On one side the traditional TDM PBX stalwarts, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel and NEC were “adapting” their platforms to support IP trunking and stations, trying to convince the world that evolution was safe and good. On the other side of the fence, Cisco, Shoretel and 3Com were doing well by articulating their “pure” IP pbx technology, throwing out the old.

It’s my belief that the day the music stopped for TDM was January 14, 2009. It was this day that Nortel entered into bankruptcy proceedings. This former market leader went from number one to a business casualty in a few short years. There is not much doubt that the rapidity of the descent was caused by the turtle-like response to the changing technologies and needs of the marketplace over the past few years. While Nortel is the poster child for the decline in the traditional pbx manufacturer, they will certainly not be alone in the dust heap of pbx manufacturer history.

Soon, most business telephone systems will be an application residing on the data network. This is truly revolutionary in nature. As much as Cisco, Shoretel and 3Com moved the technology from TDM to IP, the resultant products more or less did what their technology predecessors did – make and receive phone calls and store voice messages. These systems still rely on proprietary hardware, software and a farm of servers. In Cisco’s case, it might even be called a ranch. Not very green, quite closed and by architecture, expensive to maintain.

Now, a much more significant change in the pbx world is occurring. Using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware combined with standards-based software, the phone system can now be open and based upon best-of-breed technology. Remember when that happened to data? The personal computer was the start of the technology revolution as it was standards-based and open

Our company, Teledynamic, saw the writing on the wall and has moved quickly to gain the necessary product lines and technical skills to adapt to this new model. And along the way, our sales and support model will change in a very substantial way too. Customers will now be free to pick and choose components and applications as they do in the data world. There is no standard data network – ironically due to the fact that there are standards. Since everything works with everything else (more or less <BG>), every data network is custom-designed for a specific customer’s needs. So it will be with the PBX.

So our role becomes one of integrator and consultant, rather than product representative and equipment repair company. As part and parcel of the data network, the ability to integrate with data and mobile applications will provide heady technical challenges. This new-found freedom will certainly provide wonderful new communications tools to our customers, but will result in a much more challenging implementation and support environment.

And it is with that extraordinarily long introduction, I’m happy to announce that Teledynamic has fully embraced this new model. We recently introduced the Digium Switchvox and Interactive Intelligence products that will help us help our customers in this new world. I welcome you to visit our website at www.teledynamic.com to learn more.

Let me know your thoughts.

Randy Kremlacek

Randy is the President of Teledynamic Communications. The company specializes in premise-based and hosted SIP PBX’s, pbx monitoring and Unified Communications.

I think I may have seen the future of the PBX recently….and it looks to radically shake up the status quo.

I’ve always found it amusing that the first IP PBX manufacturers boasted about putting voice on an IP network. That seemed to be a big “feature” at the time. However, in and of itself, it really didn’t deliver much value to the buyer. In fact, it brought an unknown onto the customer’s data network and required them to replace their Ethernet switches with new switches that supported POE. The biggest feature of buying a new Cisco system was that it alleviated excess cash in the buyer’s bank account.

There were the claims of easier administration and being able to move phones just by unplugging them and plugging them in at a new location. Oh yeah, and Unified Messaging. However, the big secret that the IP manufacturers never shared was that all of this was available on the lowly TDM system.

I always thought that we’d have really arrived at IP PBX nirvana when voice became a true part of the data network. With the arrival of the SIP standards, we are rapidly getting to this point. I call it the 2^nd generation of IP PBX.

The low hanging fruit in adopting SIP is SIP trunking and telephones. So, you can save money on your phone bill and use Polycom phones on your new PBX. Both options are quite welcome and provide true value for moving to IP telephony.

However, the sea change coming is from SIP-based applications that are just starting to arrive. Once we can truly integrate voice, data and mobile devices, we’ll start seeing some huge productivity and communications gains.

Recently, I’ve gotten very familiar with the SIP-based Digium Switchvox and have been mightily impressed.

Here are a few of the things I like:

Free Upgrades -Switchvox software releases are free to any user on a current maintenance agreement. Most manufacturers charge a substantial fee for software upgrades.

Video calling – Switchvox supports video phones on the desktop. A great example is the Grandstream GXV300 that we use here at Teledynamic.

Instant messaging – Switchvox includes a private chat server that uses the open XMPP protocol.

Centralized presence – Presence and status details for call and chat activity are visible across multiple peered Switchvox PBXs.

Switchboard - Switchboard is a real-time, web-based call control panel.  It provides call recording, phone book drag n’ drop transfers, click-to-call, and screen pops among many more features.

Google Map – See the physical location of an incoming call via a pop-up Google map. Now just how cool is that!

Call Queuing – Switchbox has a built-in ACD, with monitoring, recording and reporting features.

CRM Integration – Swithvox integrates with CRM programs such as Salesforce and SugarCRM.

