SIP Trunking provider Broadvox and unified communications as a service provider Cypress Communications have announced that they are merging. The two companies both offer hosted VoIP services and with the merger, each fulfills a particular target market for the other.

While Broadvox's Go!VBX has traditionally targeted SMBs, Cypress C4 IP solution has mainly targeted the enterprise. By merging, the newly formed company will have one of the largest VoIP footprints with more that 10,000 business customers and even more end users. With the merger, Cypress gets access to Broadvox's VoIP network backbone to direct origination and termination of voice traffic, while Broadvox will expand the use of its network backbone as well as enhance its carrier, SMB and SME offerings with the Cypress Communications' unified communications suite of services.

Since the two target areas don't quite overlap, the companies wanted to assure their respective customers that their services would continue like 'business as usual.' The merger should be finalized in 60-90 days.

For more:
- read the release

Related news:
Samsung and Broadvox announce interoperability
Broadvox and Grandstream launch CPE device with Go! SIP Trunking

Samsung makes VoIP phones, Broadvox offers SIP-based VoIP services. Their customers are the same people, so it makes sense that the two companies would get together to make sure their respective products work flawlessly together.

They've announced that the Samsung OfficeServ^TM 7000 Series Platforms have been certified for interoperability with Broadvox GO! SIP trunking services. The OfficeServ platform works with Samsung VoIP phones and when combined with the Broadvox Go! SIP service, SMBs have a compelling cost saving business VoIP offering to consider.

The interoperability certification process involves rigorous conditions ensuring "real world" system operation. The SIP testing involves over sixty separate elements testing key aspects of call processing, both inbound and outbound.

For more:
- read the release

Related news:
Broadvox sells VoIP lines to Phone Power
Broadvox launches GO!Hosted IP PB

SlashGear goes through the list of mobile VoIP offerings and gives an educated look at what works best. Article

Broadvox has announced the first CPE device to deploy with its Go! SIP Trunking service. Grandstream Networks' new GXV3140 is an IP Multimedia CPE device employing GO! to enable Small to Medium sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises to add video and telepresence throughout their organizations.

Broadvox GO! SIP Trunking gives businesses all the functions that come with SIP and helps them save up to 70 percent a month over their previous TDM systems. The Grandstream GXV3140 IP Multimedia Phone adds video and multiple features to company calls in just one plug-in step. The device incorporates video, a web browser, RSS feeds, IM with Yahoo, MSN, and Google, along with music/video streaming all on the desktop while using SIP trunking for IP communications.

Related news:
Broadvox launches GO!Hosted IP PBX with unique pricing structure
Xorcom, Broadvox Asterisk-based IP PBX and SIP trunking certified interoperable

Broadvox launched their GO!Hosted hosted IP PBX service, which features a simplified pricing structure to make it easier for their partners to sell while saving customers money, at their partners summit this week. The new offering will be sold alongside Broadvox's GO!Anywhere SIP Trunking service and should be out of beta-testing and available to purchase by June 1. Article

VoX Communications is offering a $69.99 a month unlimited voice and data prepaid HTC Touch Pro 2 where its VoIP software is built in so it is native to the device rather than an application running on the device. Users won't be able to tell they are making VoIP calls. Release

Broadvox announced it has sold its entire residential Direct VoIP business to Phone Power, a VoIP service provider based in Los Angeles. Beginning Tuesday, Broadvox customers will be transferred to Phone Power, with the transition scheduled to be completed by early October.

"Broadvox and Phone Power have built a long and productive relationship over the years, and we are excited to welcome these new customers to the Phone Power family," Phone Power CEO Ari Ramezani said in a statement.

The number of lines Phone Power gained in the buy and the financial details were not released. 

For more:
- see the press release at Reuters here 

Related articles
Broadvox collects more phone system SIP interoperability
Toshiba links Strata IP PBX with FMC

InVox, previously known as 800PBX, rolled out a beta test of an IVR solution it said will offer corporate level automated response performance to SMBs. While company CEO Mike Loftus and CTO Manohar Chapalamadugu acknowledged in an interview that the IVR marketplace is crowded, they said the company's focus on making its platform intuitive, cost-effective and easy to use make it the best fit for small businesses that want to appear more professional without incurring great expense.

The system can handle customer inquiries such as meeting requests, ordering and billing, direct dialing, and even complex questionnaires, according to Chapalamadugu. He said InVox's target client would spend about $500 per month and have between 10 and 100 employees.

For more:
- see the Telephony article here 

Related articles
Verizon Business rolls out IP IVR as hosted service
Fonolo targets enterprises with IVR bypass product

In the following Q&A, David Byrd, VP of Marketing and Sales at Broadvox and Eric Thomas, CEO of FreedomVOICE, discuss the different use cases and decision factors businesses should consider when choosing between hosted and premise-based IP PBX offerings. Both have been asked to answer as honestly and objectively as possible. 

Moderator: In both of your experience, why do business owners often have a hard time deciding which system to go with?

Byrd: I think one of the reasons is because they haven't internalized what they consider to be important. I don't think it's really about technology. I don't think it's always about cost. They have to decide if they ultimately want to be responsible and want to grow an IT infrastructure for their telecommunications needs. Or is it more useful for them, because it's not necessarily where their expertise resides, to take a look at outsourcing that capability and leveraging the expertise of someone else? Business owners should understand what role they want to play in providing their telecommunication services.

