3CX Phone System version 6 on the way

The 3CX development team have been keeping busy over the past few months, and I am happy to report that version 6 of 3CX Phone System is just around the corner. We have added numerous features, including;

• Conferencing server - to make conference calls with up to 32 callers
• Intercom - intercom/page any extension
• Call Queue status update information from the 3CX Softphone / VOIP client
• See parked calls in 3CX Softphone / VOIP client
• See all active calls in the system from the admin interface - ability to disconnect calls
• Improved provisioning - we can now also provision the BLF lights on a phone
• Phonebook - we can provision the most popular phones with a phonebook
• HTTP API to enable/disable call recording for any extension
• HTTP API to disable/enable extensions or to disable outbound calls for an extension
• Improved call logging with extensible call reports
• Improved IVR and Call Queue functionality

We have also spent considerable work on the backup and restore procedure. Version 6 should be a painless upgrade, not requiring separate backup and restore and making the restore process much faster. (reduced from hours to minutes)

All in all a considerable upgrade from v5.1. We we're not able to add the new interface yet, but its in the works. We are hoping to release a beta of v6 within the next 2 weeks......

Aastra and Linksys support added

At CEBIT I met up with Product managers of Aastra and Linksys phones. With their support we have been able improve our support for both phone brands of phones. Build 4393 of 3CX Phone System now includes provisioning support for Aastra phones as well as BLF support.

Linksys provisioning support will be added by next week, whilst Linksys has announced BLF support in its new firmwares out in about 1-2 months. (BLF support is already available on Linksys 962 phones, but we need to make changes to support Linksys BLF) We are busy working on supporting Linksys BLF in version 6 of 3CX Phone System - due out some time in May.

The good thing is that companies now have more choice of phones they can use with 3CX: Aastra, Linksys, Grandstream, Polycom and of course SNOM.

CEBIT 08 – some observations in regards to VOIP

Just got back from the yearly ‘CEBIT trip’. It was the first time we represented 3CX at the worlds number one IT fair. We exhibited in Hall 13, and I joined my Colleagues Chris, Kevin from 3CX and Andreas from our distributor Ebertlang.

I must have spoken/demo’d 3CX to at least 100 people – and noticed a number of trends in the VOIP business:

• Hall 13 – more or less the ‘VOIP’ hall, was one of the strongest visited sections of the show. There was constant and strong traffic. It would seem that VOIP is gaining in popularity and the market is ready to start mass deployment
• The use of VOIP gateways rather then PCI add in cards is clearly more advantageous – people are seeing the advantages of taking the Analog/ISDN to IP conversion off the box and making the gateway independent from operating system versions. Especially in the linux area where a kernel update can effect the device drivers of the voice cards.
• Virtualization of the PBX seems to be well received. Rather then using a separate IP PBX appliance, virtualize the PBX under Vmware, or Hyper V of Windows 2008 server.
• VOIP equipment is becoming more mature and more widely available. I picked up a Siemens DECT IP phone for 80 euros at the local Media markt in Hannover – something that was unthinkable a year ago. It worked out of the box with 3CX Phone System

3CX Phone System v5.1 with tunnel feature available!

We finally got it ready – 3CX Phone System V5.1. A lot of hard work of the 3CX team went into that one, and I think it shows. We have made numerous improvements and fixes, and introduced the much awaited 3CX Tunnel feature. The 3CX Tunnel allows for remote extensions and branch offices to be connected via a single TCP port.

You no longer need to open a range of ports for RDP and SIP traffic but you can tunnel it all over a single, configurable port. That means you can use port 80 (if you are not using a web server in your office location) and be sure that remote extensions can connect from anywhere, even if they are in hotel or airport wifi networks which sometimes block higher ports in order to block VOIP traffic.

The 3CX tunnels regular SIP traffic, which means that you can use popular SIP hardware phones as remote extensions. They simply use the 3CX tunnel as an outbound proxy. See a configuration guide here. This in contrast to other tunneling protocols such as IAX which require the remote party to implement the IAX protocol and thus limit the devices/software that you can use. Download 3CX Phone System V5.1 here.

Microsoft Unified Communications Server launched....

No one other than Bill Gates launched Microsoft's entry into the VOIP market last week. Microsoft Unified Communications Server is a web conferencing and chat server that can be integrated with existing PBXs (Although the enterprise version has a switching module). Microsoft has validated the VOIP market and this will definitely help educate the market about the benefits of software-based phone systems. Though the route it has taken is a strange one - it's counting on partnerships with PBX vendors to create the total solution. Exactly why PBX vendors would want to partner on this plan is unclear to me, though it seems Nortel has offered to be the first lamb and bought into the idea of letting the Trojan horse into their customer base. I believe CISCO, Avaya and others will put up a tougher fight, leaving resellers to do the integration with the existing PBXs on their own.

Traditional PBXs are more or less black boxes and are notoriously difficult to integrate with. Coupled with the fact that most Microsoft Resellers have little telecommunications experience, I believe that it is going to be an uphill battle for Microsoft.

Not surprisingly Bill Gates announced the demise of the hardware based PBX, (along with message that it wants to partner with PBX vendors), and that a software switch will be doing that work in the future , obviously supplied by Microsoft. As a matter of fact, 3CX can do software based switching today ....

So Microsoft enters yet another market. But will it be successful? Microsoft has launched a series of unsuccessful products that have had a hard time getting significant market share - Microsoft ISA server, Dynamics, Virtual Server to name just a few. Even at no cost, Virtual Server is unpopular. Yet its core products, Operating systems and Desktop applications, are under heavy attack. Vista is a spectacular failure.

