innovedia headquarters are located at Calgary Technologies Inc. in the Alastair Ross Technology Centre at:

3553 31 Street NW,  Suite #436

Calgary AB T2L 2K7 Canada.

Calgary Technologies is home to many of Calgary’s leading emerging technology companies. Calgary Technologies Inc., “CTI” is a not for profit joint initiative of the City of Calgary, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and the University of Calgary providing a suite of programs, services and resources designed to support and accelerate success of tenant clients.

Part 1: Site Analysis

I’m glad I did a site visit before I a showed up to do the install. Although, it should not surprise me that there were wires everywhere, I have seen worse.

It became obvious rather quickly that I was going to have to do some wiring, to every desk. I made some sketches of where the drops needed to be and ensured there was power to support the phones as well. Within 10-15 minutes I had my shopping list and a decent sketch of the LAN. “It puts the Ethernet cables in the basket.” 1 hour later I had all I needed.

Part 2: Pre-config & Testing

I spend the next couple of hours on some other business which left me about 30 minutes for a quick pre-config and basic testing. It went flawlessly, apart from some Mac versus XP issues I will share with you later.

Part 3: Site Installation

I showed up on site on schedule at 4pm to start the job. By 5 pm I was basically finished the wiring and had the base unit, gateway and Ethernet drops all ready. I plugged the telephone lines into the gateway and we were ready for full-on geekness. Let’s add some phones and assign some users.

Microsoft did a phenomenal job with the phone and user provisioning methodology. Brainless provisioning is something that I have been ranting about for some time, glad to see someone got it right for a premise-based SMB phone system.

Within the next 20 minutes I had 5 phones configured and ready for use. The Response Point interface is very well done, very little margin for error for PBX newbies.

I spent approximately 20 more minutes configuring the router to assign a persistent DHCP address for the base unit and gateway. 10 more minutes for configuring the voicemail to email SMTP settings.

At 6:10, we made our first internal call, to the voicemail system. “I suppose I have to enter my first born’s date of birth via the key pad to get into the voicemail system?”, said an eager employee. “No, not at all, simply press that blue button and say VOICE MAIL. And if you want to call anyone else in the office just press that button and say their name.” That look on her face was absolutely priceless. It was like I just gave her a winning lottery ticket.

Part 3: Basic Training

Again, more fun than anything else. “This is how you use voice recognition to call people. This is how you geek out on telephony.” Needless to say, they love their new phone system.
Summary: It’s hard not to like this PBX. For SMBs it’s like a gift from above. Sexy, and it works. I was out of there by 7 pm and aside from replacing a faulty Ethernet cable I will likely not have to go back anytime soon.

Hats off to Microsoft, it’s been a while since I have been this impressed about anything that has come out of Redmond but they have certainly won my vote. SMB PBX of the year? Could very well be just that but let’s see how Service Pack 1 goes over before I get ahead of myself.

Recently one of our customers approached us and requested that we sell them and subsequently install a Microsoft Response Point small business telephone system. We had zero experience with Response Point but since we are not ones to shy away from a customer request, we ordered a system. In the next few posts I will take you through the entire process from unpacking the telephone equipment to making our first calls. If it’s as easy as they say it is, we should have the system up and running in a few short hours, or less. Keep in mind that some of the steps mentioned below are sometimes accomplished prior to proposing a PBX solution, but this is a unique case. With that said, here is my plan.

Part 1 - Site Analysis
Since this is an IP-based system I am going to need to understand the current network layout and basic impact of this system on the existing LAN before I attempt to install it. I also need to understand how the customer wants to have their Auto-attendant configured. This will require a site visit.

Part 2 - Pre-configuration and Testing
In order to reduce the impact and disruption of me being on-site I am going to pre-configure the system and all of the phones before I arrive for the real site installation. I am going to do my best to emulate the customer’s network as closely as possible.

Part 3 - Site Installation
The moment of truth. After hours, I will plug everything in and we will make some calls.

Part 4 - Basic Training
I explain how-to use the system and run through some of the basic features with the designated system administrator.

Stay tuned for Part 1, unpacking tech stuff is always like Christmas for me.

Telephone numbers have been a necessary evil that we continue to tolerate but should be considered more carefully. Elimination of obtuse 10 digit numbers represents a material opportunity to make our lives easier and is likely to provide very significant cost savings and productivity gains.

Think about it; you either call a person or an organization and the fact that you need to find or remember and then dial a random 10 digit code is increasingly looking like an anachronism. Thanks to the continued convergence of voice and data, or computers and telephones, the need for the random number continues to diminish. As I mentioned earlier, the mobile industry has done a nice job for us of reducing the need for numbers with simple, easy-to-use dial by name directories and voice activated dialing. Ironically, the wireline industry providers of our home and business telephones have continued to demonstrate a complete lack of imagination in this area offering little innovation in service since the implementation of automated switching over 50 years ago. (This strikes me as a reflection how regulated oligopoly dampens market driven innovation.)

Not only do we have all the technology pieces readily available never to have to deal with a 10 digit code again, we have the means to know who’s calling and thanks to the miracle of presence services if the person we’re calling is available. Nicholas Negroponte, in his incredible manifesto for the digital age “Being Digital” (1988) suggested that our grandchildren will be confounded to hear that there was a time when we answered telephones “hello” without any idea who was calling or why.

Technologies should make things more convenient and efficient for all of us eliminating the need to track down arbitrary 10 digit number sequences to have a voice conversation. How would you like to have to find a 9 digit IP address to visit a website? I want to push a button and talk to a person or company without having to locate and dial a code. I manage to do this with my Blackberry or iPhone and on my landlines with my innovedia softphone directory and soon my Lypp Outlook plugin. Here’s to the end of the phone number, can’t come soon enough for me!

tj

innovedia introduces “Business Central”

a simple, powerful solution for all your office communications

innovedia introduces the Business Central, an all-inclusive office appliance for your business. Industry describes it as “a multi-service office gateway” but customers are describing it as a complete “office in-a-box” solution. A single appliance that provides you a feature rich, state of the art business telephone system combined with internet connectivity, email, security, file-sharing, wi-fi wireless services, remote office VPN, and voicemail applications, Business Central is the most effective small office solution ever developed.

more than just a fully featured business phone system
the Business Central integrates all the essential technology and communications tools your business needs. Designed as a single appliance, Business Central includes: a phone system, file server, email server, router, firewall, wireless access point, VPN remote access server, automated backups, voice over IP, standard phone line support and more.

more affordable than purchasing components separately
the Business Central is a single appliance that dramatically reduces the total cost of ownership including purchase, training, support, ongoing maintenance, and upgrade costs.

easier to use and manage with simple menus
Business Central delivers advanced management functionality for all the integrated applications through a simple, workflow-based menu. Designed to be managed by non-technical personnel, Business Central is secure and easy to manage, gives you complete, instantaneous control over all your business communication services - with no hidden IT, integration, software, or training costs.

future proof with automated system upgrades
Business Central includes secure web enabled communications for automated system monitoring, upgrades and support. New features are provided automatically providing world leading communications services and features for your business; no more hardware obsolescence.

“Business Central” awarded Unified Communications Product of the Year 2008

Designed for small business, Business Central is a complete and easy-to-use office communications solution that includes everything you need to keep your IT and communication services and costs under control, stay connected wherever you are, work collaboratively with others and have access to the same tools as large companies.