Thomas: I think that is a great answer. And I think that decision kind of fits with where they sit in that model already. They need to determine if they already have somebody who is competent but has downtime or if they would need to hire those people to support that equipment. So those things definitely come into play. I think the biggest issue is that when people start thinking phone system, they are thinking about it on a very simple level, you know, make a call and receive a call. From that standpoint, IP-PBX and hosted PBX look like very similar products. But the difference really has to do with how much equipment you are buying upfront and who is supporting it. Also, in the case of employees working remotely, I think it effects which solution is going to be a better choice.

Business owners need to realize that the capabilities of their technology have an impact on their business. How good are the phone systems business applications? How good is the reporting? These are the things business owners need to consider when making a purchase.

Moderator: Is a company's size an issue when determining whether to use a hosted or premise based VoIP phone system?

Byrd: I don't really think it's about small or medium. I really think that if there is a differentiation, it's going to be with the really large companies. When we think about it on an enterprise level, in determining whether they are hosted or non-hosted, the situation then becomes dependent on the company having a technology infrastructure that supports a non-hosted environment.

I'll give you an example. A friend of mine runs a cabinet business so they know how to work wood really well. When he decided to put in a phone system, no one inside of his shop understood anything about servers, PBXs, etc. So he had to ask himself a question. Was he going to make an investment in human capital in order to meet his telecom needs? I recommended to him that he should not. The most sophisticated element of his business is the fax machine; they don't even do orders using emails. So, it would have been really inappropriate for him to spend a lot of money investing in technology when his primary business is cutting and staining wood. By the way, this is a company with 100 employees.

Thomas: I agree. I think there are a couple things that play into it. When you have an enterprise level company you already have a big IT staff. For them to handle the requirements of an IP-PBX maybe it isn't as much of an issue as if you have to think about hiring. If you only have one IT guy, you may not want to take up all of his time. You may want him to concentrate on network security or the PCs in the office. The other thing that I think happens is the bigger the company, the more afraid they are about making the wrong decision, so I think hosted to them can sometimes seem more risky because you are giving someone else control.

I think the other thing that plays into it is that more companies are becoming virtualized. We're getting really big companies using the hosted product particularly when they are multi-location or have a lot of employees. From that perspective, I think it drives towards the hosted solution because the requirement to support all the people outside of the office on the IT staff for a premise based system is certainly more difficult than for a hosted provider. A hosted provider will already have expertise in-house to be able to troubleshoot somebody in say Whitefish Montana on a cable modem who's having issues with say packet loss. But if you buy an IP-PBX, and you have a guy in Montana, you'll be trying to deal with those issues yourself, which is not easy when you haven't dealt with them before. So there is a big difference from that perspective.

Last week, Broadvox announced it had certified interoperability of its GO! SIP trunking service with Toshiba's Strata CIX family of IP business communications systems. Broadvox seems to be working on a "collect them all" strategy that will be interesting to review down the road.

Earlier this year Broadvox announced interoperability with Panasonic's Network Communication Platform (NCP) IP PBX system and detailed plans at VoiceCon to work with about 1,000 higher-end Panasonic phone dealers; Panasonic has separately announced a "SIP Trunking Dealer Program" with about 500 dealers expected to participate. The Panasonic partnership will end up being a big deal later this year, as the company is taking over Sanyo's business.

For more:
- Broadvox's press release with Toshiba.
- There's a bit more about the Panasonic relationship at TMC. Post

Related articles
VoiceCon 2009: BoT (Best of Twitter) took note of the Broadvox/Panasonic arrangement
Cox Business to roll out SIP trunking later this year - FierceVoIP

BoT (Best of Twitter) from the FierceVoIP feed

• ShoreTel gets VoiceCon hat trick- Wins "Best of VoiceCon" award for third time in row. (Vendors were serious about winning this award...)

• NEC uses "back to pat" (single point of contact) rather than Verizon's more visceral "Throat to choke"

• NEC -- advising companies to be "cloud ready"; disaster recovery looking to be The App for cloud computing.

• Broadvox and Panasonic have a deal (not yet announced). Broadvox will reach out to/work with about 1,000 Panasonic phone dealers

Twittering at Microsoft's morning VoiceCon keynote on April 1

• Comment on Microsoft keynote by carrier "Very aggressive" for OCS as a PBX replacement solution; E911 & survivability NOT generally available; won't be in until mid-2010
• Microsoft announces 5 day free trial of UC https://r2.uctrial.com "for both PC and Mac..."
• Microsoft doing demo of Communicator Web Access ... on a Mac. People laugh
• Microsoft Vice President Pall: Last telephony innovation move from dial to touch tone; "People still stuck in 3x4 keypad" today
• Sprint - saving $6M/year using Microsoft OCS, power consumption significant going down as they shut down 500 legacy PBXes
• Microsoft VP Pall rating about "business as usual" problem, evils of desktop IP phone, move to softphone, customers up BNSF railroad, Sprint
• SwissCom doing testimonial for OCS, people doing "oooh" at federation capabilities of OCS
• Microsoft VP @ VoiceCon: Position yourself with the rebound once the recession lifts (with MS Software, of course)
• Microsoft VP at VoiceCon - Preaching cost-savings, swipe at Cisco for expense, talking about how lawyers love OCS