Unify and Simplify Business Communications

Esnatech and Avaya

2012-02-01T06:56:00.000-05:00

Esnatech and Avaya Top reasons why Avaya partners need esnatech in their portfolio to address the need for integrated unified communications with best in breed UC practise.

esnatech 8.5 release webcast

2012-01-25T12:59:00.000-05:00

#esnatech Do not forget to register for the esnatech 8.5 release webcast- Covering our UC for Cloud applications .. http://info.esnatech.com/office-linx/info.esnatech.comWebcast Event: Office-LinX Version 8.5 Release. Office-LinX Logo. Esnatech Office-LinX v8.5 is the only Integrated Unified Communications solution that interoperates with any voice, mobile and PBX sys...

#esnatech Details on esna technologies new 8.5 UC for Cloud enabled enterprises http://tinyurl.com/79bjdebEsnatech Office-LinX 8.5Enabling Organizations to Communicate and Collaborate in the Cloud

2012-01-19T09:26:00.001-05:00

#esnatech Details on esna technologies new 8.5 UC for Cloud enabled enterprises http://tinyurl.com/79bjdebEsnatech Office-LinX 8.5Enabling Organizations to Communicate and Collaborate in the Cloud

We are super excited about our latest release 8.5 that delivers true scalability for organizations looking at integrated unified communications for Hybrid environments. Version 8.5 seamlessly integrates Core UC services with any Cloud based application such as Google apps, Google Plus, salesforce.com, etc.

Organizations straddled with complex infrastructure and have a mixture of cloud based applications and mobile workforces leveraging their own personal devices will love the idea that a software application can simplify and streamline their core enterprise communications while dramatically lowering there overall communication costs. Version 8.5 delivers on this promise with true scalability to meet an large global enterprises needs.

Office-LinX™ 8.5 is the industry’s only Integrated Unified Communications (IUC) platform that provides today's hybrid enterprise with mobility, presence, and messaging applications that empower any information worker to connect, communicate and collaborate using the applications and devices of their choice. Office-LinX 8.5 is interoperable with any voice, mobile and PBX system and seamlessly integrates with on-premise and cloud-based business applications such as Google Apps, VMware Zimbra®, Salesforce.com and Microsoft® Office 365 (BPOS).

The latest high availability (HA) version of Office-LinX supports full virtualization of its voice clusters with VMware vSphere support. With Office-LinX 8.5, organizations have the ability to distribute the application and resources over multiple virtual servers connected to a single or distributed telephony infrastructure. This ensures both uptime and real-time synchronization of mission critical communications infrastructure.

Office-LinX is optimized to work in mixed, distributed environments integrating with multiple on-and-off premise telecommunications technologies and cloud-based applications and infrastructure.

Esnatech is a global leader in cloud-enabled unified communication solutions. The award-winning Office-LinX™ platform provides today's hybrid enterprise with mobility, presence, and messaging applications that significantly improve workforce productivity. Office-LinX is interoperable with any voice, mobile and PBX system and seamlessly connects with cloud-based applications such as Google Apps, VMware Zimbra®, Salesforce.com and Microsoft® Office365. Through a global network of OEM and reseller partners, the Office-LinX solution has been deployed to millions of users and is available in more than 28 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.esnatech.com.

2012-01-17T14:50:00.000-05:00

The Cloud and what it means for your enterprise

Cloud services are more than just hosts for apps. They're resources that you can provision for your changing needs, and which you can scale up or down as necessary. In a very short time, suddenly true scalability for every IT service appears to be within reach for organizations looking at Cloud services and applications. A market that was almost non-existent by the end of last year, has grown past what many analysts would consider the point of adolescence, with the shakeout subsiding and brand dropouts declining. Someone should remind these cloud service folks there's a recession going on.

Cloud applications and the use of the Cloud in enterprises has increased so much many are forecasting the Cloud will disappear, not in the sense that it will be gone (far from it) but rather in that that it will become all-encompassing within a business. Companies will no longer see The Cloud as a trend or even an alternate model for using compute resources - it will become transparent as it will be the de factodefault means of choice for nearly all IT-backed projects across industry sectors.

Large tech companies such as Google are heavily focused on Cloud, Mobile and Social technologies and how the enterprises can leverage them to boost business and productivity. Its obvious the mobile workforce and growth of BYOD ( BRING YOUR OWN DEVICES) within the enterprise you will continue to see the integration of all three of these technologies.

Integrated Unified communications helps achieve this goal by seamlessly integrating communications across Cloud based and mobile based business applications allowing users to access key business processes securely from any device and deliver real-time communication and collaboration across an enterprise workforce.

The enterprise cloud is in our blood now, too. And at this rate, it will probably be in our bones and muscles before the end of 2012.

Office-LinX Cloud Connect Edition for Cisco Unity Connection (playlist)

2012-01-13T07:44:00.000-05:00

Enabling Goolge apps integration with Cisco Call manager and unity connection

('http://www.youtube.com/p/3A793E00CED1A691?version=3&hl=en_US',)

2012-01-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year ! What to expect in 2012
Cloud, Mobile, and Social will define communications in 2012
For many tech companies focused on enterprise communication and collaboration cloud, mobile and social will her the main drivers for enterprises investing in communication technology.

Cloud adoption will continue to accelerate in 2012, especially in small businesses, among which only 10 percent or so have deployed cloud technologies, according to a report for Zoomerang. Other important statistic is Forrester Research data that predicts more than 77 percent of organizations will support Google Android and iOS devices next year, driving a richer application choice for users from their mobile devices. Web research firm StatCounter noted thatGoogle's Chrome 15 was more widely used in the last week of November than Microsoft'sInternet Explorer 8. This illustrates the emergence of Cloud based devices and increase of demand for endpoints driving cloud based services.

There's little doubt that Chrome share is on the rise. And that's crucial for Google and Cloud based applications because the browser gives the Cloud apps the ability to push the Web standards for business applications

To capitalize on the consumerization of IT and users bringing their own personal devices into the workplace, Companies will integrate web-based mobile device management into business applications driving a "mobile-first" strategy where mobility takes centre stage.

Finally social media and networks have further infiltrated the business landscape in 2011. With the launch of new major Social networking platforms such as Google plus and the integration of Skype with Facebook, Social networking platforms are increasingly becoming the collaboration platform of choice for mobile users and even enterprise workers. The social enterprise has been growing as more and more companies look to incorporate Facebook-like communications among workers. Jive (which just debuted on the Nasdaq),Yammer, and Salesforce are all betting on the social as an integral part of productivity and business processes in the future. Google will soon bring a more in-depth Google+ social experience to businesses and institutions using Google Apps.

The market for enterprise social collaboration software, which offers Facebook and Twitter-like capabilities adapted for workplaces, will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 61 percent through 2016, a year in which the market for these products will reach US$6.4 billion, compared with $600 million last year, according to Forrester Research.

From Social networking pages enterprises will be able to connect with customers, vendors and fellow employees, there is so much work going on which will make enterprises much more productive. There’s a shift towards moving from individual productivity based applications to more social applications, and this is only going to accelerate.

Part of 2012 will entail bringing the social experience to businesses and this will be driven & built through the adoption of the cloud within the enterprise. The combination of cloud applications and services with the ease and use of collaboration through Social applications will further drive productivity to the mobile workforce and enable adoption and proliferation of Mobile end points as more then just communication device but communication and collaboration devices that will become user primary tool for doing business.

Unified Communications for Cloud Apps

2011-12-07T09:44:00.001-05:00

Unified Communications and Communication-Enabled Business Process for SaaS and Cloud based Solutions

Esnatech is focused on providing a Software platform and framework that not only delivers integrated Mobility, Unified Messaging and Presence to your existing phone system and business applications, but it also provides rich and seamless integration with SaaS and cloud based business solutions. With 80% of enterprises today integrating and evaluating Public cloud solutions for core business process, integration between current legacy infrastructure and communication framework will rapidly drive ROI behind any cloud initiative and further fuel enterprise productivity and agility. We see Cloud migration everyday with the mass adoption of business solutions such as Google™ Apps and Salesforce.com. Esnatech has developed unified integration to both solutions in order to deliver realtime communication features and solution sets within these environments.

The result is greater productivity, anywhere access and streamlined process with no heavy footprint, as well as the elimination of any custom configurations or integrations. Now organizations can take advantage of cloud computing environments without running the risk of losing any communication functionality that they would have from traditional infrastructure and solutions. Esnatech enables organizations to have a REAL alternative for Unified Communications that TRULY delivers anywhere access to both applications and live communications.

Cisco Unity Connection (Gmail/Cloud Integration)

2011-11-30T08:21:00.005-05:00

Key services offered for Cisco Unity Connection Google Gmail/VMware Zimbra Integration

Office-LinX™ Cloud Connect Edition for Cisco Unity Connection Unified Messaging for Google Gmail/VMware Zimbra

Cisco Unity Connection voicemail integrated with Google Gmail and VMware Zimbra and message waiting light support with an existing Cisco PBX
Cisco Unity Connection users can integrate their existing voicemail with both Google Gmail and VMware Zimbra for native email access to read, respond, and manage right from the web based and embedded email platforms or web-services
Office-LinX Cloud Connect Edition delivers core unified messaging functionality users are accustomed to from traditional email solutions such as Microsoft Exchange, phone or PC playback, live reply, and more right from the integrated web services.

eFax Services for Google Apps and VMware Zimbra

Fax messaging integrated with Google Gmail, Google Docs and VMware Zimbra
Fax-on-Demand
Email-to-Fax (fax printing from the desktop)
Google web fax gadget that can be published in Google Apps for sending fax documents through corporate phone system

UC Mobility Services for Google Apps and VMware Zimbra

Provides all the services that are included in the Office-LinX Cloud Connect Edition and eFax license plus integrated presence and dialing from Google Apps and VMware Zimbra web framework
Provides rich phone status and phone presence integrated to Google Talk and VMware Zimbra Zimlets
Phone status enables click-to-dial from Google Talk and VMware Zimbra Contacts using corporate phone system
Ability to have Google Talk phone presence integrated with a user’s Google Calendar
Live screen pops and call control—live calls will get integrated with Google Contacts to provide live status of incoming calls native in Google Apps
Google Apps’ users can manage live calls in real-time and decide which calls to take and which calls to send to Google Gmail in order to leave a message
Knowledge screen pops—provides Google contact resolution on incoming calls; Office-LinX UC service will execute Google desktop search based on the incoming caller ID information for live call control and intelligent call management
Fixed-mobile Convergence Server enables find-me/follow-me, call blasting, and call hand-off with users’ existing enterprise phone system—provides Google Voice functionality with users’ existing extension and DID numbers

Contact us now to get more information on our Cisco UC Services. Call 1-800-565-3762

Enabling the Hybrid Enterprise - Mobile Workforce

2011-11-23T17:53:00.000-05:00

Unified Communications Key to the "Hybrid enterprise"

Many organizations have been trying to figure out how we can do better at connect remote users and locations to an organizations main infrastructure and business solutions, as well as making our other location seem like it's right next door.

Connecting remote sites and remote workers is a challenge for a company of any size, but it has become more important for enterprises with complex environments and infrastructure, especially with the rapid pace of consolidation that has occurred in many industries. The ability for employees to quickly and easily collaborate with colleagues that might be hundreds or thousands of miles away can directly lead to increased business agility and can also serve to bring employees closer together even though they may have never met in person.

These services generally revolve around a few core technologies. First is voice services, which should not only be tightly integrated into all sites, but should also extend to the home office for remote workers, and be available to employees on the go in a hotel room on the other side of the country.

The second service is collaboration technology, and it should be available in the same manner. One to one and group conferencing from meeting room to meeting room, or from desk to desk, or from the hotel room to any of the above should also be handled as transparently as possible. Third is centered around mobile computing.

Most organizations have common attributes with a fairly traditional network layout: two or more sites and an array of mobile and home users. If you’re currently using general phone service at each location, you’re likely using two separate PBX systems at each site, and using contact lists and phone books to allow users to contact remote employees, while local employees might just be an internal extension. If there is any video conferencing in place, it’s probably limited to one room at each site, and remote users connect to meetings via voice calls to a conference bridge.

the key is to invest in technology that allows your o flatten and consolidate your investment in communication and collaboration around this existing infrastructure and allow your workforce to communicate and collaborate as seamlessly as possible. To learn more visit us online at www.esnatech.com

Office-LinX™ Cloud Connect Edition for Cisco Unity Connection

2011-11-16T07:47:00.000-05:00

Esnatech's unified communications application Office-LinX™ drives revenue in the enterprise market.

