3CX Phone System v5.1 makes integration of remote workers and branch offices easy

3CX’s innovative tunnel makes firewall configuration for remote extensions using VoIP a breeze

London, UK - 20 February 08 – 3CX has announced the release of version 5.1 of 3CX Phone System for Windows. The latest version of the award-winning IP PBX has an integrated 3CX Tunnel which simplifies firewall configuration by channeling all VoIP traffic over a single port; making it easy for remote workers to connect to their company’s PBX and for Network Managers to connect different remote PBX systems between them. Traditionally, firewall configuration for remote SIP / VoIP systems and/or extensions can represent a challenge, because it requires many open ports.

Nick Galea, CEO at 3CX said: “We know how important it is for businesses nowadays to have remote workers and branches seamlessly integrated to their company’s phone system, and the addition of the 3CX Tunnel to 3CX Phone System for Windows facilitates this process.

“The 3CX Tunnel, unlike other similar tunneling protocols, is not proprietary and can be used with popular VoIP softphones and hard phones. This is ideal for businesses, as they can use a variety of telephone options with their IP PBX depending on their needs and budget.”

Key advantages of the 3CX Tunnel:

• Easy firewall configuration – choose any port (ie. port 80) for seamless networking
• Remote workers do not need to edit the firewall configuration to be able to connect to the IP PBX from any location (ie. home, hotels, conference centers, airports, etc.)
• Mobility, productivity and cost-saving advantages for businesses from the integration of remote workers and branches to the company’s phone system

3CX Phone System for Windows allows businesses to completely break free from the restrictions of hardware-based, proprietary phone systems. Built on the open SIP standard, 3CX IP PBX interoperates with all popular SIP phones, VoIP Gateways and VoIP providers.

Main advantages of adopting 3CX Phone System for Windows:

• Increases mobility – allows remote workers to be seamlessly integrated to the company’s phone system
• Eliminates expensive telephone tag by using the inbuilt Presence feature
• Simpler phone system administration via a web-based configuration
• Vendor independent – significant cost savings by choosing VoIP provider and SIP equipment of choice
• Delivers unified communications technology by merging voice and data networks, allowing businesses to simplify real time delivery of information.

Four available editions: Small Business, Pro, Enterprise and Free

3CX Phone System for Windows is available in four editions: Free, Small Business, Pro and Enterprise, all supporting an unlimited number of extensions. The Free edition is limited to 8 simultaneous calls, whereas the Small Business edition supports up to 8, the Pro version up to 16 and the Enterprise edition supports up to 32 simultaneous calls. Call capacity can be expanded with upgrade packs. A detailed edition comparison table can be found on http://www.3cx.com/phonesystem/edition-comparison.html

3CX Phone System Free edition

A Free edition, supporting an unlimited number of extensions, is also available. The Free edition can be downloaded from http://www.3cx.com/phone-system/download-phone-system.html.

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About 3CX

3CX is an international developer of telecommunications software, headquartered in Europe with offices in Cyprus, USA, UK and Hong Kong. It is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and is backed by an experienced management and development team. Its product, 3CX Phone System for Windows, developed specifically for the SMB market, has earned Windows Server 2003 Certification and has received numerous awards, including the TMC Labs 2007 Innovation Award, The Windowsnetworking.com Gold Award, as well as, the IT EXPO Best of Show award 2007 and the INTERNET Telephony Magazine Product of the Year Award, all in recognition to the company’s commitment to innovation and quality. 3CX maintains a global presence with offices in four countries and localized information available in many languages.

Useful Links:

3CX website - www.3cx.com
3CX Case Studies & Testimonials - http://www.3cx.com/clients/index.html
IP PBX, SIP & VOIP FAQ - http://www.3cx.com/PBX/SIP-faq.html
Nick Galea’s blog - www.nickonit.com

VoIP vulnerabilities increasing, but not exploits

The threats against VoIP are numerous and seem to be growing, but in 2008 the technology probably won't suffer crippling attacks.

The potential danger is very real. VoIP is susceptible to the many exploits that networks generally are heir to -- denial of service, buffer overflows and more. VoIP PBXs are servers on corporate networks and are only as secure as the networks themselves.

Read more about this here.

3CX Receives INTERNET TELEPHONY® Magazine’s 10th Annual Product of the Year Award

3CX Phone System for Windows Recognized for Outstanding Innovation

London, UK – 9 January 2008 - 3CX announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine (www.itmag.com) has named 3CX Phone System for Windows as a recipient of its 2007 Product of the Year Award. INTERNET TELEPHONY has been the VoIP Authority Since 1998™.

3CX Phone System for Windows is a software-based IP PBX that replaces traditional proprietary hardware PBX. It is entirely SIP-standard based, and therefore interoperates with most popular SIP phones, SIP VoIP Gateways and SIP VoIP providers. It helps businesses give employees mobility, rids them of costly telephone tag and reduces administration and training time by IT staff.

“We are honored to receive this award from TMC’s INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine as the publication is a prestigious VOIP authority. Being recognized by editors from such an important magazine confirms our commitment to delivering an innovative and high quality product,” said Nick Galea, CEO 3CX.

“3CX has proven they are committed to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace. INTERNET TELEPHONY is pleased to grant a 2007 Product of the Year Award to 3CX Phone System for Windows”, said Rich Tehrani, TMC President and Editor-in-Chief of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. We’re proud to honor their hard work and accomplishments and look forward to more innovative solutions from 3CX in the future.”

A full list of Product of the Year winners will be published in the February, 2008 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. (www.itmag.com)

For more information about TMC, please visit www.tmcnet.com.

About 3CX

3CX is an international developer of telecommunications software, headquartered in Europe with offices in Cyprus, USA, UK and Hong Kong. It is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and is backed by an experienced management and development team. The company is focused on the Windows IP PBX market with its innovative and award-winning 3CX Phone System for Windows, which has been developed for the SMB market. For additional information on 3CX please visit www.3cx.com.

About INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine

INTERNET TELEPHONY has been the VoIP Authority since 1998™. Since the first issue in February of 1998, INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has been providing unbiased views of the complicated converged communications space. INTERNET TELEPHONY offers rich content from solutions-focused editorial content to reviews on products and services from TMC Labs. INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has a circulation of 225,000 including pass-along readers. For more information, please visit www.itmag.com.

About TMC

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) publishes Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Unified Communications, and IMS Magazine. TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. Ranked in the top 6,000 most visited Web sites in the world by alexa.com*, TMCnet serves as many as three million unique visitors each month. TMC is also the first publisher to test new products in its own on-site laboratories, TMC Labs. In addition, TMC produces INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO, and Call Center 2.0 Conference. For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com. (*alexa.com is an amazon.com company that ranks Web sites by their traffic levels. Neither alexa.com nor amazon.com is affiliated with TMCnet.) For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com.

Top 20 VoIP Influencers for 2007

Owen Linderholm on January 2, 2008

As anyone who follows a communication industry knows, everything is changing all the time. But that is particularly true for VoIP and Internet telephony, especially now that the transition from VoIP-as-telephone-replacement to VoIP-as-enabler-of-business-processes is finally underway.

So here, in no particular order, are the people VoIP-News thinks are responsible for the most change in 2007 — either those who caused the most change directly or those who are influencing change in all kinds of ways — including changes that may not be felt in the market for years.

1. Jeff Pulver: In many ways, Jeff Pulver is responsible for the huge growth and success of VoIP, and every time someone thinks that he is retiring or becoming less of an influence, back he comes for more. Suffice it to say that founding VON; brokering deals; and turning his attention to applications, Internet video and many other projects are all keeping him a primary VoIP influencer.
2. Thomas Howe: Thomas Howe is less well known than most on this list, but what he's doing is highly significant. He is at the forefront of implementing the kind of change in businesses that VoIP is enabling. Rather than focusing on the technology side, like so many others in VoIP, he focuses on the business and how to effectively use technology. For example, the new way UPS Inc. uses business systems and VoIP — to see if you are going to be home if a package must be signed for — is all thanks to Thomas Howe.

To read the rest of the influencers, check here.

