Endpoints Demystified

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A layperson’s guide to the array of desktop and mobile communication devices

Remember when a telephone sat on the desk, didn’t light up, didn’t get carried around, and certainly didn’t talk to the PC sitting right beside it?  If you’re younger than 50, you might not.  In mainstream business environments, digital telephony has been around since the 1980s, mobile workplace phones since the early ‘90s, and IP communications since the mid ‘90s.  It has been a long time since the basic telephone and its cousin the fax machine were the primary means of connecting in the workplace.

Today business users have an impressive range of choice in phones.  In fact, telephones are now so versatile, diverse and smart that they are often called endpoints.  (They don’t like to be mistaken for those soulless, legacy devices that couldn’t do much more than transmit the human voice.)

Facing a new wealth of options in endpoints, how do you make the right choice for yourself?  For employees throughout the office?  For remote or traveling employees?  Here’s a quick look at the first steps to narrowing down the choices.

To what type of business communications system will the endpoints connect?

Where will the endpoints be used?

If the user stays more or less at a desk – whether in a local, remote or home office…
A desktop phone with microphone and speaker (with mute options, headset interface and programmable feature buttons) is the logical choice.

If the user needs to roam around the building…
Choose a wireless handset or mobile phone that uses your wireless LAN or wireless base stations to connect into the central communications system, such as Toshiba IP4000 wireless mobility phones.

If the user travels to other locations outside your company’s phone or data networks…
Choose either: (A) a softphone client (software that empowers a PC to perform the features of a desktop phone), or (B) a network option that enables your smartphone to function as a PBX extension via the office wireless LAN while in the office and via a cellular network out of the office.

Having narrowed down the choice to digital or IP, desktop or mobile, you still have a wide range of choice in features and functionality, to find just the right model at the right price point for each user/role in the organization.

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What’s in store for 2012?

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Brian Metherell, vice president and general manager of Toshiba Telecom, presents six top trends for SMB business communications.

The start of a new year is time to take stock, look ahead and plan for what the coming months will hold for business communications systems.  Maybe we’re glass-half-full types, but we see a lot of good news ahead — and we’re working hard to create some of that good news.  Here are the top six trends that should interest our small to mid-sized business (SMB) customers.

1.    This is the year for unified communications.

When most people hear the term “unified communications,” they often just think of voice, email and fax.  That’s what we call unified messaging.  Unified communications is much more.  It’s about converging desktop phones, cell phones, voice mail, email, video conferencing, Web-based collaboration, presence, chat and more.  It’s about extending this capability to everybody, not just to call center agents and power users.

In 2012, SMBs will realize that unified communications are truly within reach — and are simple to deploy, simple to use and affordable.

2.    Small business will think big.

According to U.S. census data, 99.9 percent of the 27.5 million U.S. companies have fewer than 500 employees.  Fewer than 20,000 companies have more than 500 employees.  SMB remains a very big market!

Representing such a huge force in commerce, small to mid-sized businesses won’t compromise in their business communications in 2012.  They won’t accept stripped-down versions of enterprise phone systems.

In 2012, we’ll see more SMBs — even those with only 10 or 20 lines — adopting phone systems that give them all the features, power and control of enterprise-class systems, scaled and priced for small business.

3.    The forecast for cloud services will be mostly sunny.

Large enterprises and the federal government have long been taking advantage of cloud computing, in which business data and applications are hosted on remote servers and securely accessed via IP networks.  Cloud computing makes high-end applications — such as telephony — affordable, easy to deploy, easy to manage and flexible enough to adapt to changing business demands.

In 2012, the concept of applications as a service will gain favor with more SMBs as well.  A March 2011 Microsoft survey indicates that 39 percent of SMBs (2–250 employees) will be using one or more cloud services within three years, an increase of 34 percent.

4.    Mobility will seize the day.

According to Nielsen, 77 percent of Americans have a mobile phone of some sort, and 43 percent of them have smart phones.  Those percentages are even higher for the ages 25–34 crowd, your up-and-coming employees.  So it is no surprise that mobile phones will become commonplace as the lifeline to the communications system back at the office.