Office-LinX is a SIP-based software solution that generates communication and collaboration revenue from organizations that want to migrate core business solutions such as email and sales force automation to the cloud. Its cloud-based integration provides competitive differentiation on new greenfield UC opportunities specifically with customers using cloud-based applications such as Google™ Apps, VMware® Zimbra email and collaboration platforms.

The Esnatech Office-LinX™ platform offers new integrated services for the Cisco Unity Connection and Cisco Unified Communications Manager. The new Esnatech Office-LinX Cloud Connect Edition seamlessly integrates Cisco Unity Connection with Google Gmail and VMware Zimbra email solutions for integrated unified messaging and communication services. Office-LinX is a software application that enables Cisco Unity Connection to seamlessly provide integrated voice and fax services with these market-leading platforms that are becoming essential alternatives for organizations at leveraging the cloud to reduce costs and increase efficiencies with email and collaboration.

Building the new Sales Force - Social Networking with UC

2011-11-09T17:11:00.000-05:00

Sales is largely a social function. Personal, social and in real-time. You don't sell alone, you need a team behind you to win!

A fully productive sales team needs access to the right information, the right expertise and the right tools—in real-time—to give them the edge to win. A social sales strategy combined with integrated communication and collaboration tools needs to be pervasive and not limited to a single sales use-case. The ability to connect across boundaries—partners, customers and employees—is absolutely critical, in order to take full advantage of the new ways a business can have a big impact on both direct and indirect sales channels.

The bottom line is your sales people should be selling, instead of prospecting and spending too much time understanding how to gather resources and when to schedule resources. They are stuck trying to wear too many hats because of lack of information and communication throughout their organization. This is not sales-enablement. It is time for people and the information they need to close deals, to be served directly to them. It's time for a new way!

Unified communication and collaboration tools provide your sales team with the insight, expert knowledge and information they need to increase your revenue. Put the power of your internal network at their fingertips to optimize the effectiveness and readiness of your sales force.

gSocial event for Google Enterprise Eco-system

2011-11-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

A conference for Google Apps Resellers and Independent Software Vendors to collaborate, share best practices, and partner to grow their businesses November 8-9, 2011 in Santa Clara California.

The event is a consortium of Google Apps Authorized Resellers and ISVs have banded together for the gSocial Conference, a first-of-its-kind channel event. It’s designed to help the Google pros in attendance build their businesses and develop best practices.

While Google will be making a showing to promote market expansion strategies, the conference’s organization is sponsored by Google Apps Marketplace ISV's such as Backunify, Zoho and us, Esnatech. As a first of it's kind of bringing together all the important pieces around a strong eco-system of channel and solutions we are excited about the opportunity to really share and collaborate on how to help enable organization make the migration to the cloud and leveraging Google apps as a framework for exciting changes in enterprise collaboration and productivity.

The ISV's participating are focused on extending the value of Google Apps by offering complementary solutions that enhance an organization migration to the cloud and drives greater value in the migration and faster ROI in the process. the goal for the event will be to:

Gather feedback on your solutions and reseller value propositions from top Google Apps resellers;
Meet top performing Google Apps resellers and deployment specialists and learn how they are successfully implementing Google Apps across various customer segments (and potentially identify other market opportunities);
Hear from other ISVs about their successful strategies for developing market demand;
Learn how to leverage the Google Apps Marketplace to accelerate customer adoption;
Learn from Google about their market expansion strategies and how ISVs can accelerate the adoption of Google Apps in key segments.

This promises to be an exciting event and the first of many collaborative sessions between Google, the re-sellers and emerging and established Google apps ISV's

Second Day at the Broadsoft Connections Event!

2011-10-19T15:03:00.000-04:00

Esnatech Drives google apps integration at the 2011 Broadsoft Connections Event

2011-10-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

Esnatech is showcasing its Unified Communications solution for Google Apps at The 2011 Broadsoft Connections Event. Do not miss esnatech's presentation on Unified Communications for Google Apps at 3PM Today!

Esnatech Cloud Applications

2011-09-27T12:23:00.000-04:00

Delivering solutions for the Hybrid enterprise:

esnatech Cloud Applications

Join esnatech at the 2011 ITEXPO at the Genband booth # 607

2011-09-08T15:04:00.000-04:00

I would like to invite you to the 2011 ITEXPO to attend esnatech's demonstration of its UC for Google Apps Solution as well as the Genband A2 system.

Key Points in Esnatech's demo for Google Apps:

1. Retaining unified messaging functionality for MS exchange customers migrating to Google Apps

2. Eliminate fax costs by integrating fax into Google Apps

3. Integrate enterprise voice (phone systems) into Google Apps for mobile phone integration and phone presence integrated with Google talk

4. Accelerating adoption of mobile devices in the enterprise by replacing desktop phone with smart-phones, UC mobile software connected to existing phone system

Please, do not hesitate to contact marketing@esna.com for further details regarding esnatech

What CIO's Want!

2011-08-23T11:48:00.000-04:00

At the end of the day if you were to interview most CIO's from mid to large enterprises, and you asked them what they need, it would come down to a combination of more time and more budget. Currently CIO’s are tasked with difficult initiatives such as modernizing and optimizing the company and its processes with limited budgets and limited scope. They have to be the chief technologist within the organization and manage current existing legacy systems. With the rapid growth of the internet and and the computing world, CIO’s have the added responsibility of staying on top of and predicting market trends to ensure that their future investments will be worthwhile.

With the rapid pace of technological advancement, by the time the decision is made to move and migrate to a new platform it has already become obsolete and replaced by a new product on the market. Thus CIO are then to blame for the enterprise investing in dated technology. Not only is it a difficult task to be the leader of the technology direction, in many cases it can be thankless as well as many legacy processes mean many legacy experts that will resist and reject the change many CIO are trying to instill. Resistance mean even more time and cost, and can only hurt the projects.

What esnatech provides is the ability for CIO's to start their cloud initiative with little to no disruption in their day to day communication process. The investment in our technology immediately finds more budget by; consolidating fax, voice mail, mobility, presence, IVR, and speech applications into a single platform dramatically lowering annual licensing and management costs. This will free up the budget for other cloud initiatives, and at the same time because esnatech can provide ubiquitous to cloud apps from their legacy voice infrastructure they can move to the cloud at their pace.

The key is providing CIO's with access to technology that can provide them with more access to their budgets by eliminating one or several legacy processes that are costing them time and money. This investment that will provide access to even more funds, and will help them complete more projects in timely manner while lowering the risk of obsolete deployment. Help the CIO get through his hit list quicker by providing them technology that will drive lower costs of operation, optimize efficiency of core business process such as integrating live communications and collaboration with CRM, SFA or even groupware solutions. To find out more on how esnatech can assist in providing CIO's with more time and money feel free to visit us online at www.esnatech.com

Why Businesses are Migrating to the Cloud

2011-08-16T10:50:00.000-04:00

Cloud computing gives organizations access to the following:

On-demand IT

You can increase IT resources, such as processing power and network storage, easily as and when you need to, as well address peach periods and throttle up and down your requirement to meet your exact needs

A Resilient Platform

Virtual servers with redundancy, fail-over and replication is a standard offering. your applications and communications will work even if a hardware component fails.

IT that grows with your business

You can increase or decrease your server and application capabilities when you need to. This gives you an agile application and server infrastructure that always meets the demands of your business.

Lower risk

You’ll get the IT and applications you need at an affordable price with per usage metered rates. You won’t face the high upfront costs of on-premise IT and infrastructure or pay for systems and applications that the business will only use a couple of years down the line.

Want to move your business to the cloud? Google,Microsoft, VMware, Apple are all making this a viable option, let esnatech make whatever option you chose as seamless as possible by enabling hybrid environments and furthering the adoption for Core Cloud applications for collaboration.

Enabling business for Growth

2011-08-08T06:37:00.000-04:00

Based on AMI research, the number of SMBs owning smart phones and tablets will increase by 40 to 85 percent, respectively. The report concluded that the success of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and similar Android devices has fueled this growth. The result is they are driving larger demand for more specialized, business-focused mobile apps.

Today's mobile worker is never without their mobile device. Access to email and the web is critical for them to operate effectively. Mobile workers are now seeking access to all their core business processes from their mobile devices; consequently emerging as their primary computing source.

Mobile apps are data-driven from the “cloud.” UC Mobile from esnatech easily facilitates communication and collaboration of this data with instant access to live communications from any smart device. The report states there is “no surprise” that their adoption is analogous to what AMI has observed with the cloud: U.S. SMBs have been adopting cloud services to meet a wide variety of business applications starting with basic communication, that, over time, has led to more and more access to cloud solutions in their day-to-day operations.
“Similarly, early success within mobile apps was driven by communication applications such as email and IM. Future growth for mobile apps is expected to meet more sophisticated business needs,” Prashanth Motupalli, Survey Research Analyst at AMI, said. “These applications have become ‘must haves’ for this generation of workers, which is ‘always on.’

AMI researchers said U.S. SMBs are looking to service providers of smart phones and tablets to offer solutions with mobile devices to meet this growing need, either out-of-the-box or as a quick, headache-free, add-on. Undoubtedly, productivity suites will be the next applications to experience high growth. However, as the mobile needs of U.S. SMBs continue to evolve, more specialized mobile applications such as CRM and analytics, will likely be next to gain mainstream adoption.

As knowledge workers are driving the technology that businesses adopt, it is critical to understand the emerging work habits of the most valuable employees. Migration from desktop to mobile endpoints will only further propel the need for collaboration and communication as workers move further away from the corporate walls. As we become a “wired” society, and as mobile connectivity becomes necessary to operate—mobile communications will become a definitive component of corporate communications.

Mobile Faxing on iPhone

2011-08-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

Power of the Cloud

2011-06-20T06:56:00.000-04:00

Enterprise transformation with SaaS/Cloud computing is occurring on a daily basis. More organizations today are migrating one or more of their major business applications or process’s into the cloud! At this point in time, IBM and Microsoft are looking to place their future bets on cloud based delivery models, along-side currently cloud based companies Google and Salesforce.com. The consideration has shifted from questioning whether an organization should migrate to the cloud, to a decision on which cloud is best for your organization.

The reality is that the cloud environment is more secure, less expensive, and faster to market than traditional application development. Business applications that take 4 to 5 months to set up in a traditional delivery environment are now completed in a matter of weeks. The result is the ability to respond to business change at speeds unimaginable in any other environment. It creates the agile enterprise, an enterprise that most organizations are required to transform themselves to meet today's complex business world.

The key question lies within; which business process has the largest ROI to make the transformation. Most organizations are focused on storage, data housing, e-mail, and now core business applications such as CRM, Salesforce automation. From my perspective, voice is fairly low on the priority list, especially with the advent of instant messaging and the wide adoption of smart devices. The key around voice solutions, are investing in applications that can enable cloud solutions, and allow smart devices to work with your existing voice systems and platforms. These applications not only unify the communication experience, but make the transition down the road to a cloud-based voice infrastructure; seamless and painless.

In reality, voice has simply become the plumbing to connect and communicate. The drivers to real-time collaboration will be the applications that seamlessly make everything work together. As an example, if I am in Salesforce.com monitoring my business opportunities, I can see who is available in both my team and prospects and instantly communicate and collaborate between the 2 parties. This allows me to quickly and efficiently speed up our business process and move productive collaboration to completed tasks and processes. The idea of premise to cloud applications is to help facilitate organizational need to move to the cloud and start driving corporate efficiencies.

For more information on premise to cloud solutions visit esnatech online at www.esnatech.com.

New drivers to Legacy voice migration- email not VoIP

2011-06-14T10:22:00.000-04:00

For years people in the voice industry have been chasing the proverbial “golden goose” aka, legacy messaging migration. They have identified at least 90 million users on old Octel systems that are coming to end-of-life. If you couple that with the large base of Nortel Call Pilot users, and a series of other legacy platforms such as Inuity and Audix platforms the numbers are double.

What drives these customers to migrate to new messaging solutions? Many vendors have tried to target this market with new voice mail platforms that provide an abundance of great features, attempting to engage customers to make the change. However, the reality is that unless the system is no longer operational, customers are more inclined to stick to their end-of-life solutions. The only real drive most voice vendors are aware of is a major change in their voice platform, basically the customer will migrate when they decide it’s time to buy a new phone system.

The situation arises from the fact that many organizations do not have new phone systems or voice platforms as major agenda items, unless the system is no longer functioning, or becoming too costly to continue using. With the advent of mobility, instant messaging, video and real-time collaboration, voice is becoming a distant item on most organizational game plans. In fact, according to most voice providers, the stats show that roughly less than 30% of their customers invest in new voice platforms each year.