Meet us at INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & EXPO East 2008 in Miami

3CX to Feature Latest Version of its Phone System for Windows at INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & EXPO East 2008 in Miami

Miami, Florida — 20 December 2007 — 3CX today announced it will have the latest version of its IP PBX for Windows, 3CX Phone System, on display at TMC’s INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & EXPO East 2008 (booth #327), from January 23 to 25, 2008 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida (www.itexpo.com).

INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO is the world’s largest and best-attended IP Communications trade show. Last year’s East coast event, held in South Florida in January, drew over 7,000 buyers and sellers of IP Communications products and services. The upcoming show in January will be the 17th INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO, and TMC projects total attendance to exceed 7,500.

“3CX participation at INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & EXPO exemplifies why this show is widely recognized as the #1 venue where service providers, enterprises, government agencies, developers and resellers gather to learn about the benefits inherent in IP Communications products and services,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC President. “The evolution in this industry has been monumental and it still continues to grow. We are proud to have 3CX and 3CX Phone System for Windows as a key part of this year’s program.”

3CX Phone System for Windows is an award-winning software-based IP PBX that replaces traditional proprietary hardware PBX. It is entirely SIP-standard based, and therefore interoperates with most popular SIP phones, SIP VoIP Gateways and SIP VoIP providers. It frees businesses from the shackle of hardware-based proprietary phone systems and is very easy to manage by system administrators as it integrates well with Windows Network infrastructure.

3CX Phone System for Windows won a “Best of Show” Award at Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC®)’s INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West 2007, which took place in September 2007.

“We are excited to be participating as exhibitors at INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & EXPO as this is a great opportunity for us to promote our innovative product. We have just launched version 5 of 3CX Phone System for Windows with a set of features that help businesses give employees mobility, rids them of costly telephone tag and reduces administration and training time by IT staff. We look forward to meeting the key players in the industry who will attend the event and to promoting our product to them,” said Nick Galea, CEO 3CX.

Registration for the show is now open. Anyone interested may register by visiting www.itexpo.com.

About 3CX

3CX is an international developer of telecommunications software, headquartered in Europe with offices in Cyprus, USA, UK and Hong Kong. It is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and is backed by an experienced management and development team. The company is focused on the Windows IP PBX market with its innovative 3CX Phone System for Windows, which has been developed specifically for the SMB market. For additional information on 3CX please visit www.3cx.com.

About TMC®

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) publishes four print publications: Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, SIP Magazine and IMS Magazine. TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. Ranked in the top 1,600 sites in the world by alexa.com*, TMCnet serves more than one million unique visitors each month. TMC is also the first publisher to test new products in its own on-site laboratories, TMC Labs. In addition, TMC produces INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO, Communications Developer Conference, VoIP Demo, IMS Expo and Call Center 2.0 Conference. TMCnet.com publishes more than 15 topical online newsletters. For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com. (*alexa.com is an Amazon.com company that ranks Web sites by their traffic levels. Neither alexa.com nor amazon.com is affiliated with TMCnet.)

3CX Proves That Soft Is Better Than Hard - When It Comes To Phone Systems

3CX’s software-based phone system frees businesses from proprietary hardware with an easy to install, manage and use SIP-based IP PBX

London, UK - 05/12/07 – 3CX has announced the release of version 5 of 3CX Phone System for Windows; the newest version of their award-winning software-based VOIP PBX for Windows which helps businesses give employees mobility, rids them of costly phone tag and reduces administration and training time by IT staff.

3CX Phone System allows businesses to completely break free from the shackle of hardware-based, proprietary phone systems. Built on the open SIP standard, 3CX Phone System interoperates with all popular SIP phones, VOIP Gateways and VOIP providers.

Nick Galea, CEO at 3CX said, “We are excited to deliver version 5 of 3CX Phone System at a time when the market is realizing that proprietary, hardware-based PBXs are becoming obsolete. 3CX IP PBX is a modern software based PBX that evolves the communication of businesses to the 21st century, by delivering mobility, productivity and cost-saving advantages”.

