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www.binfo.co.uk magazine 30

Special Report:

Communications

A major enhancement in SwyxWare 2011 is Rich Presence, which provides more detail than standard presence, including the ability to link a user’s status to their Outlook calendar; edit status to show when a user is ‘away’, ‘busy’ or ‘on holiday’; and display different photos depending on one’s status (e.g. a leisure photo if on holiday and a formal one if in a meeting). Status information also shows the best way for a person to be contacted e.g. via phone, email or mobile. Alternatively a user can set up call forwarding or call routing options using a logical call routing wizard.

Now in its eleventh year, leading soft PBX developer Swyx has unveiled a new version of its popular SwyxWare business telephony and unifed communications solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

The new version, SwyxWare 2011, has been completely remodelled ‘under the hood’ to take into account technical changes in the last decade, and has been packaged in a way that offers greater clarity and simplicity for Swyx dealers and their customers, whilst still offering many new features as standard (e.g. HD sound quality, voice/data encryption and rich presence – see caption).

Growing sales

The launch of SwyxWare 2011 comes at a time of growing sales for Swyx, which, having weathered the downturn in 2008/9, saw sales increase by 25% in 2010 and is looking forward to similar growth this year. In Germany, SwyxWare is already the Number 1 IP PBX below 50 users and the Number 2 below 100 users. In the UK, it ranges from third to seventh depending on market sector, but according to Dr Ralf Ebbinghaus, Swyx vice president of distribution and marketing, is in a good position “to grab a bigger share of the market.”

“What we thought when we founded the company 11 years ago has become reality: people are adopting unifed communications because they realise it can do more for them,” he said. Swyx is one of numerous business telephony suppliers with a strong unifed communications offering, so what is it that makes SwyxWare stand out from the crowd?

One factor, according to Dr Ebbinghaus, is its simplicity.

“SwyxWare is still a pure software

solution based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, because that is the one that SMEs typically use every day; and it still runs on one server. Other people spread their solutions across many servers, but ours is on one server and has one administration console for controlling all features and functions. That’s a strong beneft,” he said.

Simpler licensing

Following feedback from resellers, Swyx has made SwyxWare 2011 an even neater solution by changing its licensing model and the way it is packaged and sold. Previous versions of SwyxWare were available in two packages: Essentials, which provided core functionality but was still missing some basic features that had to be bought as options (e.g. voicemail); and Professional, which offered everything, but was over-specifed for most users. This rigidity extended to the licensing model, which was based upon defned packs of 5, 10, 50 or 100 licenses, so that someone requiring 87 licenses, say, would have to buy two or three more than was necessary.

Now, for the frst time, SwyxWare 2011 can be specifed with the exact number of licenses needed and comes in just one Standard model offering all that 90% of businesses will need, including voicemail, computer telephony integration, Microsoft Outlook integration, application sharing, instant messaging, peer-to-peer video telephony and conferencing. Additional features can be bought as options. As examples of what is provided as standard and what is extra, Dr Ebbinghaus referred to computer telephony integration and conferencing.

“Integration with Exchange and Outlook is provided as standard, but integration with Lotus Notes would be

The virtue of simplicity

The new version of Swyx’s unifed communications system offers

greater clarity for customers and resellers. extra. Similarly, the standard version has

basic three- and fve-party conferencing, but if you wanted a conference room with a PIN code, recording and an unlimited number of participants, that would be extra,” he said.

In theory, this simplifed model could cost Swyx money as it will result in fewer licenses being bought and the sale of fewer unnecessary features. However, Dr Ebbinghaus is confdent that its obvious benefts will lead to more sales and remove the need for discounting, which dealers were forced to do to make the over-specifed Professional package competitive.

It also gives resellers the opportunity to sell additional functions as customers’ needs change.

In this context, one nice new feature of SwyxWare 2011 is the ability to integrate the phone system with ERP or CRM software so that when a call comes in the system would see if the caller had outstanding invoices and so send the call straight to accounts, or route the call to different customer service agents depending on what type of customer the caller is (tier one, tier two etc.). “These are applications that customers are prepared to pay extra for. It’s where a reseller can make a difference. If you sell services to do the integration a customer will stay with you help you escape the traditional PBX sales cycle,” Dr Ebbinghaus explained.

Thousands of businesses are already using SwyxWare to be more effcient, more productive and more responsive to customers’ needs. The latest version makes it even easier for businesses to implement unifed communications today or in the future as their needs change

www.swyx.com

Dr Ralf Ebbinghaus, SWYX Vice president of distribution and

marketing

people are adopting unifed comms because they realise it can do more for them