At this point in time "legacy messaging migrations" are increasing. Many companies are throwing out old voice applications such as voicemail, IVR and fax platforms; replacing them with applications and services that address their current virtualization strategies. This allows them to flatten and consolidate their licensing and maintenance costs with true software and service solutions. This is evident in the proliferation of both the Microsoft OCS/Exchange platform and the growth of hosted email offerings. Basically the drive to change and consolidate is not a new voice/VoIP upgrade, but the decision about which email platform to migrate to! Whether its Exchange 2010 with built-in voice applications or a migration to Google Apps and other leveraging platforms like our very own esnatech Office-LinX, email (not VoIP) is the key for new legacy migration opportunities!

Vendors need to recognize this opportunity or the will lose the ability to press the value of integrating and consolidating voice communication and applications with their email migration. Focusing on email migration increases the directed market from 180 million seats to well over a billion seats of legacy migration customers looking to make a change.

High Availability and True Scalability

2011-05-24T10:49:00.000-04:00

Many organizations today demand high availability in mission critical business solutions. Voice squarely falls into this category and in particular voice processing, messaging, and live communication apps need to be delivered as core services. Many vendors mask their lack of communication applications by providing redundant hardware or multiple solutions to their customers.

Today with the advent of virtualization, vendors offering basic hardware redundancy is a difficult concept to understand. Simply saying you support virtualization does not in any way address the scale and replication of all elements surrounding core business solutions.

From an esnatech perspective, providing support for virtualization enables our customers to have hardware redundancy without having the hardware! The power of the esnatech UC solution is supported by its ability to service both scalable single-server deployments spanning up to 100 SIP-sessions, and distributing the application over several voice servers. This enables, high availability, geo-redundancy and disaster recovery in one simple architecture. UC platform solutions from esnatech are market leaders because of their wide scope of interoperability and scalability.

The ability to configure true high availability with message, user, greeting and application integration is what differentiates true high availability framework from a combination of hardware, third-party apps, and a configuration to satisfy most customers basic availability requirements. The esnatech application server, Office-LinX provides a scalable and redundant option with support for real-time synchronization and application clustering. This architecture will provide support of over 800 voice ports simultaneously as well as over 30,000 users on a single solution which covers; messaging, mobility, presence, fax and business process optimization.

High availability has shifted from a mission-critical requirement to a general requisite that affects all types of deployments. From single PBX deployment to the centralized management of a distributed organization; esnatech's high availability architecture has been a key difference in the value that esnatech’s unified communications platform can offer large enterprises. The high availability release is the first of its kind in the unified communications world! It delivers real-time synchronization across distributed disparate infrastructure. This not only ensures up-time, but it also allows organizations to integrate their legacy infrastructure with IP-based unified communications.

By leveraging the Office-LinX SIP framework, the application server can talk to different PBX’s and telephony infrastructures. It is the perfect architecture for large universities, government organizations and municipalities that have multiple locations but want to be fully networked as a single organization.

For more detailed information visit us online at www.esnatech.com

New voice and fax software development kit from esnatech launches at Google I/O

2011-05-11T14:48:00.000-04:00

Office-LinX App Engine allows Google Apps developers to quickly build robust Unified Communication applications for any enterprise voice infrastructure.

RICHMOND HILL, ONTARIO, CANADA, May 11, 2011—Esna Technologies Inc. (esnatech), a market leader in enterprise Unified Communications, released its new voice and fax software development kit (SDK) for Google Apps at this year’s Google I/O event in San Francisco. The Office-LinX App Engine SDK allows Google Apps developers to rapidly build and deploy enterprise voice and fax add-on applications to esnatech’s award winning Unified communication platform, Office-LinX.

"Office-LinX provides a robust foundation for integrating enterprise voice within Google Apps environments. With the success and accelerated deployment of Office-LinX in the Google enterprise user community, this new SDK will help developers build innovative solutions to meet the overwhelming demand for enterprise-grade communication and collaboration services. Voice is a major part of any company’s business process and is highly complex. This SDK lets developers quickly build applications without worrying about the complexities of the enterprise voice infrastructure.” Mohammad Nezarati, CEO esnatech

Office-LinX App Engine

The Office-LinX App Engine is a collection of web services APIs allowing developers to embed voice and fax plug-ins into Google Apps including GMail, Docs, Calendar and Sites. Developers can create applications such as click-to-dial, email-to-fax, docs-to-fax, or voice and fax document management with Google Docs. Skills based routing integrated with enterprise databases can also be developed.

The App Engine will be available at the end of May for developers to download and use to create applications for Google Apps and esnatech Office-LinX users. Applications can be tested in the esnatech developer’s sandbox which will be available for certified esnatech developers. For more information feel free to visit the esnatech developers network web site at http://www.esnatech.com/partners/development.htm

About Office-LinX

Office-LinX by esnatech is a multi OS, Unified Communications platform that delivers rich presence, mobility, and messaging. The esnatech UC server is tightly integrated with all major PBXs and VoIP services and provides Mobile UC services to RIM BlackBerry, Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad, Google Android, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices. It can be deployed as a standalone UC solution or as an integrated application within existing PBXs and messaging solutions such as OCTel voice mail platforms.

About esnatech

Founded in 1989, esnatech’s mission is to provide communication solutions that empower organizations by giving them the flexibility to conduct business at any time, from anywhere, and manage the information they need, when they need it. OEM and VAR partners market and distribute esnatech products in 28 countries worldwide.

Esnatech UC practice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_e2MvrpPM8
Mobility: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUJyZtIN6Mk
Presence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPMC5JCQQ0
Messaging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-XdBbWEP7I

Press Only Information:

Davide Petramala | VP Sales & Marketing, Esna Technologies Inc.
Tel: +1 905 762-4614 | davidep@esna.com

NOTE TO EDITORS: For information on esnatech, please visit our pressroom at www.esnatech.com/press/pressroom.htm. Web links, telephone numbers, and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact esnatech’s Marketing department at Marketing@esnatech.com. Microsoft Windows, Exchange, Office & Terminal Services are registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation, Blackberry is a registered trademark of Research in Motion.

esnatech at Google I/O May 10th-11th

2011-05-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

Join esnatech at this years Google™ I/O event in San Francisco, CA from May 10-11th at the Mascone Center! This year esnatech will be showcasing Unified Communications for Google Apps, highlighting Google Voice/Talk integration. Our development highlights the value we can provide to both existing and new Google Apps customers.
Google I/O brings together thousands of developers for two days of deep technical content, focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more.
Learn about our Unified Communication services for Google Apps and the development of our SOAP framework to integrate federated phone and mobile presence with Google Talk and leverage native Data API's for integrated status and presence around Google Contacts and Calendars.
Taking advantage of the gadget framework, esnatech will be showcasing our NEW FMC Mobile Client integrated with both Google Apps and Google Talk/Voice for a seamless communication experience; delivering messaging, mobility, presence, instant messaging, text, voice and video in a pure web framework.

Customers leveraging esnatech’s development UC for Google™ Apps today:

SEIU (largest labour union in the U.S.)
“Unified communications without the major RIP and Replace investment! One solution seamlessly integrated to the cloud leveraging my existing Cisco network! Esnatech enabled SEIU to seamlessly migrate to the Cloud without missing a step and allowing us to retain our core voice communications! We not only flattened and consolidated our email by going to the cloud, but by leveraging esnatech's Cloud based UC services we could flatten and consolidate all our major voice applications for our 1000 plus members on our Cisco voice network. Mobility, Presence, and Unified messaging all provided by one simple scalable solution that delivered native integration to Google apps our next generation cloud based collaboration framework.

This is the only solution available that allows total integration with Google Email and application suite and the Cisco Call Manager product providing full control of Message waiting indicators on the phone, whether the message was listened to on the phone or from the computer of mobile device. Works great for us as we use the Apple iphone as main tool for receiving voice messages.” —Randy Homyk, SEIU

For more information visit us online at www.esnatech.com or follow us at:

esnatech rolls out version 8.1 of its Unified Communication platform

2011-05-03T14:49:00.000-04:00

Office-LinX 8.1 by esnatech Provides Support for Cloud-based Unified Messaging

RICHMOND HILL, ONTARIO, CANADA, May 03, 2011—Esna Technologies Inc. (esnatech), a leader in enterprise unified communications, releases version 8.1 of Office-LinX. The award-winning unified communications platform allows enterprises to integrate UC with cloud-based technologies such as Google™ Apps, Vmware, Zimbra® and Microsoft® BPOS.
The Office-LinX 8.1 UC&C software enables mobility, messaging and presence integration with both on-premise and cloud-based business applications and processes. The addition of web-based UC services to version 8.1 extends the power of unified communications to any mobile device or cloud-based email application.
"Extending our unified messaging services to cloud-based email allows us to help customers meet their messaging needs and hit cost targets without sacrificing key functionality around communications and collaboration. Organizations will now be able to focus on application investment instead of hardware and infrastructure upgrades,” said Davide Petramala, VP Sales and Marketing at esnatech.

Office-LinX version 8.1 addresses specific enterprise requirements around communication and collaboration technology including:

64-bit OS support for 8.1 application server, including support for Windows 7 and 2008 R2 64-bit versions
Enhanced Presence support for key voice environments

Cisco Unified Call Manager 8.0 (TAPI)
Avaya CM 5.2 (requires Application Enablement Services - AES)
Toshiba Strata CIX CSTA (required for Windows 7 and 2008 installations)

Extended legacy voicemail emulation support

Added TUI emulation for Repartee messaging platform from Active Voice

THE CLOUD-ENABLED ENTERPRISE

Office-LinX 8.1 enables enterprise to leverage cloud-based applications and offers:

Integration of live voice services from an enterprise's existing PBX network
Dialing, messaging, call control and presence with cloud-based applications
Integrated UC services for Google Apps including:

Unified Messaging, IVR, auto-attendant, fax services, Google Talk enterprise voice presence
Fixed-to-mobile convergence integration with existing phone networks and mobile devices

Unified Messaging support for Microsoft BPOS

A ROBUST UC PLATFORM

The award-winning Office-LinX software by esnatech, used by enterprises world-wide, enables:

Mobile and ubiquitous access to live communications on any operating system or mobile OS, integrated with your existing corporate PBX or phone system
Presence capability that improves productivity through:

Google/MS Exchange calendar integration for intelligent routing, filtering and connectivity
Presence-enabled call processing for enhanced IVR and customer retention
Live, rich phone status federated with Google™ Talk, Skype, MSN Live and OCS
Enabled real-time communication and collaboration within the enterprise

Integration of Google, Salesforce and Microsoft Exchange contacts for:

Intelligent call routing
VIP voice services
Intelligent call connections
Leveraging Microsoft and Google desktop searches on incoming calls

The unified communications market is growing strongly across North America. Organizations with multiple locations have large investments in their existing voice infrastructure, but are looking for opportunities to flatten and consolidate voice applications like messaging and call routing. Office-LinX enables customers to centralize voice applications across multiple locations and disparate phone systems. Organizations can now deploy a centralized, scalable, GEO-redundant architecture that layers mobility, presence and messaging technology on top of their existing network. This allows direct integration with any business application. Office-LinX version 8.1 is available now and can be downloaded online.

About Office-LinX

Office-LinX is a multi-OS, unified communications software platform that delivers rich presence, mobility and messaging. The esnatech UC server is tightly integrated with all major PBXs and VoIP services and provides mobile UC services to RIM BlackBerry, Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad, Google Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices. It can be deployed as a standalone UC solution or as an integrated application with existing PBXs and messaging solutions such as OCTel voicemail platforms.

About esnatech

Founded in 1989, esnatech’s mission is to provide communication solutions that are simply the best way to communicate. Solutions by esnatech empower organizations, giving them the flexibility to conduct business at any time, from anywhere, so they can manage the information they need, when they need it. These solutions are marketed and distributed through OEM and VAR partners in 28 countries worldwide.

Press Only Information:

Davide Petramala | VP Sales & Marketing, Esna Technologies Inc.
Tel: +1 905 762-4614 | davidep@esna.com
NOTE TO EDITORS: If you are interested in viewing additional information about Esnatech, please visit the www.esnatech.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact our marketing department (marketing@esna.com). All trademarks mentioned herein are the sole property of their respective owners.

Mitel makes more changes

2011-05-02T15:14:00.000-04:00

Unified communications specialist Mitel (NASDAQ:MITL) is making yet another change in course as it attempts to regain the luster it had when it went public a little more than a year ago. The Canadian firm is looking to jumpstart a business that has seen its stock price slide from $14 per share to less than half that in recent months.