I can't help thinking that under Steve Ballmer Microsoft has lost its focus. Frustrated by a share price that has been static for nearly 7 years, Microsoft is behaving like a cornered dog, taking bites at any market it thinks might help its plight. Focusing its efforts on the release of a truly good operating system and desktop application upgrade might help Microsoft more....

Open up SKYPE!

SKYPE might have been one of the front runners in the VOIP market, but its refusal to open up its VOICE platform and allow other players to connect to it and develop for it, has resulted in SKYPE becoming a drag on the VOIP industry and on itself.

If SKYPE would create an open API to make and receive calls, SKYPE could be leveraged across companies networks via IP PBX's, resulting in more revenue for SKYPE and better coverage for SKYPE users.

Pretty much the whole VOIP industry is now adhering to the SIP standard in an effort to inter-operate, yet SKYPE refuses to communicate with anyone. There is no need to open source code, but refusing interoperability and seeking to create a monopoly by locking its users in is detrimental to SKYPE users and to the VOIP industry.

As a result, the SKYPE train seems to be coming to a halt. According to various blog sites - its growth has slowed down rapidly. Then there was an embarrassing multi-day outage this summer for which no adequate reason was posted. Recently, its founder and CEO resigned.

The writing is on the wall - just like any other proprietary vendor that refused to inter-operate - SKYPE will fade away. Open up, SKYPE!

Voice mashups at Internet Telephony Expo 07 in LA

3CX exhibited at the Internet Telephony show this week and today i had the opportunity to visit a few of the sessions about VOIP at the conference. One really interesting session was on voice mashups, by Thomas Howe. By marrying mashups and voice, business processes and customer service can be radically improved - cost effectively. For example assume that your flight is cancelled - rather then finding out at the airport, the airline could call you automatically (i.e using a voice mashup app) and notify you of the cancellation and offer to automatically rebook you on the next flight.

Because mashups make developing powerful applications so much easier, these types of applications are now much more cost effective to make.

I really recommend visiting Thomas hows blog to learn more about it. He can explain it much better then i can and i am sure you will see the amazing potential of voice mashups and see how you could apply it in your business!

3CX Enterprise Edition is ready

3CX released the Enterprise edition of its new product 3CX Phone System, a Windows-based IP PBX / SIP server that completely replaces a proprietary PABX. 3CX Phone System is based on the open SIP standard and interoperates with a wide range of popular SIP phones, VOIP Gateways and SIP-based providers. The Enterprise edition of 3CX Phone System implements enterprise telephony features such as Call Queuing and Exchange 2007 integration. It has been independently tested and certified for Microsoft Windows 2003.

The Call Queuing feature allows companies to hold callers in a queue, whilst agents answer calls. Agents are able to login and logout to queues from Windows seeing the exact number of callers in the queue.

The Exchange 2007 integration feature allows 3CX Phone System to use the Unified Messaging Server in Exchange Server 2007 as the voice mail server. This way, users can connect to their Exchange Server to listen to their calendar, have Exchange read out mails and receive their voice mail in their email inbox.

“The release of 3CX Phone System Enterprise edition is set to accelerate the massive change occurring in the Enterprise Telephony market space. With 3CX Phone System Enterprise Edition, advanced features such as Call Queuing can now be obtained for a fraction of the price of traditional Enterprise PBXs. What’s more, advanced features such as integration with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging are not even available on today’s proprietary PBXs,” said Nick Galea, 3CX CEO.

Key features of 3CX Phone System Enterprise Edition:

• Complete office phone system - provides call switching, routing & queuing
• Eliminates phone wiring & patching of extensions to a particular network point
• Makes teleworking easy because employees can answer extension from home
• Purchase cost dramatically lower than a traditional hardware PBX
• Scalable - Unlimited extensions and phone lines. No proprietary expansion modules needed!
• Web-based configuration & status indication - Easy phone system management!
• Unified messaging - Receive voice mail via e-mail
• Auto attendant (e.g. 1 for sales, 2 for support etc.)
• Reduces long distance and inter office call costs using VOIP providers.
• Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging integration
• Call Queues
• Certified for Windows 2003

Four available editions: Small Business, Pro, Enterprise and Free
3CX Phone System for Windows is available in 4 editions: The Small Business Phone System Edition supports up to 25 extensions, the Pro edition supports an unlimited number of extensions. The Enterprise edition includes advanced features such as Exchange 2007 integration and Call Queuing. Pricing is competitive: Small Business costs $350, the Pro runs at $895 and Enterprise costs $1250.

3CX Phone System Free edition
A free edition, supporting an unlimited number of extensions, is also available. The main difference with Pro and Small Business is that it’s not possible to buy a support package for the free edition, nor does it include the advanced features of 3CX Call Assistant. Not withstanding, the Free Edition does more than most commercial PBXs do; including an auto attendant, voice mail and even user-to-user support via the 3CX moderated product forums at http://www.3cx.com/forums/. The free edition can be downloaded from here.

Information in German , Spanish, French , Italian and Portuguese

3Cx Phone System 3.1 released

Its been a very intensive 2 months working on this latest version of 3Cx Phone System. Its a major step forward since we have reworked the interface and included support for many more gateways and providers.

Download the beta here http://www.3cx.com/downloads/3cxphonesystem3_2295.exe

CISCO arrogant about VOIP

"Frankly we don't think anyone stands a chance competing with us in this space," Cisco Chief Development Officer Charles Giancarlo said. "We basically invented Voice over IP so we basically know better than anyone else where it's headed."

This must be one of the most arrogant statements i have ever read. And nothing could be further from the truth, especially when it comes to the invention of standards surrounding VOIP.

Lets see a few years down the line exactly where CISCO will be. So far i have spoken to plenty of people that are replacing CISCO CallManager with a more open IP phone system, and loading SIP firmware on their CISCO phones.