fine, but for sending files, hosting web and email servers, Citrix, VPNs, SaaS, VoIP, etc you need a high bandwidth synchronous connection. (more…)

Check Firewall Diagnostic - to work right VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) requires specific configuration from the network router. This one click diagnostic makes it easy to confirm VoIP is setup properly, or identify the problem if not.

Caller ID Based Routing - this feature routes inbound calls based the caller ID number. So say you have a special customer that always talks to the same employee - instead of making them go through the receptionist or autoattendant they can bypass those automatically to reach the person they need to talk to. Its a lot like DIDs (direct inward dial) without the expense of a T1.

System Speed Dials - Talkswitch now supports 100 systemwide speed dials, making it easier to contact your most important resources.

Hotline - analog phones can autodial an extension or resource when the phone is picked up. This can be terrific for phones to reach the operator in situations like hotels.

Dial 0/9 - 0 or 9 dialing can be set to automatically call a resource like the operator, another nice feature for hotels, gyms, restaurants and other hospitality services.

Save/Delete Voicemail From Email - more and more phone systems are able to email you voicemails. But then you still have to dial in, listen, and delete the voicemails from the phone. Talkswitch 6.1 lets you save or delete your voicemail right from your inbox!

There’s lots of other great features for installers like hunt group overflow, plug and play phone installation, and multiple system updating. Its worth note all software updates to Talkswitch systems are free for life - unlike other systems Talkswitch doesn’t keep their hand in your pocket for new features.

All in all, its a nice set of improvements which will benefit a variety of businesses and keeps Talkswitch on top as the best phone system for small businesses.

The problem with selling direct at a heavy discount is it kills off the local channel partners who provide professional installation and service. To get around that, many of these small business phone systems are claiming they’re self-installable. My experience seeing DIY installs is some companies fail, others struggle for a long time with setup, few have the tools to get the wiring right, and none figure out optimal configuration and use of the system. Professional installation is a small price to pay to get the system working perfectly in one day - a few mishandled calls from a DIY setup costs a lot more than an expert installer.

So therein lies the problem - small businesses are much better off having an expert installer handle their system installation, yet Microsoft is allowing the partners to be undercut which will damage their business model and drive them out of the market. And you can’t just call up any phone guy - phone system vendors work on specific systems, not just anything you happen to own.

If you ask me, Costco and Microsoft are setting up small businesses for a bad experience - phone systems still benefit from experts for installation and occasional repair/troubleshooting. When small businesses that buy this package need help most, they may not find it.

You might ask, why not just forward to your cell phone when out of the office? Cost and features are two big reasons. Cell phones cost $50-100 per month, avoiding issuing them to staff saves serious money. Also softphones deliver a feature set more like a desk phone and utilize fewer phone lines.

Softphones are great for travel - say you’re going out of the country, instead of paying your cell’s international roaming or outrageous hotel phone bills, softphones let you stay connected for free.

Obviously cell phones have the advantage of working almost anywhere while softphones need internet access, so that limitation must be considered. But in the right conditions softphones deliver more functionality, better call quality, and a low up front cost with no monthly charges when tied back to your phone system.

First, let me explain why Windows SBS doesn’t deliver much value. Really its used for a few things - domain controller, file storage/sharing, hopefully backup, and sometimes Exchange and Remote Web Workplace. Domain controllers are nice to have, but not critical for small businesses. File storage/sharing can be accomplished by a NAS for far less than a server. Windows SBS’s built in backup is pretty subpar and doesn’t include the expensive hardware needed to backup. Exchange is useful for some, but is expensive, risky to maintain in house, and requires integration with third party antivirus/antispam - hosted Zimbra or Gmail for Domains is a far better value for most. Remote Web Workplace is cool, but rarely used and the same thing can be accomplished by an Untangle Firewall.

So if you’re looking for a small business server which actually works out of the box and includes really valuable tools to help you run your business - Windows SBS isn’t the product. This is why Lotus Foundations excites me so much - it takes everything a Windows SBS box does but integrates killer backup, security, and useful business applications in a far easier to manage package.

The great thing is while IBM Lotus Foundations is new, its also built on well established products. IBM bought Nitix earlier in the year, which made Linux-based small business servers for the past eight years. IBM improved the product, integrated Lotus Notes Domino 8, and made Lotus Foundations.

I’ve had a chance to talk to some IBM folks and they’re dead serious about taking on Windows Small Business Server and providing a better experience for small business. With the application platform they’re building and the marketing power of IBM, I can guarantee you’ll hear a lot about IBM Lotus Foundations in the next year.

One of the selling points of hosted VoIP is no equipment to maintain - they have easy point and click interfaces for making updates. Turns out many modern phone systems like Talkswitch and Allworx also have easy to use interfaces for making updates. Either way updates won’t require professional help, meaning lower ongoing costs and easier updates.

While either a hosted VoIP service or a phone system could suffer an outage, an out of warranty phone system could lead to repair costs. But for example an out-of-warranty Talkswitch repair is $250-500, a small risk relative to the more than $10,000 savings over hosted VoIP solutions.

Most hosted VoIP services include phone and email support, a very reassuring thing for small businesses to know experts are on hand and the clock isn’t running. But on the phone systems side Talkswitch includes free phone and email support for life, so again, no advantage to hosted VoIP here either.

But every once in a while rather than talk to some entry level technician, you need an expert - maybe even an expert to come onsite. Few hosted VoIP services offer onsite technicians and getting up the ranks to speak to an engineer can be difficult. Local phone systems vendors are easy to get ahold of and get onsite - and those coming out are generally system experts.

Bottom line is ongoing maintenance costs on hosted VoIP vs a phone system are fairly comparable and the support options for phone systems are better.

One Hosted VoIP carrier recently approached me to carry their product, one interesting change is their service goes over the public internet - no dedicated T1 as with many services. This greatly reduces cost, but also increases the risk of call quality issues. We’d still recommend a dedicated DSL line for most situations - even four or five calls can consume over half the capacity of a standard DSL line and when shared with internet access that will lead to poor call quality.

For equipment a hosted service spares you the cost of the core phone system, but in most cases not the phones or installation. Really hosted systems don’t make the phone system cost disappear, it just makes it look like a seemingly small number each month.

Monthly services on a hosted VoIP phone system are on a per user basis, not per line. This carrier was $29/user for local calling. Compare that to a traditional system where we’d usually provide 1 phone line per each 2-3 people and with phone lines as low as $14.99 that means a per user cost of $5 - 7.50/user. They also had an unlimited plan for $49/user but we can sell unlimited lines at $35/line making the per user cost only $11.66 - 17.50. Common features your business may need also are monthly costs like autoattendants ($20) or on-hold-music ($15).

Bottom line what do these prices mean? Well for a business with 12 extensions buying hosted VoIP they’ll pay $383/month for local calling, an autoattendant, and on-hold music. Additionally they’d need a dedicated voice DSL for $80/month and spend $3408 on phones and installation - leading to a three year cost of $20076.

On the flip side a business that buys a Talkswitch phone system for 12 extensions would need six phone lines and features for $103/month and $4393 in equipment and installation.  This comes out to a much lower three year cost of just $8101, or nearly $12000 less than a hosted VoIP system.

Even when looking at unlimited long distance, hosted VoIP costs more - $27456 for hosted VoIP vs $12313 for a Talkswitch with an unlimited LD carrier.

Bottom line is no matter the carrier, hosted VoIP services deliver less reliable service and lower call quality at a greater cost than modern phone systems!

Their old phone system didn’t have voicemail, so they bought the 16 voicemail boxes they needed from Qwest - at nearly $250 each month. Aside from that they were spending $75/month on unlimited long distance when only using about 300 minutes a month. Basically we could turn their $420/month phone charges (plus tax) into $86/month (plus tax) when used in conjunction with a new phone system.

The new phone system installed with tax was about $6000, but the client saves $12000 over the next three years in line charges. Who wouldn’t love a new, feature rich phone system and $6000 to spare?

Obviously not every small business will see such savings, but a professional assessment of a small business’s entire telecom system can yield some tremendous results.

The second thing to keep in mind is long distance cost. Many VoIP carriers offer unlimited long distance while most traditional line carriers do not. Its worth considering these cost differences. One company we worked with barely made any long distance calls, so they really shouldn’t have done VoIP to begin with as it costs more than local lines.

Alternately we sometimes leave customers on VoIP but just address the issues by changing to a better VoIP carrier, adding bandwidth, or a quality of service router.

Commercial phone systems have traditionally been expensive systems with limited features which could only be managed by expensive professionals. But companies like Allworx and Talkswitch make very feature rich, user friendly systems which end-users can manage at a price far less than traditional phone systems like Mitel, Inter-Tel and Avaya.
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For example one job we did recently the client wanted a new phone system with a few external IP extensions to tie in teleworkers. We had a few decisions how to implement this, so we went to their current bills to decide what made sense. Turns out Qwest was charging $24/month in long distance plan fees and still charging .05/minute domestic and for example Japan mobile phones they were being charged .40/min.