The latest move, includes plans to make it nimbler by simplifying its organizational structure, focusing R&D investment on the mid market, and realigning sales and channel in the U.S. And, just eight months after CEO Don Smith left the company, President and COO Paul Butcher is also out. CEO Rich McBee is assuming the role of president, and the COO post is being eliminated.

"I am implementing a strategy anchored by three initiatives in a multi-step approach to grow Mitel's business as a unified communications and collaboration provider," said McBee in a statement.
The company plans to simplify its business, creating a flatter organization comprised of two geographical sales organizations-- Americas and International-- and three key business units, Mitel Communications Solutions, Mitel NetSolutions and Mitel DataNet.
"This new, more agile organizational structure will enable Mitel to better serve its customers and innovate more quickly, all with the goal of increasing shareholder value," McBee said.
Mitel also will focus it R&D efforts on products that address the high-growth market of 100 to 2,500 user organizations.

"We are committed to our Freedom architecture which is being well received by customers around the world looking to capitalize on existing infrastructure investments and create a best-in-class communications solution," McBee said, adding that Mitel will continue in that direction to take advantage of the opportunity in the mid market segment.
Mitel also plans to reorganize its U.S. sales organization, hoping to to more effectively deliver its products through partners by increasing its investment in its indirect channel, facilitating growth and expansion at local, regional, and national levels.

"We will also focus our direct sales team on a select group of customers," said McBee.
Mitel said it will look to take advantage of its "market leadership in voice virtualization," continuing to partner with VMware. "This has been a differentiator for Mitel in acquiring new customers and providing a migration path for existing Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform customers to Virtual Mitel Communications Director," McBee said. "Our customers have made it clear to us that virtualization is a priority for them and, as a result, it is a strong priority for us as well."

Mitel also looked to reassure investors that the changes wouldn't negatively impact its earnings, reiterating its revenue and non-GAAP financial guidance for the fourth quarter as provided in its prior quarterly earnings press release from March 1. Mitel said it would incur a non-recurring charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 that wouldn't impact non-GAAP operating expenses or any of the other non-GAAP outlook provided in its previous press release.

Mitel saw second quarter earnings drop, and recorded a $4 million in the third fiscal year quarter, which was reported in March, although it did see some big sales, including a $43 million deal with the New York City schools and acceleration in the APAC region, Central and Latin America.
The company said it expects essentially flat revenue of $160 million to $165 million for this quarter, compared to $162 million in the third quarter and $161.1 million in the second quarter.

Value of Virtualization of your Unified Communication Applications

2011-04-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

Application-oriented platforms for unified communications such as the esnatech Office-Linx platform enables organizations to migrate from legacy hardware, loaded with individual voice applications, to a virtual instance of one application server that will deliver a portfolio of services through a single license. Companies or organizations that have already invested in virtual environments already understand the ROI of virtualizing applications to reduce power requirements, management and maintenance of legacy servers. Esnatech’s communication and collaboration application platform allows companies to extend that cost saving across their legacy voice applications such as:

Voice mail
Fax Servers
IVR
Auto Attendants
Mobility Applications

To a single consolidates solution and license that can operate within the existing virtual framework to eliminate both the cost, management and maintenance of all the legacy applications and servers.

To calculate the ROI simply calculate the cost savings in annual maintenance for each individual application, the cost of maintaining and upgrading the hardware it exists on and the employee management time to administer and maintain each solution independently.

Adoption of Unified Communication & Collaboration Technology

Enterprise adoption of UC&C continues to increase, yet adoption rates remain low mainly because companies have not seen the return on investment they need in order to cost-justify the system. Typically, UC&C deployments involve very high, up front costs driven by the need to upgrade older systems and deploy new software/hardware. The slow adoption is the result of multiple technical and organizational issues, including:

Enterprises having large investments in communication infrastructures that must be preserved, leading to a slower evolutionary approach rather than a “rip and replace” approach.
Many applications and products are complex to deploy and may require organizational changes or extensive product customizing and integration.

The business case frequently is based on a soft ROI or a strategic investment, such as productivity improvements, rather than hard ROI, such as cost-savings. As a result, in a conservative economy, deployments occur more slowly, perhaps as part of a broader technology update.

This is what makes the esnatech UC&C application so appealing to most customers saddled with existing investments. It allows them to integrate productivity and process gains with little to no investment in new hardware or infrastructure. This “top down” approach will help dramatically accelerate the adoption and ROI to an organization’s UC&C investment.

Value of Mobility in the Enterprise

2011-04-12T09:09:00.000-04:00

Today's businesses are becoming more mobile—driven by a distributed workforce and global access to skillful staff. Investing in technology that enables communication and collaboration across distributed organizations/workforces is critical to a business’ success. The return on investment for mobile applications is very easy to achieve with the appropriate technology.

Key statistics show:

Mobile services account for approximately 25% of the total North American telecom budget (32% in the EU)
30% of all office calls are received on a mobile phone

The ultimate goal of mobility technology is to optimize communications among end-users, despite their location or the device being used.

The principal benefits of investing in mobile communications are the productivity gains as a by-product of collaborative teams working in distributed locations. The ability to connect in a virtual environment affords a major time-savings for individuals and subsequently allows them to perform additional tasks. Virtual collaboration also drives business agility—knowledge workers can connect and make decisions together quickly. Presumptively an increase in sales and customer satisfaction is driven by real-time responsiveness. By leveraging an investment in voice infrastructure, extending that to the distributed workforce and reducing capital expenditures in order to supply productivity and agility through application investment, a solid return on your investment can be secured.

The total cost of ownership (TCO) can be calculated as a single number reach with consolidated voice mail. By providing one-number access, an employee on any device with coverage can bring all calls to a centralized voice mail platform, eliminating mobile messaging charges on a monthly basis. If the average user is paying $1 to $3/month on mobile messaging, an average 200-user organization will save $400/month in a simple reduction to mobile voice mail along with the additional productivity and enhanced responsiveness of one corporate message center.

If you also add the ability for mobile dialing of your enterprise PBX you can reduce your mobile long-distance charges (leveraging SIP trunks) to virtually nothing. Your average mobile LD rates may range from $5 to $20/user/month, and you have a wealth of cost-savings that could justify the investment in an Esnatech communication and application server within months.

Investment in Presence technology

2011-04-04T06:56:00.000-04:00

Presence technology is an integral part of unified communications, making "real-time" interaction more efficient and productive. Presence makes it possible to locate and identify a computing device wherever it might be, as soon as the user connects to the network.

For enterprise communication the notion of presence is broader. Presence can mean any useful notion of state that to be applied to people, to any aspect of a job, or to business processes in general. In this broader sense the presence of a person can include the job he is currently working on, the amount of time he has been doing it, or even his physical location (as is becoming available from mobile carriers). With this kind of information an enterprise can be more intelligent about how use personnel to manage customers and collaborate with co-workers.

When presence is assigned to business processes, a communications system can provide a unified way to assure responses to important business events. A customer account that transitions to the "urgent" state can cause immediate and appropriate contact with the customer.

Value of presence?

Through instant messaging (IM), presence has already become part of almost everyone's communication environment. Moreover, with current communications product offerings presence is expanding out from IM to become part of PBXs, unified communication and many other kinds of products.

With these first generation systems, presence already has an impact on efficiency—in the calls you don't make because the person is away. Over time this impact will become more and more significant, because more kinds of state information will become available, and because the systems are more sophisticated in what they can do with it such as integrate call routing and messaging based on current state and personal agenda.

Presence is the ability to indicate to the outside world a handful of useful characteristics about a person, including:

Who the person is.
What the person is currently doing.
Whether the person can be reached.
How best to reach the person (phone, instant messaging, email, video conference, etc.).

Presence comprises customers, family members and personal friends, team members, managers, and fellow employees, each of whom might merit a different response about an employee's status and reach-ability. Then there's the question of "who the person is" -- which, again, can vary by context. A customer seeking technical support, for example, might not care in the slightest about reaching an employee named Mary Smith -- he just wants to reach someone qualified to fix his particular problem

As far as communications efficiencies are concerned, features, already in implementation, will automate out much of the current hassle of communication and will significantly improve management visibility and control.

Presence also enables an entirely new form of business integration with communications. With presence, business applications can be linked to the communications environment by triggering actions and events that the organisations communication process can respond to and manage.

Using presence in an enterprise

Presence tends to be a feature of an overall process or application, rather than a standalone product itself. Instant messaging, telephony, email, conferencing, and social networking tools all increasingly have presence as a built-in capability. So, from an enterprise perspective, the question isn't really, "Should we deploy presence?" it's, "how do we integrate presence around our business processes to gain the greatest value?"

Several issues need to be explored when investing in presence technology. First is that, properly managed, presence can mean increases to productivity. It helps reduce the overhead required to locate individuals and get questions answered. (Often, the ability to get a simple "yes or no" question answered in a hurry can drive efficiency in decision making in your everyday process.) So it's wise to think in terms of enabling presence rather than quashing it—it's not only a legitimate business tool but, properly implemented, a highly effective one.

The bottom line? Enterprises interested in exploiting presence need first to decide which system they'll deploy as the cornerstone of their presence initiative. They should address head-on such issues as privacy, policies and e-discovery.

Ultimately Presence will be increasingly important for efficiency of communication and will become a standard part of business competitiveness overall.

Return on Unified Messaging

2011-03-28T06:57:00.000-04:00

Key elements to look at beyond the obvious productivity gains of single access and management of all your messaging from your email or smart phone. Not only will it drive productivity and increase customer satisfaction but you can quickly calculate your return on the investment to make it happen

Determining Payback Horizon

Your payback horizon, meaning the point at which your business begins to see a profit from using unified messaging, is easy to calculate. By annualizing your savings, you can come up with a clear monthly average. Each month, subtract the monthly savings from your initial investment costs.

For example, Company A invests $100,000 in unified messaging. Their use of unified messaging saves them $10,000 per month. If you subtract $10,000 from the initial investment amount every month, in ten months the investment will be fully paid off and the company begins to see a return.

Calculating the ROI

A positive ROI occurs when reduced costs, coupled with increased revenue, exceed the cost of implementation. The formula for calculating a company’s ROI is:
ROI = [(Revenue-Investment)/Investment]*100

At the start of any initiative ROI will be -100% because you will not have earned any revenue or savings from using unified messaging. On your payback horizon, your ROI will be 0% where return equals the investment you put in. Once your profit begins to exceed your investment, you will begin seeing a positive return on your investment and your ROI ratio will continue to grow along with your revenue.

Calculating the revenue gain from UM becomes the challenge as hard dollar allocation based on the technology can be very subjective.

The typical way that user productivity gets translated into ROI is by estimating the time saved through the use of unified messaging, multiplying that by a salary cost, and then extrapolating that to the entire population.

Take the scenario of a professional-services firm that bids on 75 projects a year and has a typical close rate of 75%, for an annual revenue stream of $8,437,500. If the firm is able to apply unified messaging to 1% in additional business in a year, the tangible benefit is $112,500. This
benefit increases rapidly as close rates improve, with a 5% increase in close rates providing a benefit of $562,500.

The Key question is if you invest in unified messaging can it speed up your business process, leading to tangible benefits such as increased sales or higher customer retention/satisfaction rates. Examples of how one can determine an ROI around the Unified messaging investment include:

● Cost avoidance – using IM /email rather than a toll call

● Revenue gains – additional sales (more time to sell, better productivity)

● Revenue acceleration – Completing sales more quickly

● Intangible benefits - increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, happier employees, employees work from any location

● Productivity gains – accelerated business processes

● Efficiency gains – improved business processes

Unified Messaging ROI

2011-03-21T15:13:00.000-04:00

Calculating the ROI (Return on Investment) for unified messaging is critical in understanding its business value, whether you are migrating from an existing voice mail platform that is operational or is end-of-life. By focusing on your investment and revenue, you can determine your rate of return and make a solid, business case for migrating from voice mail to unified messaging.

Savings and Generated Revenue
Consider the revenue that will be a direct result of implementing the new technology, as well as the savings that your business will incur. There are two major areas that are directly affected by unified messaging.

1. Employee Productivity. Consider how much time each employee is likely to save with the implementation of UM by using the average hourly rate for all of your employees; you can then add up the savings per week, per month or yearly. For a more conservative estimate, you might want to account for the employees who do not use their time-savings productively, and divide the final total in half. For example, unified messaging saves employees in company A an average of 30 minutes per day. If the average hourly wage is $30 per hour, you can estimate a savings of $15 per employee per day. Extrapolated over the period of one year, assuming 250 days in an average business year, company A is actually saving about $19,000 per employee!

