Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Back to the topic of IP-PBX

Fonality has taken trixbox Pro free. [phone+] (Of course, trixbox used to be Asterisk at Home). That's one more free PBX software for the SMB space joining Asterisk (and its many variations) and 3cx for Windows. It has a nice list of features.
  1. trixbox Pro is stocked with advanced features such as auto-attendant, Outlook integration, voicemail-to-email, conference bridges, CRM integration, detailed reporting, HUD, call center capabilities, and more. Now with a re-branding interface, make trixbox Pro look like your company! (from trixbox site)
  2. HUD, the all-in-one presence management tool that allows employees to control business communication from their desktops. HUD enables effective communication across a teleworker enterprise by adding real-time access to employees via private enterprise chat, click to call, click to email, and drag and drop call transfer. (Allows for linking branch offices for four digit calling). (from trixbox site)
  3. "trixbox Pro also includes conference calling, unified messaging between voice mail and e-mail, employee presence management, embedded corporate chat server and the ability to integrate with Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce.com and SugarCRM." [phone+]
  4. "trixbox Pro includes trixNet, an in-network calling service that lets users call any other trixbox Pro user. Calls over trixNet are not subject to any local or long-distance charges. ... The company said it will extend free trixNet calling to include anybody using GoogleTalk in 2008." [phone+]

All of those features are great, especially for a samll business or for a Reseller looking to offer an inexpensive PBX with a maintenance agreement (say, recurring revenue without being an ITSP). HOWEVER, there is one twist:

trixbox Pro is a hybrid-hosted phone system, which means the free software is first downloaded by a business and installed on a local computer and local IP phones. The local computer connects to the Fonality network. The trixbox Pro also extends the phone system outside the corporate firewall, so an employee’s extension can be used at home, remotely on a laptop or on a mobile phone.[phone+]

Connects to the Fonality network? I guess like a super-peer to allow for free in-network calling.

1 comment:

Jim Heising said...

Have you looked at CallButler? http://www.callbutler.com