Mobility gives you one phone number with all associated privileges, preferences and features and can follow you anywhere within reach of an IP connection, wired or wireless, intranet or Internet.  You can empower your smart phone to function as an office extension via the office wireless LAN while in the office and via a cellular network when out of the office.  You can also have incoming calls ring at your desk phone and cell phone simultaneously.

In 2012, the growing use of these features will boost productivity and make business users’ physical locations quite seamless to colleagues and customers.

5.    IP and TDM will continue to coexist.

IP telephony is king for many companies, but digital is not a dinosaur yet.  Even today, many small to mid-sized businesses are still buying digital phones, especially for systems with fewer than 100 lines.  Digital might be all those businesses need for now, such as for static users who don’t need IP’s new features and for traditional businesses such as retail outlets.

The market in 2012 and beyond demands both IP and digital platforms — and that both work together.

6.    Regulatory compliance will be a growing consideration.

From healthcare organizations that must comply with HIPAA privacy protections to life sciences companies reporting to the FDA to financial institutions accountable to federal regulators, more and more organizations are held to regulatory scrutiny.  Does anybody see this regulatory ecosystem becoming simpler and more lax in 2012?  We certainly don’t.  Even in industries that are not as heavily regulated, companies still must behave as good citizens in protecting customer data, privacy and care.

As a result, 2012 will bring greater adoption of communications systems that support business integrity and regulatory compliance.  That can mean call recording systems that support supervisory oversight, quality control and an audit trail of verbal exchanges.

These six trends are not big leaps of faith.  The stages have been set over the past few years, and the technologies are here already.  The elements are in place for 2012 to be the year when more SMBs claim their rights to perform on par with the big players and have communications without compromise. At Toshiba, we work to ensure that our customers are able to take advantage of these technologies, helping them continue to grow and improve their businesses.

Filed Under: ToshibaTelecom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Love At First Sight

February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Valentine’s Day reflections on partnership, compatibility and connection

Could U B the 1 for me?
Mature, stable type, versatile and an excellent communicator, seeks sophisticated younger companion with compatible interfaces for connection, convergence and symbiotic relationship.  Good looks, enterprise class and slender physique a plus.

 

Dear Could U:
I’m a chic, pure IP and business-friendly type who likes remote collaboration, unified communications, mobility and much more.  I’m easy to work with, have a great 1U body, and can do so much on one integrated server that you might forget about other companion servers.

It’s not Jane Austen’s day, but romance is ageless.  And with Toshiba’s IPedge® business communications system, our R&D team outdid themselves setting up the perfect arranged marriage.

It was a model partnership at first sight.  Although the underlying architectures are different, Toshiba’s Strata® CIX™ and IPedge® systems share the same telephones, many of the same applications, the same look and feel for users, and they network together very nicely.

This harmonious relationship gives businesses a lot of choice.  You can:

  • Continue to enhance and grow your Strata CIX systems.  Strata CIX is still a great choice for businesses that depend on digital phones as well as IP devices and applications.
  • Network IPedge® and Strata CIX systems together, perhaps using IPedge® at larger sites or those needing an all-IP architecture, and Strata CIX at sites that still have digital phones for many of their users.  The feature set and user interface are comfortably familiar, so all locations will feel much the same.
  • Go all-IP at new sites with IPedge®.  You can use (or reuse) the same endpoints and the same Media Application Server, if you need it.  Legacy digital phones can be supported through a networked Strata CIX system or gateway.

It’s a matchmaker’s dream:  two partners who can stand alone quite well – yet complement and extend each other through a fortuitous union.  Happy Valentine’s Day to that.

Filed Under: Best of Both Worlds Tagged With: , , , ,

Music on Hold and Copyright Laws

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Let’s cut to the quick. Music on Hold and background music played through your telephone system must be licensed. Even if you are using a radio station or playing songs you purchased on a CD/MP3 player, it’s still illegal if used without permission. Radio stations have the right to broadcast music but not the re-broadcast rights. When you purchased a CD or MP3 file, you own the medium but not the rights to the music on it. If you get caught — and there are people who get paid to look for criminals like you — expect to pay $1,500 to “settle out of court.” This is coincidentally the amount you would need to fight your case in court, but the settlement has a 100 percent certainty that the prosecutor will go away while the litigation route cannot guarantee success.

