With worker mobility becoming a mushrooming problem to deal with for more companies, IP desktop phone provider snom technology is looking to make it easier to provision a business' cell phone fleet.

The company has launched One IP PBX, adding mobility capabilities that extend standard IP PBX calling features to employee's mobile devices, and introducing new management and security features. One IP PBX enables users to integrate mobile phones into an organization's internal telephony platform, which, snom said, should help make the mobile workforce more producticve.

Snom One IP PBX allows cell phones to act as integrated extensions, incorporating call transfers, conferencing, internal extension dialing and other features. It also now supports mobile SIP clients and has had its web-based interface enhanced to make administering the system easier.

The snom One is optimized for all snom phones and provides WAN-based authentication for plug and play with snom 7xx and snom 8xx series phones. It's available as virtual appliances for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V via a .vhd file, and can be updated via the web interface.

The snom One is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac environments and is equipped with web security through HTTPS and call security through TLS and SRTP. snom ONE supports mixed IPv4/IPv6 LAN and WAN environments and comes with an automatic blacklisting feature that makes it possible to expose public IP addresses.

For more:
- see this release

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Snom launches its first IP PBX: snom ONE

When a company makes IP desk phones, they are reliant on partners or just customer preference when it comes to what kind of IP-PBX their phones will one day hook up to. snom is a well known maker of IP phones with lots of interoperability with major industry players, but today they've taking things a step further. They've launched their first IP PBX!

The snom ONE is a new family of IP PBX systems that run on standard servers offering a simple and affordable system that hooks up easily to companies' favorite snom IP desk and wireless DECT phones. The snom ONE comes in three versions: snom ONE free--a downloadable version with up to 10 extension; the snom ONE yellow for up to 20 extensions; and snom ONE blue, which features an unlimited number of extensions and multi-tenant capabilities up to five companies.

All of the ONE versions have a full feature set including conference rooms, paging, auto attendant, mailbox, hunt and ACD groups. Available now, the blue version's multi-tenant capability means up to five companies can share a single IP PBX.

For more:
- read the release

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The big moves continue. While Google Voice calls are still not available to that company's Apps business customers, Skype has taken the beta tag off of their Skype Connect business VoIP offering.

What does it mean? Well, according to the company, Skype Connect has over 2,400 global customers so far and it's certified for products from Avaya, Cisco, SIPfoundry, ShoreTel and other OEM. New business customers can use Skype Connect with their existing PBX and UC systems to make outbound calls from desktop phones to landlines and mobiles worldwide at Skype's discounted long distance rates and receive calls from landlines or mobile phones in the corporate PBX using Skype's online numbers purchased separately. They can also receive inbound calls from Skype connected users worldwide with Skype's Click & Call buttons placed on company website and manage Skype calls using their existing PBX or UC systems' features such as call routing, automatic call distribution, conferencing, auto-attendant, voicemail, call recording and logging.

With the latest acquisition rumors, the IPO imminent, and the competition heating up, it will be interesting to see how the SMB world takes to Skype's offering.

For more:
- read the company blog post
- read GigaOm's commentary

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LG-Ericsson has decided to make some moves into the U.S., announcing today that they would be offering a end-to-end and voice networking solutions targeting small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) up to large enterprises.

The U.S. offering is a joint venture of Korea-based LG-Ericsson, a provider of telecommunication solutions, and Taiwan-based Accton Technology Corporation, a global provider of voice and data networking solutions. With this combined portfolio, the U.S. company will provide a suite of IP PBX systems and a full complement of business-class digital, IP, WiFi, SIP, soft phones, and multimedia terminals, as well as a host of fully-managed and unmanaged switches with a Network Management Services and Unified Device Manager platform.

For more:
- read the FierceTelecom story
- read the release

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If interoperability is the name of the game these days, snom's full suite for IP desk phones just got more points.

The complete line of IP desktop phones from snom have passed a group of interoperability tests with Zultys' IP-PBX and unified communications (UC) system maker. The snom desktops have been certified as fully interoperable with Zultys' MX250 and MX30 IP-PBX platforms. Both snom and Zultys' systems are founded on global SIP open standards which means customers will have a lot of possibilities when they choose this setup.

"Like snom, Zultys has built its product suite on the promise of interoperability in SIP environments," said Dr. Michael Knieling, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales for snom technology AG in a release. "This premise has seen the company gain a strong following on an international level, particularly in North America and Europe. We think Zultys provides our customers and resellers a great IP-PBX option."

Zultys' MX20 and MX30  are all-in-one servers that pack many features into a single appliance to eliminate the need for additional external servers to support fax, call recording, visual voice mail, ICC, ACD, and other critical services that come standard on all Zultys IP-PBX products.

For more:
- read the release

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Looks like another VoIP provider has pulled in some more cash this week. Vocalocity, provider of hosted PBX VoIP services and infrastructure applications to small businesses has closed a third round of financing.

The company has raised $3.45 million according to a regulatory filing. This is the third in a line of fundraising rounds with earlier rounds bringing in $4.1 million in January 2009 and $89 million in 2007. According to TechJournalSouth, investors in this current round include Noro-Moseley Partners, TechOperators, Pittco Capital Partners, Imlay Partners and members of the company's management team.

Vocalocity focuses on small businesses with 50 customers or less. They own their own VoIP technology, meaning that when a customer calls customer service Vocalocity can handle all of their needs where some other companies might need outside technicians to service third-party devices.

For more:
- read the article

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Small business VoIP provider, Vocalocity, has brought on some new talent. The Atlanta-based company is bringing on Wain Kellum as its new CEO. Kellum comes from location-based services company Omnilink and has over 25 years of experience in technology companies.

Prior to his stint as CEO of Ominlink, Kellum started, grew and sold software development company Extreme Logic which is now a part of Hewlett Packard.

Kellum signaled that in taking this position he could see Vocalocity dive into cloud computing as well. “Vocalocity has a unique and distinct value proposition and there is a tremendous upside in accelerating our business model of bringing VoIP communications to the small business market," said Kellum in a press release. “There is also a nearly unlimited potential in helping small businesses take advantage of additional capabilities of the cloud computing phenomenon by extending our core offerings.”

Vocalocity provides hosted PBX services to small businesses with 50 employees or less and doesn't sell to enterprise or residential customers.

For more:
- read the release

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XO Communications and Panasonic System Networks today revealed that certain Panasonic telephone systems are now certified to work with XO's SIP trunking solution.

The Panasonic NCP and TDE series business phone systems now work with XO SIP making it easier for companies using Panasonic IP-PBX to use SIP to connect to the public phone network. XO's SIP trunking solution uses Session Initiation Protocol signaling and an IP-based facility for managing  traffic between an IP-PBX system, the XO IP network, and the PSTN.

For more:
- see the release
- check out this image of the KX-NT300 Series phone

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Xorcom, an Asterisk based IP PBX provider, and Broadvox, a VoIP solutions provider, announced that their Asterisk-based IP PBX and SIP trunking services respectively have been certified as interoperable.

Xorcom's devices allow communication using both VoIP and legacy telephony while Broadvox's SIP trunking enables the use of bandwidth for voice and data apps while lowering costs. By using SIP they can provide unlimited local calling and reduce the cost of long-distance and international calls. 

For more:
- read this story

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Q&A on hosted vs. premise-based IP PBX offerings

 

Flextronics, Nortel's largest supplier, had objected to the proposed sale of the assets to Nokia Siemens Networks the original stalking horse bidder for the assets, citing concerns that the sale might affect its contractual rights and claims.