Key advantages of adopting 3CX Phone System:

• Increases mobility – allows remote workers and tele-workers to be seamlessly integrated to the company’s phone system
• Eliminates expensive telephone tag using the inbuilt Presence feature
• Easier phone system administration via a web-based configuration
• Vendor independent – significant cost savings by choosing VOIP provider and SIP equipment of choice

“The feedback we have received from clients following the successful deployment of our previous versions in thousands of sites is very positive, and I feel confident that with all the great new features that we have incorporated in this new version, our product will help SMBs get even more advantages out of the migration to a software based PBX in a cost-effective and innovative way”, added Nick Galea.

Key new features of 3CX Phone System v5:

• Call recording – easily record calls for monitoring purposes
• Phone provisioning – set-up new extensions automatically
• Firewall friendly VOIP client with included mini VPN – ideal for remote users
• Integrated fax server
• G729 codec support
• 3CX bridges for branch offices
• SIP Trunking support

And many other features that make 3CX Phone System easy to install, configure, manage and use; allowing employees to increase mobility and productivity.

Four available editions: Small Business, Pro, Enterprise and Free
3CX Phone System for Windows is available in four editions, all supporting an unlimited number of extensions: The Small Business edition supports up to 8, the Pro edition up to 16 and the Enterprise edition up to 32 simultaneous calls. Pricing is very competitive: Small Business costs €375, the Pro runs at €795 and Enterprise costs €1150.

3CX Phone System Free edition
A Free edition, supporting an unlimited number of extensions, is also available. The main differences with the commercial editions are that it is not possible to buy a support package for the Free edition, it does not offer fax, call queuing, Exchange 2007 support, call pick up and call parking, MWI, presence (to check extension status of other users), remote configuration of extension options, G729 codec support, 3CX Bridges (to connect remote branch offices) and call recording. Not withstanding, the Free edition does more than most commercial PBXs do; it includes an auto attendant and Unified Messaging. The Free edition can be downloaded from http://www.3cx.com/phone-system/download-phone-system.html.

About 3CX
3CX is an international developer of telecommunications software, headquartered in Europe with offices in Cyprus, USA, UK and Hong Kong. It is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and is backed by an experienced management and development team. Its product, 3CX Phone System for Windows, developed specifically for the SMB market, has earned Windows Server 2003 Certification and has received numerous awards, including the TMC Labs 2007 Innovation Award, The Windowsnetworking.com Gold Award, as well as, the IT EXPO Best of Show award 2007, all in recognition to the company’s commitment to innovation and quality. 3CX maintains a global presence with offices in four countries and localized information available in German (http://www.3cx.de), Swedish (http://www.3cx.se), Norwegian (http://www.3cx.no), Finnish (http://www.3cx.fi), Dutch (http://www.3cx.nl), Spanish (http://www.3cx.es), French (http://www.3cx.fr), Italian (http://www.3cx.it), Portuguese (http://www.3cx.com.br), Japanese (http://www.3cx.jp), Simplified Chinese (http://www.3cx.cn) and many other languages. 3CX keeps a comprehensive IP PBX, SIP and VOIP FAQ on its website covering all the most common questions on the topic.

Useful Links:
3CX website: http://www.3cx.com
3CX Case Studies & Testimonials - http://www.3cx.com/clients/index.html
3CX Phone System Free, Small Business, Pro and Enterprise editions comparison table - http://www.3cx.com/phone-system/edition-comparison.html
IP PBX, SIP & VOIP FAQ - http://www.3cx.com/PBX/SIP-faq.html
Nick Galea’s blog – http://www.nickonit.com

VOIP to Be Used for Emergency Notifications

Organizations look to unified communications for efficiency and emergency preparedness:

"It's just another way of trying to get a message out to students. When something bad happens like the Virginia Tech [shooting], you have to try to get to students any way you can," said Steve Stempien, director of information services at Adrian College.

The technology also has more prosaic, albeit important, uses. Admissions counselors at the college intend to use the new Mobile Call Manager as a way to "stay in communication with prospective students," said Stempien.

This and other functionalities are part of a package that ShoreTel is introducing Nov. 12 as it tries to jump on the unified communications bandwagon.

Read the article here.