BigBlog

I’m really excited about some great news this month as Mitel has announced plans to add BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 (MVS 5) to its unified communications solution. The company has also joined the BlackBerry Alliance Program as an Elite Member.
 
The press release states that “The planned solution, which will combine the company's Mitel Communications Director (MCD) with the mobility features of BlackBerry MVS 5, will enable both fixed and mobile voice communications with the aim of increasing corporate efficiency and productivity.” Increasing corporate efficiency and productivity they say …. now that’s music to my ears!.  I have popped in a couple of great links to browse below.

 http://www.voiceanddata.com.au/products/40556 

 http://www.mitel.com/DocController?documentId=34641

 Truly effective mobility solutions are a key part of our direction here at DMV, and as I preach around here  …. “Work is what you do …not where you go! “

Until next time! 

Cheers
GFH

 I am finding that the vast majority of companies I speak to are still keeping their old PSTN lines and analogue services to support their historical fax machines because they feel they have to in order to preserve the use of phone numbers they don’t want to change.    Increasingly however I am being asked “how can I integrate my fax machines into a new IP Telephony solution?”  I guess my first response to customers who are wanting to deploy an IP Telephony solution and are looking to integrate legacy fax machines into their network is “why would you want to do that?”.  It is my personal opinion that implementing IP throughout an organization is an ideal time to move towards a fax server solution and toss out those old fax machines!.   

There are several options available today for both incoming and

outgoing fax solutions, ranging from dedicated fax server

solutions to utilising the fax server functionality available within

Microsoft Exchange server.  The move to a fax server solution solves a whole raft of issues that can include but are not limited to:

- not having to maintain several aging fax machines

- not being bound to specific locations for fax machines

   (as once the fax is received by the server it becomes 

    PDF file and can be emailed around your company network

    with ease)

- it opens up a range of fax storage solutions and archiving 

    opportunities that of course leverage off the whole

   “going green angle” and paperless office commitment that

    many organizations are striving for

I know that even within our small business alone we have noticed a measurable reduction in paper usage since moving to a paperless faxing in and out of our business. So, are fax machines dead? Probably not just yet, but if you are like me and are looking at ways to run your business more productively, efficiently and profitably then I would recommend that moving towards a fax server solution needs to be on your list of things to do. 

Until next time !

Further to posting my recent phone interview with Gwilym Funnel – Mitel’s, Asia Pacific, Managing Director and Vice President - on Wed 7^th April - I thought it might be relevant to provide a little more documented information on the Mitel and VMware announcement. 

The following is a link to a great article that was published a few months ago that provides a much better insight into what this means to the industry than I ever could put into words !

"Today Mitel announced its call processing software can be virtualised in a VMware environment. This isn't just another feature – it is a game changer. Today for Mitel, and potentially for the industry, and specifically for the channel. ..." http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/what-convergence-means-to-the-channel.aspx 

From a local perspective here at Data Mobility Voice, we have only been given authorisation to sell this solution here in Australia in the last month or so and already we have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest it has caused.  There are certainly a lot of IT Managers out there that are well down the path of virtualisation with VMware, and now, being able to include the IP Telephony and unified communications applications component of their network onto the same platform is showing significant benefits.

Dare I say it, but it’s all about increasing business productivity and efficiency that builds a more profitable business.

Until next time...