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At ITEXPO today, Digium, Inc., introduced the latest version of its Switchvox SMB IP PBX, version 4.0, an Asterisk (News - Alert)-based phone system designed for small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). At the core of this new release is the system’s ability to be “Web-aware”, integrating with Web and back office applications. Switchvox (News - Alert) SMB 4.0 adds numerous unified communications capabilities, including support for fax, chat and video calling.

 

There are many new and improved features to be found in Switchvox SMB 4.0. For starters, the solution now enables faxing, which was previously not available. Video calling enables end users to deploy video phones based on industry standard codecs (H.263, H.264),

 

Switchvox now supports instant messaging, by virtue of a private chat server that uses the widely deployed, open XMPP protocol. Users can take advantage of a provided chat client, or they are free to use their favorite XMPP-based client. Another key element of this release is the ability to see user presence and call status details across multiple peered Switchvox IP PBXs.

 

Web-aware interactive voice response (IVR) tools enable the creations of custom applications. Small businesses and call centers alike will benefit from the ability to log into, log out of and pause a member’s status on each queue with a single click, and even add comments that are displayed to supervisors or other queue members.

 

The system offers auto-provisioning for VoIP phones from manufacturers snom Technology and Polycom (News - Alert), which alleviates the need to manually configure the devices.

 

Another key element of this release is that Switchvox now offers support for BRI, which is of great importance to the International community, where there is more prevalent use of this type of connectivity.

 

A press release announcing the new solution quotes Digium (News - Alert) CEO Danny Windham. “The release of Switchvox SMB 4.0 marks an important milestone for Digium and for the telephony industry. This is the first time that advanced unified communications features have been made available to SMBs that might not have big-company budgets, but are as reliant as anyone on their phones, e-mail, fax, chat and video and on the web to improve employee communications and efficiency. With Switchvox SMB 4.0, Digium brings all of these elements together and significantly integrates the business phone system with web applications in a way that we believe is unique today.”

 

Switchvox SMB 4.0 is available free of charge to customers with current Switchvox deployments. For new customers, pricing for Switchvox SMB starts at $3,390 for a 10-user system, including hardware, software, a one-year subscription and warranty. The solution will be available from Digium and partners beginning on March 3, 2009.

 

Digium is exhibiting and giving demos of the new solution at Digium|Asterisk World at ITEXPO, which is being held this week, February 2-4, 2009, at the Miami Beach Convention Center.