We decided to take their lines from Qwest to Integra and nearly cut $100 off there, then put $22 of the savings into a dedicated DSL for VoIP to ensure good call quality. Instead of paying $24/month for Qwest’s long distance plan, we paid $30 for a NexVortex VoIP line with 1250 US minutes and extra minutes at .035/minute. Instead of paying .40/min to Japan mobile phones, we cut it to .18/minute.

This client was looking for a phone system to improve their call handling ability, but with our expert consultation actually saved enough to have the system pay for itself in the next few years!

Traditionally to have DIDs you need a T1 or PRI plus a compatible phone system. The issue here is cost, a T1/PRI is in the $500/month ballpark and T1/PRI capable phone systems cost significantly more than phone systems using phone lines or VoIP - for example a T1 capable Allworx 24x is nearly $4000.

SIP trunking is the other way you can accomplish DIDs and instead of paying for an expensive T1/PRI, SIP trunking packages start at just $30/month. Admittedly you still need more bandwidth, I like to toss in a dedicated DSL for VoIP which runs another ~$60/month. SIP trunking phone systems cost less than T1 phone systems, for example an Allworx 6x with VoIP is $2250, or SIP trunking Talkswitch 248vs is just $1095.

SIP Trunking (VoIP) isn’t always the right answer and doesn’t always cut costs, but depending on the situation it can bring DIDs to small business for an irresistible deal.

NexVortex has a different kind of plan. First off, there’s no concept of per line fees - you pay one plan rate and get as many calls at once as you need. Inbound calls are free, which is often a majority of small business calls. Outbound calls are .035/min which is likely a long distance rate better than a traditional carrier, though still more than local calls over traditional lines. They also have a $10/month disaster recovery package which forwards calls to cell phones - an important backup plan in case of outages.

These lines still run across the public internet so there is no guarantee of call quality being perfect all the time, but in testing its been really good as long as you have ample high quality bandwidth and a quality of service device at the gateway.

Functionality
The Allworx has an impressive feature set, beyond a full feature phone system, its a router/firewall, network server, and more. It also has optional features like TAPI dialing from Outlook (click to dial), conferencing, and so much more. Not only can calls ring to desks, but it does find-me-follow where it can ring multiple other phones (cell phones, home office phones) to ensure calls always get through. Allworx is truly an impressive system in the functionality department. Talkswitch delivers what most small businesses actually need, Allworx delivers nearly any feature you could imagine.

Ease of Configuration
Though professional install is always needed for a system of this caliber, many companies want to maintain the systems themselves to keep down costs. Allworx has a fairly straightforward web based management interface, I wouldn’t call it user-friendly but its good. I’d say the Allworx is best left to be maintained by a professional, however its easily remotely changed meaning no trip fees and smaller minimums for updates. Talkswitch definitely wins for ease of use, most of our customers can make changes themselves which does keep down costs over the years.

Phones
Allworx has four branded phones, the only one I really like is the 9212 which comes in at $269 and the least expensive phone is $190. The Allworx 9212 is a terrific quality phone, but admittedly the costs add up quickly.

Talkswitch offers seven branded phones, three of which are IP phones like the Allworx. They range from $119 to $239 with the most popular model being just $179.

Both systems do work with third party phones, though with a lesser functionality set.

I’d say the Talkswitch 9133i phone for $179 is a superior phone to the Allworx 9202 phone for $190 and very close to the Allworx 9212 for $269. Saving $90 per phone can really add up, so Talkswitch is the winner here.

Growth
Talkswitch supports up to 64 extensions while Allworx supports 60, so both have about the same growth potential. Allworx is generally less expensive above 48 and tied above 30 users, but often more expensive below, though it does vary depending on the quantity and type of lines used (VoIP or PSTN).

System Cost
Talkswitch has an easier entry point, with models starting at just $695 for a 240vs, though its a smaller capacity system than the Allworx, it can grow. The Allworx 6x and Talkswitch 840vs are fairly close is capacity, but Talkswitch is $300 less. But each situation is different - Allworx is often less expensive for larger VoIP installs than Talkswitch while Talkswitch is less expensive for PSTN lines or lighter VoIP use.

Awards and Recognition
One of the best ways for a phone system buyer to know if they’re looking at a good system is industry reviews and awards. Talkswitch recently was awarded “Best VoIP System for Small Business” by Small Business Computing Magazine and won a VON Innovator award. Allworx products have won Internet Telephony Product of the Year Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2007 and the Executive Director for the publisher of Internet Telephony recently stated “when somebody in an SMB asks me what phone system to buy, I say, ‘Buy Allworx’. ”

Clearly both systems are mature and well respected products in the telecom industry.

Conclusion
The choice of system here is a matter of business size, use, and feature set - both systems are terrific but are optimized for somewhat different small to medium business use. When working with most businesses I look at Talkswitch first and Allworx for specific needs - probably 80-90% of small businesses I meet are best off with Talkswitch.

Download the program on the old computer, connect an external hard drive, and run the wizard - it will ask which user to backup and then just tell it to backup to the external hard drive. Wait a few minutes for the file to be created, copy the wizard to the external hard drive, then disconnect the drive and connect to the new computer.

At the new computer run the wizard from the external hard drive, then select the file to restore. A few minutes later all your files and settings will be back in place on the new machine!

One note is these techniques bring over files and settings, not programs. You’ll need to reinstall those from disk/download.

We’ve been replacing Avvanta’s proprietary computer-based system with the Talkswitch Phone System. Unlike Avvanta’s system, Talkswitch is well established (over 10 years), super reliable, easy to manage, and features terrific customer support for life. The nice thing is we’ve also discovered the Linksys SPA942 phones are compatible with the Talkswitch, meaning companies can keep their investment in phones and just replace the phone system and service.

The VON Magazine Innovator Award follows on the heels of TalkSwitch being named the absolute best VoIP phone system for small businesses by the readers of Small Business Computing magazine. That award comes directly from the readers, the people that run small businesses and use these systems everyday.

Why all these awards you may ask? Talkswitch is truly the best designed package for small business - everything from the feature set, low total cost of ownership, and ease of management make for a perfect small business PBX. Not only is Talkswitch great, you can trust it since its been great for years - Talkswitch has been the leader in small business phone systems since 1997.

SIP trunks often are delivered two different ways - some companies bring in their own T1 and run SIP across their private network, which if done right ensures good quality calls. Some companies sell SIP trunks which go across the public internet, which is risky as call quality now depends on an uncontrolled network.

Needless to say if SIP trunks will be depended upon, it makes sense to deliver them over a T1 on a dedicated network. This leads to the first decision point if SIP trunking is right for your business - the T1 alone costs $350-400 per month. For many small businesses this means an increase in cost over PSTN lines and DSL internet access.

Once you have a T1 in place, SIP trunks are often charged two ways - metered or flat rate. Metered calls mean any call - inbound, outbound, toll free, local, or US long distance will be charged per minute. This has upsides and downsides. Local calls on SIP cost more than with PSTN lines, long distance less, inbound calls to a local number cost more, but toll free usually less. In other terms this kind of plan works great for companies that market a toll free number and mostly call long distance, but not for companies that market a local number and mostly call locally.

Flat rate SIP trunks are also very tempting for small businesses which have consistent high utilization of toll free inbound and outbound long distance calls.

Bottom line - though rates vary, a SIP trunking T1 with 8 unlimited lines from one carrier is $729 per month. For comparison a dynamic integrated T1 with 8 local lines from another carrier is $499 per month. Assuming a moderate price of $.04 per minute for long distance, a business needing a T1 would need to spend nearly 6000 minutes to make up the difference. But many small businesses don’t need a T1, so 8 local PSTN lines and a 6Mb DSL can be as little as $180 per month, a difference of over 13000 minutes of long distance.

SIP trunking makes sense for some small businesses, but it depends heavily on calling patterns and desired phone system features. A telecom consultant is a great way to understand what the options really cost and which will make the most sense for a given business.

Lets back up a bit, traditional phone systems (both key systems and PBX) were programmed by punching commands into a specific phone. Because of the complexity of making changes, this usually meant a visit from the phone guy, which means trip fees, minimums, etc - or service contracts.

Talkswitch has always used a computer-based point and click interface but the new 6.0 software makes it even easier. This is really important for small businesses - by having easy to use software most changes don’t require a costly trip from the phone guy but instead changes are just a few clicks away.

Our target date release date is March, we’ll have no per user licensing, and no annual renewals. It will just work out of the box…and for just $299. Stay tuned.

One of the joys of Nitix is the core OS resides on a flash module called a DOM, meaning once the offending drive was removed and the server rebooted, the network was back up and we had full admin access to the server.

All the drives in a Mark I Nitix server are in removable cartridges, the primary drive(s) and backup IDBs are interchangeable. Upon checking the recent IDB was in good shape with current backups (hourly increments too), we had the client take the oldest IDB cartridge and replace the failed primary drive with it.

Not even thirty minutes later all data was restored. Nitix with IDB is truly the greatest server backup we’ve ever seen - our clients are back at work and I didn’t even have to get out of my PJs.

As a Seattle area Talkswitch authorized partner I’m proud to say we offer the best in small business telecommunications equipment and services.  Talkswitch has some strong competition in brands like Avaya, Fonality, Packet8, etc so its quite an honor to beat them all!

This of course leads me to wonder if Comcast is trying to “wow” new customers with blistering speed, only to bring it back down to the service level’s speed with time. It might sound farfetched, but keep in mind Comcast has been intentionally slowing Bittorrent user’s connections - why not this too?

PDS communication is encrypted by default, which is a nice to see (not enough business apps encrypt communications). Of course since its an externally facing application, its important to ensure good passwords are being used by all employees.

The other important thing is backup - PDS uses an MS SQL database which requires a bit of experience to backup. We decided to use BackupAssist with the SQL plugin to push the files out to their Nitix server’s Intelligent Disk Backup.

While its understandable small businesses sometimes find skirting the rules to be more palatable than forking over thousands for more software, the true costs of piracy can be far greater.

The Business Software Alliance has been cracking down more on small businesses, particularly those in the 10-100 employee range. And the penalties can be quite stiff - six figure penalties plus having to buy the software at full price.

Software licensing is one of the great reasons to look at open source or managed systems with clearer, more reasonable pricing models. Rather than spending tens of thousands on Exchange and Office; alternatives like NitixBlue, Zimbra, OpenOffice, etc reduce TCO and reduce or eliminate licensing concerns.

Unlike other small business servers which make you pick the pieces and integrate them yourself, NitixBlue bundles one of the strongest sets of antispam tools around. NitixBlue has for years integrated the Vircom content scanning, but to better fight the growth of spam they’ve now added Engate’s network-level scanning.

Engate’s MailSentinel catches spam by evaluating profiling the network properties of a message. For example lets say you get a message from accounts@paypal.com, Engate will see if that message originated from a Paypal server or spoofed the data - then tosses out the illegitimate emails.

The results? By combining both industry leading network and content level antispam, small businesses can get 99% or greater effectiveness from their antispam protection. Unlike other solutions this doesn’t require an expensive additional filtering box, no complex setup, and simple inexpensive licensing.

For example Verizon was offering my client 5 lines, features, and flat LD for $350/mo plus fees and taxes. With Integra as I proposed they would get the same 5 lines and features for just over $100 plus fees and taxes. To make up the difference the client would need to spend over 5000 minutes on long distance each month - something few businesses that size do. (more…)

Call Reporting is a very useful tool to deliver insight into calling habits and actions. Here’s a few examples:

Professional Services (Legal, CPA) - set calling codes allowing you to bill clients for time or just long distance use when talking to them.

Customer Service or Phone Sales - get detailed information about each user’s calling habits like how long they spend on each call, who the call is from/to, how much time they spend on the phone, and other metrics to ensure staff are on task and being efficient.

Hotels and hospitality - the Premium edition includes check-in/check-out with one click billing - making Talkswitch an incredible value for hotel telecommunications.

I’m particularly happy about Talkswitch releasing these for free, they’ve continued to add new features and value-added options which continue to make Talkswitch the best value in small business phone systems.

Download Free Music on Hold

The reality is auto-attendants are the fastest, least expensive, and most consistent way for a small business to greet and route inbound calls. While many small businesses like to have the “human touch,” it does come with a serious downside - people have bad days, get overloaded, or stay home sick.

Small businesses are ideally suited for auto-attendants - their short staff/department lists means auto-attendants are simple and quick to navigate. Auto-attendants give callers an impression of being established, organized, and substantial - usually good traits. Professional recordings cost just a few hundred dollars and ensure customers always get a helpful and pleasant greeting.

On the flip side, most small businesses without an auto-attendant have calls ring to a group of staff who then route the call. But having valuable staff regularly distracted routing calls just doesn’t make sense, these distractions add up to a serious loss of productivity. And lets face it, not all staff members are well suited to answering callers.

