Business is brisk for IP telephony and unified communications, and mobility is really hot, according to Michael Kirchhoff, senior convergence engineer at Datatel 360. That is enabling workers to do more with less, to work remotely while appearing as if they’re with the walls of the home office, and enjoy new redundancy benefits.
Datatel 360 provides unified communications, network integration and support, and hosted and managed services to clients throughout the United States and abroad.
A Zultys (News - Alert) dealer, Datatel 360 has been in the Atlanta market since 2004. As for Kirchhoff, he’s been in the UC industry since its inception, having been involved previously in a voicemail business.
Datatel 360’s customers range in terms of verticals and applications. For example, a dental practice signed on with the company to deploy a screen pop for patient information. And an e-commerce business used the services of Datatel 360 to fully integrate its IP PBX (News - Alert) into the company’s business processes, including credit card transactions, database dips and more.
Organizations are now adopting IP telephony more than in the past, and many of them are using third-generation IP phones, Kirchhoff says, adding that Datatel 360 sells a lot of Aastra and Yealink (News - Alert) phones.
While Datatel 360 takes a consultative approach to selling, Kirchhoff adds that there’s typically a lot of education required in terms of explaining the need for IP telephony and UC, as customers and prospects seem to understand the benefits of such solutions. In any case, he adds that this technology is for forward-thinking companies in terms of technology. And once these companies dip a toe in the IP telephony/UC waters with one or two locations, he says, they tend to come back for more, resulting in residual sales for Datatel 360 in the form of additional location deployments or/and added features on their existing Datatel 360-supplied systems.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey