TMCnews Featured Article

If you were in Miami this week at ITEXPO, you witnessed what Greg Galitzine wrote yesterday, that VoIP is alive and well. Indeed, people are looking for communications solutions that will not only help them increase their business productivity, but also reduce costs, allowing them to perhaps avoid reducing headcount.

 

That’s what exhibitors at the show had in common; that’s what companies like 8x8 are offering with their innovative solutions that combine today’s technology with an understanding of business needs. For its Packet8 Hosted Key System solution, the company was awarded an ITEXPO (News - Alert) Most Innovative Product award.

 

Packet8 Hosted Key System delivers to small businesses exactly what they need ­— especially in this economic environment — a reduction in CAPEX as well as maintenance costs, with all the features they have become accustomed to with their legacy key systems.

 

The system is designed to offer an IP-based replacement to traditional systems and, because it is a hosted system, there is no need for a replacement PBX (News - Alert). Instead, businesses connect their new 675xi series IP phones to their networks to any broadband connection — it even offers POE for simplified installation — making mobility and remote workers easy to connect onto a the phone system.

 

The service provides all the features users are used to with their traditional key systems and more — like searchable corporate directory, direct intercom paging from phone to phone, and shared line appearance functionality to allow a group of users to accept a call, place it on hold, page a colleague and ask them to pick up the call on any one of up to nine separate lines.

 

In addition, businesses looking for even more functionality, the Hosted Key System can be deployed in conjunction with the 8x8 (News - Alert) Virtual Office hosted IP PBX system.

 

The solution, along with others from 8x8, have allowed it to continue to grow during a time when many providers have struggles. Check out a video interview with Huw Rees (News - Alert), 8x8’s vice president of Business and Channel Development, where he explained more about how products like Packet8 Hosted Key System and Virtual Office have helped the company grow — including reducing churn — in this economy.

 

“Service providers, enterprise buyers, developers, and resellers come to ITEXPO because they know they’ll find solutions from innovative companies like 8x8 that can help their business today,” commented TMC President and Conference Chairman, Rich Tehrani.

 

It could be argued that sustaining growth in this economy is innovation itself, but as ITEXPO proved, it goes much further than that. Take a look at photos from the show, and the complete list of Best of Show winners, as well as the rest of the videos.   The all serve as evidence that not only is VoIP alive and well, but that innovation continues at an amazing pace.