As for the callers, most don’t care if their call routing is human or automated - they just want to quickly talk to the right person to fulfill their need. Even some small business phone systems now support multi-language prompts (english, spanish, and french) making communicating with anyone in North America easier. Those who don’t like auto-attendants usually know to press 0 anyway, which can then go to a person to route the call appropriately.

I’m sure we’ll all had the experience of calling a company to be “greeted” unenthusiastically or incomprehensibly, or greeted only to be put immediately on hold. Auto-attendants never do these things, day in and day out (and night!) they answer your calls in an effective, efficient, and pleasant manner.

Remote IP extensions is definitely my new favorite feature - when properly configured you take take your phone (or computer’s softphone) anywhere with internet access (home, hotel, coffee shop) and still make and receive calls just like you were in the office!

Microsoft has name recognition, but I’m not certain their reputation will bode well for them in the phone systems business. Phone systems should be nearly bulletproof reliable…Microsoft’s product reputation is far from the mark here. Microsoft’s new product reputation is also poor…usually their products don’t mature until version 3 or 4.

Feature wise, its hard to compare at this point. Their big feature is voice recognition, but one beta tester admits that feature is something their staff “underutilizes.” Can it match the best of its competitor’s features? Who knows at this point.

One concern I have is the hardware. The partner vendors appear to be using modified PCs as the basis of the system. At this time its unclear if the devices are flash or hard drive based…either way phone systems should last for 10 years at minimum and most PC components just aren’t designed that way.

Value is another concern, The Quanta Syspine is estimated to be $2500 for the system and four phones, the D-Link VoiceCenter is estimated to be $2999 for the system and five phones. For comparison a Talkswitch Phone System and five phones is just $1740 - $2765 (depending on growth room and voicemail capacity) and is a mature product from a company making small business telecom products since 1990.

Obviously at this point its hard to say if this is a product to be excited about or ignored until version 4.0.

Expanded Capacity
Just by installing the new software each system gets an additional 2 hours of voicemail storage and 8-12 more extensions for a total of 16! This is an incredible value for Talkswitch owners!

Works Like a Key System or PBX
The Talkswitch from day one has worked as a PBX, abstracting users from the concept of picking lines. We believe PBXs are generally more usable than key systems where users pick lines. However in some environments or just users who are accustomed to key systems, its a hard change. Now with the new 5.0 software and Talkswitch 9133i or 480i phones you can get key system or PBX functionality!

Multi-Language Prompts
North America is an increasingly diverse area, many US companies need to offer Spanish to their customers and many Canadian companies need to offer French. Talkswitch 5.0 now supports multi-language prompts and includes the English, Spanish, and French language packs.

Remote IP Extensions
This is a feature I’m extremely excited about, being able to have an IP phone anywhere and be able to make and receive calls from my phone system. This is particularly nice for traveling staff to avoid hotel phone fees or just teleworkers at home. As always managing bandwidth is important, however my initial testing has shown the call quality to be very good.

New IP Phones
While Talkswitch has long supported 3rd party IP phones, now they’re introducing three of their own branded ones. These have greater functionality, easier setup, and lower cost than the Polycom phones commonly used previously. IP phones greatly reduce setup time due to normally requiring no wiring changes for most businesses and eliminate the need for a telecom tech to come out when moving extensions around.

All in all these are great upgrades which I believe keep Talkswitch in the lead not only for functionality but also total cost of ownership.

This client’s dislike of hosting Exchange in house was justified - his previous consultant had sold them an overpriced glorified desktop with Windows Small Business Server, no backup system, ineffective antispam, and the server resided under their reception desk.

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We decided the Talkswitch 484vs was perfect for their needs. They had four phone lines already, we added three VoIP lines to handle their long distance calling. Talkswitch has a feature called “Automatic Route Selection” (aka ARS or LCR - Least Cost Routing) which enables the Talkswitch to automatically route outbound long distance calls to VoIP but keep local calls on the traditional phone lines.

The combination of VoIP and Remote Extensions allowed us to transfer callers to the out of state partners without any long distance charges.

By keeping the inbound and local calls on traditional phone lines and only using VoIP for long distance we ensured ample bandwidth was still available and call quality remained top notch.

In the end, not only did they get greater functionality, but by reducing their long distance costs their ROI on the Talkswitch will be less than two years!

Understandably many small businesses are looking for alternatives. OpenOffice (free, open source) is the leading alternative and is quite suitable for many businesses…but lacks a product like Outlook.

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“I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won’t bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain’t cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!”

Surprisingly, even a year after its release, Vista should be avoided like two day old sushi.