All-in-all, this is a very impressive product. Something the traditional IP PBX manufacturers such as Cisco and Shoretel (and yes we can call these proprietary IP system providers “traditional”) do not want to see. I’ve seen the future of the office PBX and it’s from the most unlikely of places, Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Digium Corporation.

Please share your thoughts.

Randy Kremlacek

Randy is the President of Teledynamic Communications. The company specializes in premise-based and hosted SIP PBX’s, pbx monitoring and Unified Communications.

Here’s the latest report from the Communications Workers Of America website regarding their union negotiations with AT&T:

Today the subcommittees met in an attempt to resolve some of our differences around Article 2 and Work Rules/Appendices.

In today’s formal session the Company rejected the Union proposal for time off. Our proposal included language that a minimum of 25% of a work group could be off at any given time.

The Company passed two more retrogressive proposals. The first would increase the number of unpaid days before receiving any sickness absence pay for employees with less than 8 years of service. The second one was in reference to Sunday premium pay. The company proposed to only pay time and one tenth per hour on Sunday instead of time and one half.

With only 10 days left before contract expiration, we have had 21 formal bargaining sessions, many subcommittee meetings, made 31 proposals to improve the contract, received 31 regressive proposals from the company and have reached 0 tentative agreements!

Gee, can you say strike? AT&T has been preparing for this eventuality for months. They’ve been busy training their non-union employees to take over when the union walks out. This does much to explain why the level of service at AT&T has slipped even further from their sub-par standards.

Teledynamic has been spreading the word to our customers to brace for the worst. Especially hard hit are new orders for lines or services. As one can imagine, the first priority in a work crisis is to try to maintain some level of customer service. New orders do not receive a high priority.

So, will this CWA strike be protracted or might the negotiators miraculously reach a breakthrough in the fleeting days remaining before the deadline? It is no secret that AT&T is spending massive resources on building their wireless business. Equally transparent is their de-emphasis on wireline business and cost cutting in this area. The majority of CWA workers at AT&T work on the wireline (analog and digital circuits) side of their business. It is my prognostication that AT&T is going to play hardball to drive down costs. And the union doesn’t have the economy on their side. I’m sure that the popular sentiment of the workers is that they are just glad to have a job, even if in the future it will pay a little less and include fewer benefits.

Let me know your thoughts.

Randy Kremlacek

Randy is the President of Teledynamic Communications. The company specializes in premise-based and hosted SIP PBX’s, pbx monitoring and Unified Communications.

As we are wrapping  up the year here at Teledynamic, handling the few customers that didn’t take the entire week off, it’s time to think New Year’s Eve.  And for me, that means spiced rum.

I’ve never been a big fan of Captain Morgan.   It’s cloyingly sweet and watered down at 70 proof.   However, I do like the concept of flavoring rum with winter spices.  So what to do but retreat to the laboratory and create my own.    Mistakes were made and I punished myself by drinking them all.   However, progress was steady and and today I think I’ve got a tasty alternative to “store bought”.

SPICED RUM

1 bottle of good gold rum (Bacardi or Goslings)

3” vanilla bean

½ tsp vanilla

1” cinnamon stick

1 point star anise

1 allspice berry

1 small grating nutmeg

Very small piece orange zest

Add the ingredients to the bottle and infuse for one week.   Taste and make any adjustments as necessary.   The finished rum makes for great hot rum drinks and can be served as an after-dinner drink paired with a chocolate dessert.

I’d love to hear about your favorite spiced rum recipe.

Happy Holidays,

Randy Kremlacek

Teledynamic Communications provides free educational materials about telecommunications on an ongoing basis to our subscribers and customers. We are a provider of a complete range of VOIP, telecom and data solutions for business.

When Cisco and3Com introduced the IP PBX in late 1998, their desk phones were quite limited in functionality but had a “new technology” feel to them and were readily embraced by buyers.  It didn’t take long for IP PBX manufacturers to catch on to this wave of interest and design telephones with large screen menus and brushed silver bezels.  These new phones were really a hit.  It wasn’t unusual for buyers to spend up to $1,000 for a fancy new IP phone with a color screen, web-browsing and other features rarely used.

However, that seems to be changing rapidly.  Phones are being replaced by devices.  Huh, you say?   Softphones eliminate the desk phone.   Smart wireless phones are serving dual purpose – they function as a cell phone outside of the office and as a mobile office phone within the business.  Microsoft’s Office Communicator has a built-in softphone.  Any IP-enabled product could conceivably be a phone.  Thus, the change from “phone” to “device”.  It’s funny, I’ve heard a multitude of names for phones over the years:  Station, set, phone, terminal, handset and now device.

So after many years of experts prognosticating the disappearance of the common desk phone, to be swallowed up by the data network may finally be coming true.   Certainly desk phones won’t be obsolete tomorrow, but rather they’ll be just another “device” from which to choose.  My prediction is that these devices will blossom and users will have an overwhelming array of products from which to choose.   It’s likely that users will find something that fits them just perfectly.  Good luck to the IT department in supporting this potpourri of new technology!

tell me what you think.

Randy Kremlacek