2. Increased Sales and Better Customer Service. The time saved from using unified messaging can be dedicated to taking more calls, which cuts down on hold times. Sales will thus increase by reducing the number of opportunities that were missed in the past. Also, when employees are able to quickly consult with their co-workers, getting customers the information they need sooner, there will be faster resolution times, decreased call length and increased sales. Determine the average number of sales that are typically closed and your total sales revenue. When look at all of these benefits collectively, the ROI for your company is clear, making unified messaging a must-have for corporations both large and small.

Business Case for Adopting Unified Communications and Collaborations

2011-03-07T06:22:00.000-05:00

The best business case for adopting Unified Communications and Collaborations (UC &C) comes from the streamlining of mission-critical business processes in various vertical markets.

● Healthcare: UC can facilitate the calling and paging of medical staff.

● Education: On campuses, instant notifications can alert faculty and students to emergency situations as they arise. Within schools, attendance can be taken automatically.

● Government: Notification of non-emergency services can be enhanced.

● Financial Services: Customers can be notified when market activity sets off certain triggers. Consumers can instantly check account balances, place orders or communicate with the bank in the case of lost or stolen cards.

● Transportation Industry: UC&C can alert drivers of the need to take another route for traffic or other reasons.

● Call Center Environments (Formal or Informal): The use of presence and other UC&C capabilities let workers quickly connect callers with subject-matter experts, regardless of where they're located throughout the enterprise.

Embedding unified communications capabilities into business processes allows companies to optimize the customer experience.
The greatest return from implementing UC&C come from integrating the technology into business applications throughout the enterprise. By altering business practices, unified communications & collaborations provide employees, business partners and customers improved communications on a global basis in real-time. This seamless ability to stay in touch can streamline business processes which are currently limited by communication gaps.

When to Make the Move to Unified Communications

2011-02-28T07:06:00.000-05:00

Identifying an event to look at investing in Unified Communications and Collaborations(UC&C):

Many organizations identify the opportunity to invest in a UC&C implementation by planning it in conjunction with other organizational and/or network changes. Customers have indicated that along with planning and executing UC&C applications, they are also often doing at least one of the following:

1. Integrating two or more existing organizations' networks (i.e., a business merger/acquisition or a reorganization).

2. Expanding or implementing a telecommuting program for a significant percentage of the organization's workforce.

3. Replacing obsolete or legacy applications and solutions (e.g., voice mail, PBX).

4. Implementing a business continuity/disaster-recovery plan and supporting capabilities.

5. Integrating branches of distributed operations (e.g., retail store locations, bank branches, field offices).

It is crucial for companies to look for these kinds of changes in an organization, and to take advantage of the events to invest in technology that will improve productivity while making them more cost-efficient.

Return On Investment (ROI) for UC&C is often hard to provide in dollars and cents, as much of the value comes from improved communications among employees and customers.

An Example of UC&C Investment

2011-02-23T07:06:00.000-05:00

Most organizations can expect to pay between $30-$70 per user for basic IM applications or between $150-$250 for UC-enabled IM, capable of serving as a real-time communications dashboard, plus associated server costs. Take an organization of 10,000 employees that would see an approximate cost of $60,000 for a Microsoft OCS server with a three-server configuration (not including hardware costs). Alternatively, leveraging Esnatech’s Google integration, organizations can have IM, presence and voice bundled together for less than $100 per user per year with no hardware or footprint to manage or maintain.

Beyond integration of IM, Web/audio/video conferencing and VoIP, companies can add calendaring applications, enabling presence status to change as someone goes in/out of meetings.

Presence status can be displayed in inboxes (i.e., within Microsoft Outlook, Google apps, or Lotus Notes) or across other integrated applications (i.e., mobile clients, shared work spaces, other WEB 2.0 applications).

Enterprises can integrate their UC&C systems with business process applications as described earlier, either via open web-services standards or via gateway devices, which are integrated as a part of the Esnatech UC architecture and framework.

The typical way that user productivity gets translated from these applications into your ROI is by estimating the time saved through the use of the applications, multiplying that by employee time cost, and then extrapolating that to the entire population; this allows you to gauge the benefit of the investment in terms of greater productivity vs. cost savings (e.g., what your CFO will want to know!)

Calculating the Return on Your UC&C Investment

2011-02-22T06:51:00.000-05:00

The key question when determining the return on investing in Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C ) technology is if you invest in applications that drive collaboration is can it speed up your business process, leading to measurable benefits such as increased revenue or higher customer retention/satisfaction rates. Examples of how one can determine an ROI around the UC&C investment include:

● Cost reduction – direct cost savings, for example from conference calling or using Least Cost Routing rules off your PBX regardless of your location

● Cost avoidance – using IM rather than a toll call

● Revenue gains – additional sales (more time to sell, better productivity)

● Revenue acceleration – Completing sales more quickly

● Intangible benefits - increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, happier employees, employees work from any location

● Productivity gains – accelerated business processes

● Efficiency gains – improved business processes

The way that user productivity gets translated into ROI is by calculating the time saved through the use of the application, multiplying that by a salary cost, and then extrapolating that to the entire workforce leveraging the technology.

Take the scenario of a consulting company that bids on 100 projects a year and has a typical close rate of 75%, for an annual revenue stream of $10 Million. If the firm is able to apply unified-communications applications to close just 1% in additional business a year, the tangible benefit is $133,333. This benefit increases rapidly as close rates improve, with a 5% increase in close rates providing a benefit of $666,667.

Savings scenario, if we assume that a 10,000-person organization implements UC&C at a cost of $6 million, a savings of 30 minutes per day per person easily justifies the investment. Even if we assume only half of the saved time is reused for productive business activity, we still see a positive return of over $10 million.

If you figure that employees make an average of $30 an hour (that includes salary and benefits), this translates into potential cost savings of $15 per day, per employee. That comes to 123 hours per employee, per year (based on 245 workdays in a year), for total savings of $36.75 million, based on our 10,000-employee scenario.

Apps Will Drive Productivity!

2011-02-08T06:42:00.000-05:00

Deploying an Esnatech communications and collaboration application will add features such as presence, unified messaging, and collaboration that are accessible by virtually any end point. Because these Apps are IP-based, existing infrastructure investments can be leveraged, new features can be added on an as-needed basis, and underused network capacity can be tapped.

No longer do employees have to wait for a call or email back from their managers to take action; UC&C features such as presence let workers know who is available at any given time, and being able to reach an available manager with a wire line or wireless voice call, email, instant message, or text message significantly speeds the decision-making process. Knowledge workers are increasingly distributed and virtual: working from multiple locations.

Unified communication and collaboration solutions unified with existing business applications and processes, drive real time collaborations so individuals can manage all their communications together, in both desktop and mobile environments.

Unified communications and collaboration helps improve close rates by giving sales teams better access to support resources via the use of presence. Mobility services enable people to be available regardless of location. Salespeople can locate SMEs in rapid time to help close a sale.

Presence-enabled unified communications serves to virtualize corporate resources, enabling individuals to find the experts they need regardless of location and quickly include them in a call, Web conference, videoconference or audio bridge. Adding these apps to your business integrated with existing core applications will have immediate impact on your bottom line by driving productivity and lowering overall communication costs. To learn more visit www.esnatech.com.

Two Approaches to Unified Communications and Collaboration

2011-02-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

There are two approaches to Unified Communications and Collaboration:

1. Open system/open architecture products that are best of breed, or
2. Implement an all-in-one manufacturer’s system in hopes of mitigating interoperability issues with multiple vendors.

Companies must also consider whether they want an on-premise system or hosted system and must assess the benefits of UC&C as part of the process of choosing and justifying the best option for their business.

Most organizations today have a workforce that is increasingly distributed, mobile, virtual and global, creating major inefficiencies for communications. Projects are delayed because of the inability to reach mobile and remote colleagues, the inability of dispersed work-groups to communicate spontaneously, the lack of visibility into the availability of colleagues, the inability to quickly locate critical decision makers, and scheduling concerns for collaborative work sessions.

Unified Communications seeks to increase efficiency, improve customer intimacy and speed up time-to-resolution for both customer and employee problem-solving. It also offers a cost-effective way to more directly connect the company to its customers, employees to employees, and more tightly bind business partners and suppliers. Examples of UC & C usage include:

● Seeing the presence and status of an individual in real-time

● Receiving voice and fax messages in an email inbox

● Making phone calls from a laptop computer

● Transferring calls between a smartphone and a desk phone

● Keeping messages accessible anytime, anywhere, from a wide variety of devices, including phones, fax machines, and PCs

● Voice-activating commands to access calling and conferencing capabilities, voice, fax and email

● Group calendaring – view calendars and schedule appointments without playing phone tag

● Reading voicemails anywhere, anytime via speech-to-text capabilities

Esnatech provides customers with AN OPEN SOLUTION platform that provides access to these key technologies without any change to your existing infrastructure. The key is open-integrated technology that takes advantage of your existing and future framework. To find out more about an application-based approach to unified communications and collaborations visit us online at http://www.esnatech.com

Unified Communications Simply Drives Productivity

2011-01-25T06:46:00.000-05:00

Reduced capital spending and improved productivity are the top benefits that organizations should expect from an investment in Unified Communications & Collaboration ( UC&C) deployment such as the esnatech Communication and collaboration application server.

Forrester Research stated in a recent study that the overall market for UC&C technologies reached $2.8 billion in 2009, and will continue to increase with annual growth rates of 20 percent or more. By 2015, They predict the market for UC&C in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific will reach $14.5 billion.

According to the same study, over 85% of Fortune 500 companies have deployed UC&C. Unified Communications & Collaboration is not just for large organizations; it can be extremely valuable for small to medium-size enterprises by streamlining operations and driving productivity. The question for most small to medium sized entities is how can the cost justify the UC&C investment?

Beyond basic productivity cost savings and decrease in capital expenditures, organizations should expect to also see more reliable communications that can be enabled seamlessly in the event of an emergency, more effective use of remote and mobile workers to meet organizational mandates, improvements in customer service levels and reductions in business travel. Communication and collaboration applications not only provide more reliable and cross-functional communication, but it will also increases up time and continuity against network disruptions. In addition, UC&C enhances the sense of belonging and affinity amongst remote or mobile workers to better collaborate and communicate amongst each other. Physical location will not determine the level of productivity or output; UC&C eliminates this barrier to drive seamless and open collaboration across an organization's distributed workforce.

Streamlining Unified Communications

2011-01-18T08:51:00.000-05:00

Whether you’re in a small or large organization, interoffice communications with your co-workers can be difficult, especially if you have a mobile or distributed workforce. While you’re trying to streamline task management and communications through memos and telephone features, you may find that the paper clutter and countless telephone extensions cause more frustration than organization for you, your team, and even worse your customers.

Businesses can now benefit greatly from the marriage of these two systems allowing for email, instant messaging, desktop computing, telephony and mobile services to all be used on one fully integrated network with one single framework.

Unified communications can help any businesses to become faster, more efficient, and better able to remain in the forefront of the competition. Through the integration of multiple communication and informational devices such as laptop computers, mobile phones, Smart phones, tablets, or similar wireless devices, real-time or near real-time interactions are possible; essentially allowing one person access to a host of communication tools such as email, voice, fax, SMS, and video through their interface and application of choice

Business in general, along with the actual workplace, are simplified on so many levels when communications is simply unified giving owners and their employees a definitive edge when it comes to both productivity and revenue. Find people quicker, or allow them instantly gain access to you wherever you are, and unified communications may also save a business a considerable amount of money on overall communication costs.

With streamlined communications, maintenance costs also inevitably drop rather noticeably; as you can flatten and consolidate many voice applications into a single integrated application framework. Even the cost of implementation and deployment is much less then most people anticipate. Today many vendors including esnatech can provide application only solutions that integrate with existing infrastructure, devices and applications dramatically lowering the cost of deployment and adoption within an enterprise

Esnatech’s NEW Mobile UC Client for iPhone and Google Android

2011-01-10T15:46:00.000-05:00

Value in Esnatech UC Extension:

The NEW Mobile UC Client embedded within the Esnatech UC service for Telephony Office-LinX 8.0, integrates with any PBX on an industry-standard server. Mobile staff can make and receive calls from anywhere, using any of their unlimited defined devices and SIP endpoints as if they are in the office, maintaining their corporate identity (single number reach) and always accessible to customers and colleagues (business continuity and first call resolution). In addition, UC Extension means costs savings in terms of cellular charges. Cellular long distance charges are reduced since long distance calls can route through the corporate communications system at lower rates.

Mobile UC Extensions introduces two capabilities which are new for business users: Trusted Routing (TR) and External Hot Desking. The TR allows the user to define trusted devices and endpoints which appear to an outside party as the user’s office extension, but which can also take advantage of PBX calling features (transfer, hold, etc.). The user enters trusted phone numbers and addresses in their web client or over the phone, these can be internal numbers (extension numbers or direct dial numbers, etc.) or external numbers, such as a home number or mobile phone number, and even SIP addresses for soft phones and voice and video SIP endpoints. The application uses External Hot Desking to extend call control, as well as the user's identity and presence to any devices which are external to the enterprise network. Once on a call, the user can seamlessly transfer (push/pull) between the devices. For example, a user can answer a call on their desk telephone, click a hand-off button on their PC, mobile phone or deskphone to ‘push’ this call to a mobile phone (defined in the TR), while they leave the office and continue the call over a cellular network.

Esnatech UC Extension has the following Key Advantages:

Fixed-to-Mobile Convergence
Single unified mailbox connected to email
Hot Desk any device (internal/external to the enterprise network)
Desktop and mobile phone access
Push/Pull (seamless call transfer among defined devices)
Unlimited devices defined, including a legacy phone or any mobile phone

UC Extension adds to several other mobile options already available for enterprise customers, including UC Mobile—no additional charge for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Nokia, Native WiFi support and UC Clients. While all of these remain viable options, UC Extension represents a forward-looking and simplified alternative for so-called “road warriors and remote workers.”

How Your Company Can Benefit From Communication and Collaboration Technology

2011-01-06T01:30:00.000-05:00

Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C) encompasses the integration of the web, computing and telephony to provide a seamless experience for businesses to communicate and collaborate in real time regardless of location and user interface. Businesses can now benefit greatly from the marriage of these systems allowing for email, instant messaging, desktop computing, telephony and mobile services to be one, fully-integrated experience with access from any application of the users choosing.

UC&C can help even the most reliable and profitable of businesses to become agile, more productive, efficient and better able to collaborate with customers and co-workers. Through the integration of multiple communication and information devices such as laptop computers, mobile phones, PDAs or similar wireless devices, real-time or near real-time collaborations are possible; essentially allowing singular access to a host of communication tools such as email, voice, fax, SMS, and video through any device or application they live there business process through.

The exact type of UC&C solutions best for your business will depend on a number of items such as the core business process, application employed, mobility of your workforce and buying/interaction method used with your customers that you want to optimize. There is no one solution that will address all of your items; focus on best-of-breed that address the issues your are trying to address.

Think of your company’s specific needs and any particular areas you have faced in the past that have either mired down productivity or presented other problematic issues when you have been weighing up the vast array of communication options available to you. Whatever vendor or unified communications solution you ultimately choose, just be sure that it is flexible enough to accommodate new capabilities and address core IT items such as the virtualization and integration of public cloud applications which your organization is leveraging moving forward.

If your organization is interested in expanding or hiring remote workers, or those that perform a service for your company via their home rather than at the company’s physical location, a UC solution with Mobility and FMC capabilities will drive down mobility costs will driving productivity exponentially.

UC&C brings various communication technologies together into an integrated, scalable solution that offers a high degree of access and mobility, while taking into account the global aspect of today's businesses.

Happy Holidays and Remember to Unify and Simplify in 2011!

2010-12-20T08:49:00.000-05:00

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my coworkers, customers, suppliers, contacts, and collaborators a wonderful holiday season and a very prosperous new year. The year 2010 was very exciting for us at Esnatech as we witnessed tremendous change in our industry and the fruits of our vision began to take shape. I can recall in 2008 talking about the Cloud and Google Apps and only getting strange looks from my audience and readers. In 2010, we saw the emergence of all things virtualized and organizations wanting to discuss eagerly in detail the idea of private and public clouds, in addition to what worked best for their organization and the ROI delivery to their bottom line.

The time has come! All of us at Esnatech are extremely excited as we see our tremendous growth in 2010 exploding even further in 2011. The world we live in is changing before our eyes as the NET revolution is happening and touching all aspects of society (WikiLeaks and the online protest community exemplify this!) The power is in the individual who is connected and online, and as organizations we need to embrace transparency and provide our staff and collaborators with the tools to connect, communicate and create! The key is to simplify what we do and embrace the next wave of technology which is cloud computing. We need to embrace it, and not view it as a problem affecting our privacy and security, but more as a platform to liberate your company to exceed beyond its wildest dreams!

Happy Holidays!

What Makes up Communications and Collaboration Technology?

2010-11-23T06:58:00.000-05:00

What exactly makes up Communication and Collaboration technology? Most industry watchers agree that at the heart lies a messaging or e-mail solution such as Google Gmail. The standard communication and collaboration elements around the email core usually involve instant messaging (IM), presence awareness and telephony, and mobility on top of the messaging component. However, a true Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) composition should also include content sharing, Google docs, and voice mail integration—like what you will find with Esnatech's voice access to Google Gmail with fax integration and potential web conferencing.

UCC is often comprised of these core services, but in reality most companies typically have only two or three that are actually engaged and integrated. Trying to get on-premise architecture more integrated can be challenging because it may require infrastructure upgrades, including the phone system, network, email platforms and servers,staging/operating budgets, as well as a full-time staff—and that doesn't even deliver half of what UC offers.

Cloud-based services for communications and collaboration (especially e-mail) relieve this burden from IT, providing a package that works regardless of internal infrastructure or staffing. Through the cloud, a bundle of services can be purchased and integrated with your existing phone system, business applications, and mobile infrastructure. This enables your organization to immediately take advantage of the technology and focus on the cost savings and productivity vs. the deployment complexities.

Obviously the benefits of UCC are numerous—the enhancements to collaboration, flexibility and efficiency have been well documented. What is not often discussed are the benefits of integrating cloud applications within UCC compared with a complete in-house deployment and operation that typically cannot even integrate core SaaS services that your organization may be leveraging for CRM of sales force automation (core area you would need UCC technology).

Cost is an area where cloud services and applications shine. They offer incredible cost savings when compared to in-house, thanks to eliminating the need for hardware, software, and licenses. Alongside the reduced need for hardware and software, staffing costs can be easily managed. Providing UC services that can help to unify cloud applications with on-premise infrastructure provides the optimal scenario for today's organization. Today's organization lives with core voice technology and is trying to migrate core business processes such as email, collaboration, CRM and salesforce automation to the cloud. Linking these two components together through UCC technology will drive tremendous productivity and dramatically lower your overall communications costs. To learn more about what is available for cloud-based integration around UCC, please visit: http://uc4googleapps.com

Why Business is Turning to the Cloud

2010-11-09T09:40:00.000-05:00

With the heavy burden small businesses carry today due to the recession, small business owners must take smart steps to lower costs, while increasing profitability. Cloud business is today's technology, as businesses are going online (and to the “cloud”) not only for marketing and branding purposes but also for lowering their operational costs. Cloud business is one that runs efficiently and effectively, thus lowering costs related to business operations.

Cloud applications are the business applications delivered by cloud computing providers such as Google, Amazon, and Salesforce.com. Cloud business is referring to a business that “go cloud.”

The whole idea of "going cloud" is based on this simple premise: by moving utility technology like email and data storage to the cloud, why invest in IT infrastructure that does not need to be on-site or managed?

We all know that IT is the backbone of a successful business. Even a small town shop is using IT in some ways. All in all, you can’t escape IT, including the Internet because it’s almost inevitable. If your business doesn’t embrace IT in the right ways, you lose your grip in the competition – that’s just the way it is.

So, cloud business is a business in which business operations and business processes “outsourced” to be done “in the cloud” using cloud applications such as Google Apps with Gmail. You literally just need to “plug in” your business to the Internet, get access to the cloud apps, and voila! You can access and interact with business services from the cloud-ready service providers.

The cloud players and their offers:

Google (search engine with various integrated and interconnected Google Apps)
SalesForce.com (CRM software solution)
ZenDesk (help desk software)
FedEX (shipping and logistic services)
Amazon’s EC2 (virtual computing environment)
Microsoft Online Services (cloud business suite) and many, many more.

If the issue affecting the migration is the lack of voice integration you have today with your Microsoft and Cisco suite, you should look into Esnatech's award-winning, cloud enabling communication and collaboration software, Office-LinX Version 8.0.

Find out more by visiting: http://www.esnatech.com

GOING, GOING ... GONE GOOGLE!

2010-11-02T22:24:00.000-04:00

Everyday thousands of companies are moving away from premise-based email platforms and are moving to Google. This represents a huge amount of opportunity for our Esnatech Partners. Be one step ahead of your competitors by educating yourself on Google and cloud computing and how Office-LinX can integrate into and compliment those environments.

Chances are there are companies in your market considering making the switch or have already switched to Google. Now is the time to get out there and talk to them about Office LinX’s Unified Communications platform for Google.

Office-LinX offers fully synchronized Unified Messaging with Google. Users can manage all of their messaging within their Gmail interface, and since it’s in the cloud they can access it from anywhere. They can even run UC Client Manager as a Google gadget. Office-LinX also syncs with their calendar and contacts. Gmail users can manage their calendar and Office-LinX will follow it and update their location automatically, and even federate that location status into Google Talk.

Mobile users have the flexibility to take their calls and have full call control on off-site numbers. They also have hands-free offline access to their Gmail account through speech navigation. Users can listen to email, reply to email, accept or decline calendar invites, and even initiate a call or compose an email to a Google contact.

Esnatech's Office-LinX will seamlessly integrate into a customer’s existing PBX environment and offer integration into other applications they are already using such as their CRM.

Don’t miss out on this competitive advantage. Contact your Esnatech Account Manager today and set up a training session on how to become a Google Unified Communications Expert.

Sue Fernand

Regional Manager

Esna Technologies Inc.

Tel: 905-707-9700, say "Sue"

e-mail: susanf@esna.com

Version 8.0 Communication and Collaboration

2010-10-18T21:04:00.000-04:00

Esnatech launches Version 8.0 of it's award winning Unified Communication technology to address organizations investing in virtualization and integrating cloud-based technology such as Google™ Apps and Salesforce.com

Version 8.0 addresses specific enterprise requirements around communication and collaboration technology:

ENABLING THE VALUE OF VIRTUALIZATION FOR VOICE COMMUNICATIONS

SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) based software platform that fully supports VMware virtualization within Vsphere
Organizations virtualizing their data infrastructure can seamlessly integrate Unified Communication services around mobility, messaging and presence without upgrading PBXs or adding any additional hardware to their network

The Cloud Enabled Enterprise

Integration of live voice services from an enterprise's existing PBX network (dialing, messaging, call control and presence) with Cloud based applications
Integrated unified communication services for Google™ Apps includes: unified messaging, IVR and auto attendant, fax services, Google™ Talk enterprise voice presence, and fixed-to-mobile convergence integration with existing phone network and mobile devices
Integrated dialing, presence and live call control with CRM and SFA solutions such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics

Mobile Enterprise

Virtual access to your desktop phone from any smart phone or mobile device
Location based routing integrated with Bluetooth and GPRS location services
One number access, integrated with existing DID and corporate extension for secure mobility
Mobile and ubiquitous access to live communications on any operating system or mobile OS integrated with your existing corporate PBX or phone system
Unified access to voice, fax, email and recorded conversations directly from Google™ Gmail or from any enterprise email platform such as Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Microsoft BPOS

Presence Enabling Business Process

Google/MS Exchange Calendar integration for intelligent routing, filtering and connectivity
Presence enabled call processing for enhanced IVR and customer retention
Live, rich phone status federated with Google™ Talk, Skype, MSN Live and OCS to enable real-time communication and collaboration within the enterprise
Integration of Google, Salesforce and Microsoft Exchange contacts for intelligent call routing, VIP voice services and intelligent call connections leveraging Microsoft and Google desktop searches on incoming calls

For more information and videos on the NEW release go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/esnatechuc

OR visit us online at: http://www.esnatech.com/

Unified Communications: Where we're at

2010-09-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

Lets set the stage: A customer is calling for information about your products and services. These calls can be cumbersome for customer service employees who don’t possess the technical knowledge about that specific product or service. The same customer service employees have content on their computer screens that describe the exact technical details about that specific product or service, as well as other useful information the inquiring customer can use to make an informed decision right away.

This is a perfect example of how Unified Communications is changing the way we manage our customers and the way we run our business. UC is essentially a series of different technologies focused on live communications and interactions. This encompasses elements such as landlines and cellular phones, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), VoIP, IP-PBX, fax, voice mail, conference calls, video conferencing, whiteboard and unified messaging.

Presence has become the dominate technology driver that fuels the value behind Unified Communications technology. The concept of presence is easy to understand when looking at instant messaging, where a user's "status” is available at a glance. UC takes this a step further by grouping these users together by specialized skills and attaching them to specific knowledge areas.

