Richard Davies wrote: The UK has a good crop of technology pioneers in cloud computing - for example ElasticHosts, FlexiScale, Flexiant, OnApp - and also some strong government initiatives such as G-Cloud.
We will have to see whether this kind of technical leadership converts into swift mass-market adoption or not.
LONDON -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/09/07 -- 3CX today released its commercial edition of 3CX
Phone System, a new Windows-based IP PBX that completely replaces a
proprietary PABX. Based on the open SIP
standard, it interoperates with a wide range of popular soft phones and
hardware phones. Since it supports SIP, it is possible to interface with
all SIP-based providers and gateways and connect to standard PSTN lines
and/or hosted VOIP lines.
"The release of 3CX Phone System is significant because we have freed the
IP PBX from dedicated hardware and
proprietary protocols. Now an office phone system can run as a server
application on Windows and can be more scalable and more manageable," said
Nick Galea, 3CX CEO.
"The move to IP-based phone
systems has been in progress for some time. But often it still involves
proprietary hardware -- a black box. Solutions from AVAYA, Cisco and even
Microsoft's Promised Response Point are all linked to a proprietary piece
of hardware. In the case of AVAYA and CISCO it even involves a proprietary
protocol and proprietary phones. 3CX Phone System delivers a truly open
system that runs on any machine using Windows and interoperates with all
popular SIP phones, gateways and providers. Furthermore, it doesn't tie you
to Linux," continued Nick Galea.
-- Complete 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.
Three available editions: Small Business, Pro and Free
3CX phone System for Windows is available in 3 editions: The Small Business
Edition supports up to 25 extensions, whilst the Pro edition supports an
unlimited number of extensions. Pricing is competitive: Small Business
costs $350 and Pro runs at $895.
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
phone system 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
http://www.3cx.com/ip-pbx/index.html.