Friday, March 23, 2007

Initiate Systems CTO to Deliver Keynote at CDI-MDM Summit Spring 2007

CHICAGO --(Business Wire)-- Initiate Systems, Inc., the leading provider of customer-centric master data management solutions for creating complete, real-time views of data about people, households, and organizations, today announced that Initiate Systems CTO, Marty Moseley, will present "Strategic Customer Management - Using Customer Data to Create Value" as a keynote address at the CDI-MDM Summit Spring 2007 in San Francisco. Initiate Systems customers Microsoft, Intuit and Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML) will also present success scenarios that include the deployment of Initiate Identity Hub(TM) software.

To read more on this article go to: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/03/23/2438924.htm

For more information on Initiate Systems, visit www.initiatesystems.com.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

100,000 free phone systems up for grabs

3CX to offer a fully featured IP PBX for Windows with no time outs or limitations

Nicosia, Cyprus – 21, March 2007 – 3CX a developer of a software-based IP PBX for Windows,today announced that it will give away 100,000 free phone systems. Companies are encouraged to take advantage of this offer to experience first handedly the benefits of an IP PBX when compared with traditional proprietary hardware PBX.

3CX Phone System is a complete software-based office phone system that replaces a traditional hardware PBX. It liberates companies from cumbersome phone wiring and solves the management headaches associated with proprietary PBXs. Since 3CX Phone System is based on the open SIP standard it works with any SIP-based VOIP provider, VOIP gateway, phone, SIP trunking, SIP server and SIP phones. The product integrates easily with most business networks because it runs on Windows - no Linux experience required.

"IP PBX technology includes advanced communication features but also provides a significant dose of worry-free scalability and robustness that all enterprises seek. Our free phone system offer allows companies to familiarize themselves with the technology and to see for themselves that upgrading to an IP PBX, should be the obvious choice for any company," said Nick Galea, CEO 3CX.

3CX Phone System for Windows key features

  • No need for separate phone wiring – phones use computer network
  • Easier to install & manage via web-based configuration interface
  • A software-based office phone system is far less expensive than a hardware-based PBX / PABX
  • Employees can move offices without requiring any changes in the wiring or IP PBX configuration
  • Choose from the many SIP based hardware phones instead of getting locked in with one vendor
  • Receive & Make calls via the standard PSTN using VOIP Gateways
  • Save on call costs using any SIP VOIP service or WAN.

Obtaining the free edition

The offer is available from: http://www.3cx.com/ip-pbx/index.html. The FREE edition is a fully featured free IP PBX, has no time outs, and is supported via the 3CX forums. For more information, take the product tour at http://www.3cx.com/phone-system/product-tour.html.

About 3CX

3CX is a privately held company with a management team backed by years of experience in developing and selling network infrastructure software. It maintains a global presence with localized information available in German (http://www.3cx.de/), Spanish (http://www.3cx.es/), French (http://www.3cx.fr/), Portuguese (http://www.3cx.com.br/), Japanese (http://www.3cx.jp/), Traditional Chinese (http://www.3cx.hk/), Simplified Chinese (http://www.3cx.cn/), Vietnamese (http://www.3cx.vn/) and Korean (http://www.3cx.co.kr/). Furthermore a localized website is maintained for all major countries: http://www.3cx.it/, http://www.3cx.nl/, http://www.3cx.ru/, http://www.3cx.pl/, http://www.3cx.ae/, http://www.3cx.gr/, http://www.3cx.cz/, http://www.3cx.dk/, http://www.3cx.fi/, http://www.3cx.hu/, http://www.3cx.jp/, http://www.3cx.com.tr/, http://www.3cx.no/, http://www.3cx.ro/, http://www.3cx.com.my/ and http://www.3cx.se/.

For more information contact Tamara Borg (tamara@3cx.com)

3CX Ltd.

Block A, Office 101

Engomi Business Center

1, 28th October Street

2414 Nicosia, Cyprus

Tel: +357 22444032

Fax: +357 22444033

Website: http://www.3cx.com/.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Here you can find FAQs in Czech, a great SIP FAQ in Russian and in Italian.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Microsoft's Office Communicator Blows Away IP Phones

It makes you wonder what Microsoft would have done if the results weren't so favorable. A study the software ­­­­­giant commissioned showed that its desktop VoIP products provide better voice quality than industry standard IP desk phones. Because a reputable independent testing firm named Psytechnics did the study, the results are not in doubt. They do raise an interesting question, though: how competitors will go about countering the study's potentially devastating conclusions. The tests used Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 soft phone, which Business Division president Jeff Raikes announced yesterday would be released in beta later this month. The tests came in subjective and objective flavors. In the subjective portion, 32 individuals made calls under a variety of controlled conditions. They used American and British English, and spoke with and without background noise. The calls traveled over six types of network connections that simulated real-world conditions, in terms of factors like packet loss and jitter, that are typical with global wide area networks. Testers then rated the quality of the calls on a scale of one through five, representing poor through excellent. The objective portion used algorithms that reproduce the results of human testers with 95 percent accuracy, but don't get tired as quickly, to perform tests in larger volumes. The combined tests are typical analyses under the ITU G.1050 standard for evaluating multimedia transmission performance over IP networks. The outcome surprised the testers, according to Benjamin Ellis, VP of marketing and product management at Psytechnics. "We were kind of blown away by the results," he says. "To see that desktop software-based telephony outperformed an industry standard IP phone is actually quite a takeaway." The takeaway should be particularly useful to enterprise telephony managers, who Ellis says are intensely interested in both the potential benefits and the risks of replacing desktop phones with soft phones. "Obviously desktop phones can be comparatively costly, and inflexible compared to deploying on a PC," he notes. "But when you're talking about voice, a really big recurrent issue for people is voice quality. People have expectations around the quality of a phone call. And if you deploy a voice system that doesn't meet those, you've got a major issue on your hands."To Ellis, the matter is all but settled. "For the people battling with the question of 'Can I get as good a quality from my software based telephony from a PC compared to a desk phone,' the answer is yes," he asserts. "Not only can it be as good as a desktop phone, but it can actually be better if you're using the right software." That might not sit well with Cisco, whose 7961 model IP phone, working in conjunction with a standalone CallManager setup, served as the tests' basis for comparison. "The reason for the Cisco phone being in there is that you really have to compare [the soft phone] relative to something, so we picked a fairly industry standard IP phone that an enterprise might typically use, so it gives people a feeling of what it's like relative to a desktop phone." Of course, if Cisco isn't happy, there's a simple solution: commission its own tests using products it's sure will win the comparison. Either way, Psytechnics comes out a winner.

http://www.voip-news.com/feature/microsoft-voip-high-grade-030807/