UC technology delivers access to presence and content within a simple interface or an existing core business application. For example, customer service staff can have a list of employees knowledgeable about a product, along with the best method for immediately contacting that person who has the correct answers about the details of the product. All of this content would be integrated directly with their existing business application such as MS Outlook, Google Apps (leveraging Google Talk), and/or Salesforce.com via and embedded web service.

By clicking on a contact icon, an IM or even a live voice or video call can be made. Connected users can launch a page or a whiteboard session accessed to bridge key information on the product, customer and employee contacts simultaneously.

Unified Messaging is capable of grouping together communications from different sources, such as e-mail, faxes and voice mail, but does not allow (in all instances) real-time delivery. Unified Messaging systems store these multi-platform communications for the user to access information at his or her discretion. This makes for better access, filter, and priority around real-time and offline communications. By leveraging presence within unified messaging, users can see the live status from a message left and initiate a live call back, as if driving a reply to the voice mail via e-mail with a voice attachment.

Tying communications together in a UC strategy can have a tremendous positive impact on productivity for your business. Businesses with offices across the globe have an excellent opportunity to synchronize communications as they occur around the clock in real-time. Additional functionality allows calls to be routed according to preset rules. For example, if an employee is working at a remote location outside the office, the UC system can route a call to their cell phone and then a voice message to their voice mail.

UC technology also provides an enhanced level of management including the ability to back up all the communications including voice, fax, and instant messaging. At first, it may seem unnecessary to back up all the communications content at your company. However, if your organization needs to comply to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, as all U.S. publicly traded companies need to, then you have a need for backing up your content. Additionally, if you work in an environment related to health care, your company may have to comply to certain HIPPA mandates. Consider a situation where you have a need for disaster recovery.

Investing in UC technology can help your business become extremely competitive and at the same time dramatically drive down overall communication costs. Many companies find it more cost effective to own some components and outsource others. Companies that at least consider the options available to them by adopting a fully integrated UC solution position themselves to differentiate their company from the competition with high-impact, time-sensitive communications across the enterprise.

Esnatech/Google Showcase UC for Google™ Apps at 2010 Atmosphere in Paris, France

2010-09-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

Esnatech is at Google Atmosphère in Paris, France showcasing their new 8.0 Unified Communications Solution that integrates your existing phone system and mobile devices directly with Google Apps. The new 8.0 UC solution provides organizations with a portfolio of live communication and collaboration tools with no overhead of infrastructure. UC for Google Apps leverages your existing voice network to provide rich voice presence native to Google™ Talk—turning your web-based infrastructure for Google Apps into a full fledged communication center with no desktop or software deployment.

Companies such as SEIU have taken advantage of this technology to flatten and consolidate all of their core voice applications into a single, ubiquitous interface—Google Apps. Esnatech's Office-LinX platform extends full fax services allowing organizations to eliminate the costly annual maintenance of legacy technology, and integrate core fax functions directly in Google Apps. With integration to virtually any PBX, and the ability to support integration with multiple PBX's simultaneously, large enterprises can have one Core Communication Service integrated to all of their sites regardless of whether they are IP or not—delivering rich unified communication services such as mobility routing and unified messaging in Google Gmail. This top down approach mitigates the upfront investment needed to deploy UC and eliminates the issue of closed environments with very specific interoperability such as MS Exchange and MS OCS server that will require a RIP and replace of your existing PBX to properly take advantage of UC.

The Esnatech UC services for Google Apps provide a web framework that can be used in any cloud-based application such as Salesforce.com, and others to enable live communications and interaction from the application to your network phone system. This ensures least-cost routing and full auditing of all voice communications regardless of whether it originated from your phone, PC or mobile device.

On Monday, September 20th, Esnatech will also be showcasing its new Google Android Mobile UC client that enables Android devices to become secure, trusted extensions from your existing phone system with no program needed. Instantly your smart phone becomes your enterprise phone and moves mobile minutes from the mobile network to your PBX network, dramatically lowering roaming and long distance charges associated with the device.

Esnatech is a Google™ partner delivering market leading enterprise mobility, messaging and presence solutions for Cloud-based environments—enabling organizations to make the migration to Cloud-based email while still retaining core voice and UC features. For more information on this industry leading solution and practice please visit http://www.uc4googleapps.com/.

Customers Need Best-of-breed to Succeed with Unified Communications

2010-09-06T07:10:00.000-04:00

From reviewing articles on Unified Communications, including the Gartner Magic Quadrant article, it has become clear that the best-of-breed investment will always serve your company well in the long run. The concept of a single vendor for voice makes sense, but a single vendor for voice, e-mail, video, IM, messaging, presence, mobility, etc., just seems ridiculous. How can a voice vendor be completely vested in e-mail communications? How do e-mail vendors fully understand the concept of real-time voice interactions (i.e. no time for downtime)? The reality is each vendor should focus on the best-of-breed for what they do, and develop rich, open interoperability for their key technology. When they do this—what emerges are companies such as Esnatech that build market leading middleware that focuses on integrating voice and data infrastructure for best-of-breed mobility, messaging and presence solutions leveraging other key technologies.

This allows organizations to leverage existing investments they have in critical business technology and infrastructure. They are building UC on integration technology that enables access to a unified view with their existing environment and can solve integration solutions that arise with future investments and migration in the voice and data technology.

"The vendors would like to broaden the footprint they have with their existing customers and expand into new markets, whereas users, in many cases would like to have vendors interoperate effectively so they can get a high degree of functionality and preserve and migrate their existing investments," said quadrant co-author Bern Elliot, a VP and Senior Analyst at Gartner.

This is a great statement pointing out that all vendors simply want to sell their ware. Customers must cut through the hype and see what technology they actually need (avoid over investing) and focus on the best-of-breed to solve each technology issue they face. Examples are organizations going through their OCTel migration planning. Many vendors simply propose a total VoIP upgrade when really all they need is a messaging upgrade as their voice solution is fine and the investment is still be amortized. The customer should focus on best-of-breed messaging migration that allows them to move from their OCTel with minimal downtime, user training, and provides the greatest interoperability to both their existing and future voice network. It provides seamless integration with their existing or future Groupware solution as well. The small investment requirements will deliver immediate returns on investment by delivering UC technology in the form of Unified Messaging, Presence and Mobility. At the same time the customer is not locked into any future decision over VoIP and is not locked down with any single vendor. This save money, and provides the customer with more long-term control over their technology direction.

Unified Communications Delivers Competitive Advantages

2010-08-31T12:16:00.000-04:00

Every enterprise wants to find the key to having a competitive advantage over another. Unified Communications with internal and external stakeholders can unleash the power of creativity—leveraging new technologies and the borderless network to create communication solutions with lower costs, greater agility, and tangible benefits to business. Unified Communications (UC) is the term used to describe the integration of telephones, computers, mobile devices and any other form of electronically helped communication, in order to improve the efficiency and output of your business. Enhancing a business's level of customer service, as well as generally improved productivity are benefits associated with Unified Communications, but they are achieved alongside the improvement of the entire communications system, making it less complicated to work with.

Basically, UC is designed to allow you maximum usage of your communication and phone systems, allowing you to focus entirely on the message, rather than struggling with using the technology available. It’s all about improving the efficiency and smoothness of communication, both internal and external, whilst making it less complicated. With this kind of approach it’s simple to see why it appeals to modern day businesses. Bottom line, it makes them competitive and efficient compared to other organizations that have not invested in Unified Communications.

Unified Communications offers the promise of increased efficiency, improved customer intimacy, and quicker time-to-resolution for both customer and employee problem-solving and communications, by providing the ability to optimize the routing of communications between several modalities. Examples include: receiving voice messages in an e-mail inbox, making phone calls from a laptop computer, and transferring calls between a smartphone and a desk phone. UC can be extremely useful for companies with a constantly mobile workforce or with large numbers of staff. It allows for effective real-time communication on-the-go, which allows a business to be in constant contact with their mobile workers and customers , providing greater access to live communications. Enterprise UC integrates any mix of communication technologies into a company’s business process to deliver heightened efficiency and competitive advantage.

Unified Communications Moving Beyond Unified Messaging

2010-08-09T06:25:00.000-04:00

Many organizations claim to be implementing Unified Communications but are really just piloting it. Most of the deployments are only using a very small percentage of the features of Unified Communications (UC). Unified Messaging or even more basic elements such as voice mail forwarded to email seem to be the main features users are leveraging daily, but there is much more that can be done than just Unified Messaging. Presence and mobility are the key to Unified Communications. Presence is understanding how people want to communicate, and mobility leverages a dynamic workforce to enable real-time communications regardless of location, application or the device being used. Presence and mobility will dramatically reduce urgent messaging and unified messaging enables easy single access to all offline communications.

With the emergence of information overload, organizations need UC tools as part of their business process to effectively filter and prioritize internal and external communications to maximize the efficiency of their workforce.

Is your organization leveraging any forms of UC such as voice mail, instant messaging, presence, mobile phone integration, desktop telephony, video or any other collaboration tools? Are you in a pilot or do you have some pieces of UC deployed? When do you think your organization will move from a trial position to integrating features available for deployment system wide within your workforce?

The potential for UC goes well beyond unified messaging and VoIP. If you’ve seen any of the information on Google Apps and the integration of Esnatech's UC services, you can see the idea of live communications integrated with a ubiquitous web framework truly delivers anytime, anywhere collaboration and communications. UC integration with Google Apps web pages and portals relays the true potential of unified communications with embedded presence and live collaboration from any operating environment, operating system, mobile or smart device. For instance, multiple people can check out the same document from Google Docs and work on it at the same time on their individual local computers; you can see who's working on a particular section at the moment and start an IM or live voice call with them right from within the same browser session.

The potential is there to use the same presence information in the development and implementation of others on premise and SaaS based applications as well. Most UC has been focused on the unifying of email, phones, conferencing and so forth. Going to the next level of integrating communications throughout the line-of-business applications for maximum efficiency yeilds the potential for the greatest productivity gains and ROI.

To learn more about Unified Communications and it's integration to SaaS based solutions, visit http://www.esnatech.com

Unified Communications Drives Savings- Both Time and Money

2010-07-05T07:03:00.000-04:00

The idea behind Unified Communications is straightforward: Invest in the technology in order to save time and money! Technology should be leveraging your voice infrastructure and integrated into your core business process to exponentially drive employee productivity, while reducing the costs associated with inefficient business operations.

For a small business, unifying your methods of communication keeps you ahead of the game. By actually using the applications to communicate, you are saving considerable costs on standard search and call for multiple numbers, and you're not wasting time leaving several messages trying to make one connection. By streamlining your communication system and services, you can increase productivity and customer satisfaction when you roll-out unified communications across multiple locations. Save money—by gaining easy access to presence and availability of colleagues. Save time—by reducing the amount of interactions required to make a live connection in order to communicate with them. Colleagues in Europe can see fellow employees login from New York, instantly users will know if they're available for a quick instant message (IM). They can move from instant messaging to conference calling right from their Google Apps environment. With conference calling, not only are they able to connect and talk, but they can collaborate at the same time on whatever project is in the works.

Remember that by combining your communication services you can save money, because it's low in cost and there is no risk. You'll be mobile and open to communicate using any device. Integration is simple; you can call, SMS, and IM directly from your existing business application, or straight from your Smartphone. You can also share a centralized phonebook which makes controlling your entire UC system very easy.

In short, the advantage of deploying UC from a corporate and management perspective includes: central contact directories, call metrics (such as logging and tracking time on calls with clients in a database), multimedia work, and multi-site integration with reduced setup problems than previously noted. All of these additional features save time and money relating to employee productivity and core business processes which essentially reduce overall management costs.

Value of Centralizing Unified Communications

2010-06-14T10:39:00.000-04:00

Like most growing organizations of the past 10-15 years, what has evolved within our communications landscape is many regionally diverse phone systems, each driving their own set of applications such as IVR, auto attendant, voice messaging, conferencing, fax, etc. This is true for voice applications, but the opposite when it comes to data applications such as CRM, SFA, and email. The question becomes: How can I centralize my voice application without upgrading or investing in centralized voice infrastructure? In most cases, the need for local survivability for voice is still a requirement and is being delivered with the existing mixture of phone systems.

With Unified Communications software from most application vendors, organizations can benefit from major cost-savings simply by consolidating the most simple core applications like voice messaging and auto attendant. The ability to have one system that can manage all voice, fax and call routing applications across your network of disparate PBXs would allow companies to eliminate the management, support, and maintenance of legacy platforms. Now, they can have a single structure and directory across their organization fostering simple, unified integration into other centralized applications such as email for unified messaging, and CRM/SFA for dialing and call control.