Vista Service Pack 1
On the bright side, Vista may be getting better - Microsoft has been releasing details and a schedule for Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). The expected release is Q1 08, beta (test) versions available soon. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like there will be fixes to the many user interface design flaws, but performance and compatibility should improve.

iPod and iPhone Update
Just yesterday Apple made some huge announcements regarding the iPod line. The iPod Nano and iPod Classic have an improved interface and increased storage. The big new thing is the iPod Touch - essentially an iPhone without the Phone. iPod Touch has the same 3.5″ widescreen, WiFi, and of course plays music and movies. I’m definitely looking forward to getting the new iPod Touch in for testing!

The 4GB iPhone is now gone, the 8GB iPhone is now just $399. Those who bought the iPhone previously are being given an $100 apple store credit, details will be at Apple.com soon.

The New iMac
On the Mac side of things, Apple recently released the new iMac to glowing reviews. Both PC Magazine and CNet recently gave it Editor’s Choice awards, CNet even said “we can think of very few reasons not to make an iMac your next desktop.” I’d definitely agree for home and student use - the iMac is the way to go.

But upon dropping off the drive he discovered the “local” offices are largely just dropoff points - they ship most drives to california anyway! He paid extra to have a local tech work on it, but when he gave up later that day, they sent it to california without notifying the client. More than a week went by and they claimed the drive was “difficult” and data recovery was basically impossible, the client demanded the drive back.

This time I got to take the drive to Ontrack. What I didn’t know was for functioning drives Ontrack has Remote Data Recovery (RDR) where they can recover a drive over the internet! What ADR said was impossible, Ontrack had done in TWO DAYS!

Without a doubt Ontrack is the right choice for data recovery and with local Ontrack Partners like us, you can still get local support.

1) Latency/Hops - I recently had a client upgrade to a Speakeasy T1 (not my pick) from DSL to improve VoIP call quality. However when running ping tests we still were often seeing ~100ms pings to 4.2.2.2.

2) Dropped packets - A client was recently complaining of slow RDC performance over their VPN, turns out about 33% of their packets on their Telwest/Eschelon T1 were being dropped!

3) Support - people buy T1s for reliability and performance, so its important that on the rare times it doesn’t work that someone is there is get it back online quickly. Not all 24/7 support is as useful as one would like - just because someone is picking up calls on the weekend doesn’t mean anyone is fixing problems. There’s a big difference in service between a facilities based carrier who controls their own equipment and a T1 provider who resells other’s service.

The quality of a T1 carrier’s network, support, and general policies are greatly variable and will affect your experience. Don’t just pick the cheapest provider, it will makes a difference.

What is VoIP?
VoIP or internet telephony refers to using the network/internet for phone communications instead of traditional phone lines, T1 trunks, etc. VoIP generally manifests itself three different ways:

1) VoIP phone lines - this replaces the analog phone lines from your local carrier - you still plug into the same jack but the call is sent across the internet. Costs vary but they often have unlimited long distance packages which make them very attractive.

2) VoIP between devices - VoIP doesn’t have to go out across the internet but instead can stay within your business network. A common example is you can have a phone system which connects to traditional telecommunications service but uses VoIP across your LAN to each desk phone. VoIP here lends greater flexibility and less wiring hassle.

3) Hosted VoIP phone systems - instead of buying an “expensive” phone system, you pay for it as a monthly service. The appeal is they seem easy to setup and maintain, often include unlimited long distance, they have impressive feature sets, and no big up front equipment cost.

Should you VoIP?
There’s no one answer for all businesses, however there’s a few simple ways to know. We believe it all comes down to cost - what really will cost less over the years to come. For example buying an advanced phone system might cost $6000 up front and $250/mo for phone and internet service, while you might pay $750/mo for a hosted VoIP system with a T1. Its not hard to see that while no one likes to spend thousands up front, in a couple years buying the equipment really costs less.

On the flip side is long distance use - VoIP often offers unlimited long distance but at a cost per extension while traditional phone service you buy plans or pay per minute. This takes a bit of math - take the VoIP monthly cost and subtract the traditional phone/internet monthly cost, multiply this by 36 (for a 3 year cost comparison) and subtract the cost of the phone system for example in the example above this is (750-250)*36-6000 = $12000. In other terms over three years the traditional system costs $12000 less - not including long distance. $12,000 is $333 per month, so if your long distance bill is more than $333 VoIP could be worthwhile.

The Technical Side
While one of the appeals of VoIP is the simplicity of setup, on the flip side there is a huge complexity to ensuring call quality is good. Remember VoIP uses the same network/internet as your computers, VPN, servers, etc - all these devices have to complete for their share of the internet access. Without sufficient internet performance and network equipment people’s phone calls will get jittery when too many people are accessing the internet! Even with all that its not uncommon for VoIP calls to sound hollow or have an echo - the more lines the worse it gets.

Hybrids
One thing to keep in mind is you don’t have to pick just VoIP or traditional phones - there are some hybrid phone systems which can do both. The reality is VoIP lines really are only advantageous for long distance calling, there is no advantage for inbound or local calls. By using traditional phone lines for inbound and local calls and having a phone system like the Talkswitch which automatically routes long distance over VoIP you can get the best of both worlds!

1) Groupware flexibility - Microsoft Exchange only supports Outlook and Entourage for groupware (email, calendaring, etc). With NitixBlue Outlook users can continue to use Outlook and won’t notice the difference - and there is cross platform support by using the bundled Notes for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

2) Webmail for everyone - Microsoft’s Exchange webmail works great…on Internet Explorer 6 for Windows. NitixBlue’s webmail works not just on Internet Explorer but Mozilla’s Firefox - which is free and runs on every major platform.

3) Security - NitixBlue is secure out of the box, unlike Windows Small Business Server. Company emails can be encrypted with no additional setup, all email server communication is encrypted, every message can be logged, and antivirus and antispam come ready out of the box.

4) Backup - anyone who’s ever had an Exchange Server crash will tell you its a painful system to recover from backup. Unlike Windows Small Business Server, NitixBlue comes out of the box with a fully equipped backup hardware/software solution. Furthermore NitixBlue’s backup can take snapshots of your email system as often as every hour - narrowing the window of data loss. Furthermore NitixBlue’s recovery is fast - we average two hours for a “bare metal” recovery.

5) Less maintenance - ever seem like your Exchange server needs an expert babysitter? NitixBlue is smart enough to self-manage most tasks and delivers only the options small businesses need - most of our clients actually handle adding and changing users themselves!

Reviews

One of the hardest things to know about technology is how it will hold up and be supported over the years. I’d like to share two of my favorite resources - PC Magazine’s Reader Survey and Epinions. PC Magazine each year compiles information about brand satisfaction by product type (printers, desktops, cameras, etc), support quality, repair rates, etc. Some of the results will surprise you - for example Brother’s black and white lasers repair rate is 1/4 of HPs! http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,1626131,00.asp

Epinions is a user driven review site, reviews are overwhelmingly useful and the review quality is well controlled. Epinions has reviews of almost anything - computers, electronics, household items, books, and more.

http://www.epinions.com/

Vista No More Secure

CRN’s recent testing found that Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk of viruses and exploits - even though Vista was supposed to be more secure. We’re still trying to find what Vista is actually better at - in the meantime I can’t keep reminding people enough that Vista isn’t ready for business use and has seemingly no advantages over Windows XP.

http://crn.com/software/199701019

Mozy for Mac!

One of my favorite online backup services is now Mac compatible! This is great news as the Mac has been short on online backup options. Mozy for personal use is free for 2GB of storage and $5/month for unlimited storage (Mozy Pro, the business version, isn’t out on Mac yet) - so there is no excuse for not backing up! Don’t forget though unlimited storage is limited by your internet connection’s upload speed - backing up tens of gigabytes will take days if not longer.

https://mozy.com/mozy/macmozy

Free Voicemail Special

I’m sure everyone who’s called in lately has heard our new phone system, Talkswitch. This month we have a great special on the 240vs Talkswitch system - a free one hour voicemail upgrade ($100 value)! The 240vs handles two inbound lines, four local extensions, ten remote extensions (cell phones), and with the upgrade has 1.5 hours of voicemail all for just $695!

Tech Word of the Month - Whitelisting

With SPAM continuing to come in at high levels, most companies have tightened junk email filters to keep inboxes clean. Inevitably some “false positives” will occur where legit email gets filtered out. Any filter should give you a regular digest of filtered email or show you a separate spam box, however to prevent recurring false positives whitelisting can help. Whitelisting is a feature every spam filter I’ve seen has, simply saying to always allow specific emails/domains through (the opposite of a blacklist).

A few tips to prevent your email from being filtered out:

1) Don’t use free email sites or ISP emails (aol, hotmail, etc)

2) Don’t use excessive capitalization, punctuation, etc

3) Put in a subject line and message body in every email