Ted Stevenson

Although you won’t be able to buy it until early next year, Siemens Communications, Inc. has announced HighPath OpenOffice ME, its brand new, built-from-the-ground up unified communications (UC) appliance for small businesses. According to Martin Northend, Siemens director of SME portfolio marketing, an appliance translates as “an IP PBX with a UC application suite and […]

RingCentral, Inc. recently launched its DigitalLine VoIP service as an enhancement to its virtual phone system for small businesses. DigitalLine is integrated directly into the full RingCentral system, allowing the company’s customers to place and receive calls via landline, mobile and VoIP as needed—and to control those calls using RingCentral’s suite of services. “With DigitalLine, […]

3Com Corp., whose venerable NBX IP Telephony offering has long been a mainstay of the small business VoIP market, has admittedly been very quiet in the voice space of late. That’s all changing now, according to Bipin Mistry, the company’s VP and general manager for voice products. The company recently announced three new devices—two new […]

Madison, Wisconsin doesn’t have a big reputation as a center for communications technology, but it is the home of Simicomm LLC, a tech company that’s just emerging from stealth mode. It recently announced the official rollout of EasySpeak, a low-cost, low-hassle PBX software package built on the open-source Asterisk code. “We were formed to take […]

Ottawa, Ontario-based TalkSwitch has a reputation for addressing the telephony needs of small businesses, with a focus on flexibility and simplicity. Indeed, the company was founded with that very objective. Until this week, however, even TalkSwitch did not offer its signature “hybrid” capability—the ability to custom configure each extension in the system either for analog […]

Skype recently announced the release of a new version of what it’s calling Skype for Salesforce—which, as the name clearly suggests, is an integration of its voice-over-IM-protocol service with the on-demand CRM platform Salesforce.com. Available for free download on Salesforce’s AppExchange (where it goes by the name Skype CTI Connector 2.0 – Basic Edition), the […]

Voice over IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (popularly referred to as Wi-Fi) has been making leisurely inroads into the communications world for the past several years. Two Industry giants—VoIP infra vendor Avaya and premier notebook computer maker Lenovo—have plans to promote the use of mobile computers as VoIP phones. The joint solution will integrate Avaya’s softphone […]

Bellevue, Washington-based AccessLine Communications is on a mission to bring sophisticated VoIP phone service to small businesses across the U.S.—and do it at very low cost. The company doesn’t sell hardware or software; rather, it’s a fully hosted service offering that can be as simple or as feature-rich as its 100,000 clients need or want. […]

Las Vegas recently hosted the annual CTIA wireless tradeshow where hundreds of companies showcased the latest in wireless technology. For small businesses owners, that means a new slate of tools and gadgets that could make day-to-day operations a bit smoother or at least more interesting. In this case, we found a few Skype accessories you […]

VoIP continues to be one of the most talked-about technologies for small business and AdTran, a Huntsville, Ala.-based company, sees a big opportunity in the ‘underserved’ small-and-medium sized business market. It’s not alone, either. IDC, a tech research firm, pegs VoIP’s value at $3.5 billion, but notes a current adoption rate of only about five […]