Music on Hold is a necessary business tool. The industry average is that more than 50 percent of callers to your company will be put on hold. Those callers need to hear something during their hold time, or they could think that they have been disconnected while they were waiting. There are solutions.

The classy route is to hire a professional company to record messages to use while your customers are on hold. Their set-up includes hardware, licensed music of your choice and customized messages that are updated, usually quarterly.

Another solution is to contract with a subscription music source such as Muzak. If you have cable TV service at your business location, your cable company may be able to offer you Music Choice or a similar service. These are the music channels you see on cable TV except that they are branded specifically for re-broadcast.

The most logical solution is to purchase a digital audio system designed specifically for Music on Hold and message playback. They are designed for 24/7 service and usually have royalty-free music included.

Remember: the airwaves may be free, but getting yourself out of a copyright lawsuit is not.

Congratulations to our Authorized Toshiba Dealer Mike Beyer at Select-Telecom, Illinois! We asked our Toshiba Dealers to submit blog posts for our  ’Next Toshiba Blog Star’ contest. Mike’s Music on Hold and Copyright Laws was chosen as a runner up by our panel of judges. The blog submissions were judged according to creativity and originality in both the title and content.

Filed Under: Best of Both Worlds, Telecom, Toshiba Strata CIX670 Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Win a New Business Phone System

February 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

Due to popular demand, we’ve extended our Phone-A-Saurus video contest to May 15th…

There’s still time to enter and win a new Toshiba business phone system!

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You don’t need to be a Phone-A-Saurus any longer…enter to WIN now!

Tell us in three minutes or less why you need a new phone system, and you could win one – or a flat screen TV or tablet computer.

Is your business phone system a classic, or downright Jurassic?
Is it more from the saurapod age than the iPod age?
Does it think ‘VoIP’ is the sound a happy guinea pig makes?

If your business is operating with an outdated phone system, enter the Toshiba Phone-A-Saurus video contest.  In an imaginative video of three minutes or less, tell us why you think you need a new business telephone system.  This contest for our Facebook fans runs throughout the month of February.

So grab your cell phone, digital camera or video device of choice.  The clip doesn’t have to be professional, just creative, original and entertaining.

Submit your video(s) anytime between February 1 – May 15, 2012.  Toshiba will select the top three finalists.  From May 21 – June 02, 2012, the public will have an opportunity to vote for the favorites.  First, second and third place winners will be announced on June 03, 2012.

The entrant that best demonstrates the need for a new business phone system will win a complete IPedge™ or Strata® CIX™ phone system, installed, a value of more than $2,500.  (Or you can apply this value toward a larger system or an upgrade to your existing Toshiba system.)  Second prize is a Toshiba 32” LCD flat screen TV valued at $450.  Third prize is a Toshiba Thrive™ tablet valued at $399.

It’s easy to enter:

1. Visit our Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/toshibaphonesystems).

2. “Like” us, if you haven’t already.

3. Click on the “Phone-A-Saurus Contest” tab on the left side.

4. Click on the “Enter Here” tab to submit your video.

Participation is subject to the usual hieroglyphs, found on a contest page.
Here are some highlights:

  • Keep it clean, keep it nice, keep it legal – and keep it to 100MB or less.
  • Use one of these file formats:  AVI, MOV, WMV, MP4, MPEG, FLV, 3GP, and 3G2.
  • Remember the theme of the contest (hint: relevance is 50 percent of the judging criteria).
  • Be eligible (entering from the U.S., age 18+, legal U.S. resident, not a Toshiba employee, etc.).
  • Don’t send any malicious code with your video (but you wouldn’t do that anyway, would you?)
  • Make sure the video doesn’t step on any toes or copyrights.

If it has been eons or epochs since your last upgrade… if the Smithsonian wants to put your phone system in its permanent collection… take a shot at replacing your Phone-A-Saurus.  Submit an entry.  You can submit more than one entry, as long as the videos are different.  We’d love to hear your story, and it could be your fast track to evolution.

Filed Under: IPedge, Toshiba Strata CIX670 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,