Most of these centralized applications are SIP-based, so not only can you solve an immediate issue, but now you have the foundation to build or add other centralized solutions across your network that are completely VoIP ready for your next major voice upgrade. It doesn't matter if its a move to on-premise IP telephony or a move to completely hosted VoIP infrastructure. Your investment in applications becomes a long-term strategic decision that will not tie your organization down to any particular network or vendor decision.

The Emergence of Voice Integration with Business Applications

2010-06-07T13:35:00.000-04:00

Why has Unified Communications been so slow to become more mainstream in today's business? In fact, those of us that use it on a daily basis and know what Unified Communications can do, typically will never want to go back. You'll wonder why it took us over three decades to bring it to the market, but has it not already made it into our culture as another label? Social Networking, to me is the greatest Unified Communications technology ever deployed with mass appeal that delivers real-time information-sharing and collaboration with full permission-based deployment. It has already become more mainstream with unified and ubiquitous access, but we simply have not branded it under the Unified Communications umbrella and we fail to recognize it as a very powerful enterprise business tool.

Unified Communications the Way Early Adopters Saw It

There was a vision to integrate computers with PBX's and phone systems. The idea was to create automation in business processes through IVR, screen pops rich with data, and dialing applications such as Windows desktops became a prominent business tool in the modern organization.

The applications consisted of PC boards that went into PC's and connected back to a regular phone system. Killer applications would integrate voice mail and phone logs, show status (whether someone was in or not) all on the same screen.

The sad thing is the vast majority of us don't have this capability yet and we seemed closer over 20 years ago.

The Potential of Unified Communications Tied to the Internet and Ubiquitous Access

Single identification: Your name or ID of all your communications. E-mail your name or say your name via telephone and get live access to communicate (voice, video, chat). If you're not available for any mode, the offline communication kicks in with unified messaging integrated with voice chat and e-mail for real-time notification. We can only talk on the phone one at a time and a few of us don't have cell phones with us all the time. E-mail is a more efficient way to leave a message if we know someone is not there or the message isn't urgent. If it is urgent, voice mail is not optimal because we can rarely let someone know it is urgent. Finally, we should know whether someone is available or not because we are up to our collective armpits in instant messaging and social networking products that tell the world what we're up to.

So imagine, having one ID (corporate DID, or employee number and name) which you could manage your communications from using one screen or any device. You could see your e-mail, IM's, manage your presence and see that status of others, and have one address that would follow you around for business. You could send text messages if folks weren't around, or voice or video calls if they were (and you both wanted to see each other). In this world, you'd spend more time communicating and less time actually managing your communications.

Unified Communications will drive real-time communications at the lowest common denominator (drive simplicity). Once we use it and embrace it, we will become a key part and cornerstone to corporate communications and not just a fancy gadget for the management elite.

UC LEVERAGED IN YOUR ENTERPRISE

2010-05-17T06:54:00.000-04:00

Unified Communications improves employee collaboration while reducing the cost of delivering communications that drive operations of small and mid-size businesses.

Many of these small and mid-size organizations say they need a UC solution to help their business attain maximum productivity and efficiency so they can better compete with larger organizations. The term "UC" can bring to mind notions of IT investment, overhaul, headaches and complexity. Having to invest and manage relationships with multiple technologies for various communication systems is not only overwhelming, but also time-consuming and challenging from an IT management perspective.

SMBs want to decrease the time needed to make smart business decisions across departments. In today's competitive environment, employees don't have the time to check voice-mails or hunt for people and resources to get critical tasks completed. Moreover, the installation and upkeep of traditional communication systems such as phone PBXs, and e-mail systems are very expensive and tedious. SMBs have to invest in their business and not a side IT/Communications department.

Unified Communications have traditionally been enjoyed by larger enterprises due to the complexity of the various vendors involved. Hosted solutions such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-mail linked with your mobile devices and phone system can deliver a complete solution that carries the benefits of UC to SMBs. This lets small businesses boost their productivity by lowering costs and simplifying management. A good example of this are companies who see e-mail as a commodity. These businesses will host with Google and invest in Salesforce.com to leverage best-of-breed technology with no infrastructure investment or dedicated management resources. Using a solution such as Esnatech's Telephony Office-LinX™ a company can now integrate phone presence, mobility and messaging with these applications. Effectually, Telephony Office-LinX provides unified access to the company and integrates live communications with e-mail and Salesforce automation, leveraging communications and the ability to outsource technology such as hosted e-mail and CRM solutions with no new IT investment.

Utility-based Unified Communications Model

2010-05-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

Organizations have evolved into mobile workforces. With key business professionals on the road with customers more often than not, doing business today means keeping up with multiple phone numbers and voice mail systems. The challenge of “keeping up” has become cumbersome, affecting employee productivity and the cost of doing business.

Trying to manage day-to-day communications while mobile, with disparate mobile and enterprise systems, becomes unmanageable from a personal and enterprise standpoint, plus the escalating costs. The daunting thought of a major investment in correcting this issue, becomes more an issue when it requires a major investment that may effect all of the resources, even those that do not need the technology. Most UC solutions become not only a major infrastructure change, but a requirement to change your business silo whether needed or not — meaning a blanket investment on items that are really needed for a specific few.

Would it not be nice to allow companies to choose what they want, and for whom, and enable the ability to throttle up/down usage as required? This managed service or utility perspective allows an organization to zero in on those that need the technology, and enable rapid adoption without the costs of deployment on resources that will not be used.

Unified Communication Services provide a single point of contact for managing the complexities of implementing and managing a next-generation network infrastructure. Esnatech's NEW utility-based pricing model for managed on-premise UC services can help organizations successfully combine voice, email, video/data/audio conferencing, collaboration and mobile technologies into a single Unified Communications platform that can be selectively deployed, and integrated within an existing environment. This ensures there is not just another separated silo in the organization that simply complicates communications instead of improving.

Working at a pace that is right for your enterprise, Esnatech's utility-based software model transforms your current environment into one converged multi-service network to give you control over your communications — improving collaboration across the enterprise, enhancing productivity and improving customer service. In the end, you'll be ready for utility-based computing, the future business model for communication services, so you can benefit from pricing based on the value delivered.

Esnatech's utility-based Unified Communications model makes it easier for people to manage enterprise communications and collaborate with one another through unified telephony, voice, video, instant messaging, web conferencing, email, voice mail and business processes and applications. The goal is to provide a scalable, business-grade, unified communications service, which will allow businesses to dramatically reduce upfront investment costs, while accelerating the adoption of UC on a global scale. Businesses can bring converged voice, mobile and data services to every desktop in their organization at their own pace, and manage the costs of deployment.

UC Integration With Cloud Computing

2010-04-27T06:53:00.000-04:00

Imagine Unified Communications being accessible to any organization of any size, through a portal which customers can access both services, and an environment to quickly develop new applications for voice, messaging and collaboration services.

Cloud Computing, defined as a general purpose, virtualized computing environment in which applications run on hypervisors from vendors including Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware. By moving to a virtualized approach, companies save money on hardware, maintenance, cooling, power and administration. Most major organizations and government institutions have begun this implementation.

Beyond private virtual environments, there are public cloud computing environments for sale to smaller organizations and companies that want to outsource their virtualization scheme. Vendors, such as Amazon, AT&T, GoGrid, Rackspace, and Google provide a hosted cloud service; simply move your applications into the public cloud, and then you don't have to buy your own hypervisor or servers.

Moving UC applications onto the same virtualized infrastructure as other applications offer similar potential for savings, flexibility and resiliency. Some vendors, such as Avaya (via the former Nortel CS2100), Broadsoft, and Siemens have boasted the opportunities to reduce hardware investments by adopting carrier-grade telephony solutions. Today, cloud-based approaches have the potential to help companies realize these same savings, without the need for a replacement of existing infrastructure. Applications, such as "UC for Google Apps" from Esnatech, afford companies the opportunity to integrate on-site voice infrastructure with cloud-based collaboration tools like Google Apps. Imagine messaging, presence, mobility and collaboration — integrated with your existing voice and mobile network, with no infrastructure needed for email, documents and storage. In fact, you can integrate hosted applications directly to your on-site virtual environment with unlimited computing power and anywhere access to content.

While cloud computing is frequently used to provide storage for businesses, it is still a NEW platform for communications. Emerging cloud-based unified communication services are offering companies an opportunity to cut down on communication costs, while saving features.

Driving Productivity

2010-04-12T07:31:00.000-04:00

Productivity per employee is on the dramatic upswing, and this is due to the mass adoption of technology that allow employees to easily collaborate and shorten the cycles to decision making. One of the prime technologies in this area is Unified Communications (UC). UC drives and facilitates information sharing and LIVE collaboration, dramatically shortening the cycle of indecision. A business that wishes to improve productivity should consider learning more about the tools that are available to unify communications.

UC SAYS IT ALL: In connecting all forms of communications so that you can easily communicate regardless of location or access to your office. An example would be remote access to email or Find Me/Follow Me technology based on your calendar. Co-workers can see immediately from their mobile device or PC, your availability and from there choose the appropriate resource to connect, versus back and forth with offline communications.

Key tools that accelerate UC include mobile devices. Today, mobile phones are now capable of playing a big role in Unified Communications, because they can be used to retrieve calls, exchange information, and access live presence and collaboration tools, they have become an "office in your hand" device. Also driving the adoption of Unified Communications are on-demand hosted applications, such as Google and other SaaS services. With Google Apps, it is easy to archive and retrieve information from email and document collaboration. Core business applications are available online from any device, and with tools such as Esnatech's UC for Google Apps. The added value of live voice communications provides the ultimate Unified Communications environment. This service also allows you to use ONE phone number to be reached by all phones, integrated with your existing office phone system and DID. These services combine voice, email, IM, fax, collaboration, conferencing, file sharing and many more to completely integrate your communications.

Unified Communications increases the efficiency of business communications. Information that can be received in various forms can now be responded to quickly and with more efficiency. Communications with more than one person, communications while traveling and the easy archiving and searching all types of messages are some of the ways that efficiency (productivity) may be increased with UC.

When businesses are able to use their time more efficiently, they are able to maximize their production. Streamlining communications is the ultimate goal.

Real World Value to Unified Communications

2010-03-29T19:25:00.000-04:00

Unified communications brings together anywhere access to voice, messaging, video, mobility and collaboration, conferencing and presence management. UC makes it possible for businesses to control how, where and when communication occurs, using an interface of choice regardless of the mode or access method. UC drives productivity by improving communications and collaboration between co-workers, suppliers and customers. The end result is improved efficiencies, and lower overall communication costs.

Integrate enterprise communications with social media, and you achieve the greatest benefits from UC, which is collaboration beyond your traditional borders, driven by the social media word "alert." UC empowers users to be fully aware of each other's status, location, and to instantly connect with someone using the best means available at that moment. It may be a text message during a meeting, a mobile call if they are away from their desk, or an on-the-fly video meeting if necessary. UC to many people is a foreign concept, but social media and networking have become the mainstream form for individual communications and collaboration. Using social media framework in the way we collaborate with co-workers, and business interactions is the exact value of what UC is trying to build-on with the addition of security, audits and control.

One of the key ways social media can enhance UC is through presence and location. A great example of this is Twitter and Facebook's live, real-time status that provides immediate updates at the user's discretion. On the corporate side, if you know you will be in a meeting, and unavailable - anyone trying to reach you, can view your status and know to try you later. Based on your location and status, you can actually increase real-time collaboration and eliminate wasted time surrounding availability.

UC -- How It Works and Its ROI

2010-03-22T07:39:00.000-04:00

If you've answered work-related e-mails from the golf course or discovered it's easier to respond to voicemails via text message, then you already understand how Unified Communications (UC) works and its core value of accessibility.

Unified Communications was the evolution from Unified Messaging, which streamlined voicemail, e-mail, fax and other text-based messaging systems for a single device to access all messages. UC evolved from this concept to include access to "real-time" communications. The idea of real-time delivery is what defines Unified Communications, Unified Messaging on the other hand, focuses more on access to offline communications. Either way, UC makes it really easy to acces and communicate with someone live!

Unified Communications in Business
Unified communications aims improve and accelerate business communications, some of the core benefits include:

Lower Expenses – Organizations can eliminate redundant resources, and some companies such as Google, even provide some UC solutions as a service with no physical footprint to manage and maintain.
Maximize Work Time – UC can allow you to work with people based on availability and reduce time wasted playing phone tag.
Minimize Travel – Green your workforce by eliminating the need to fly or drive to a meeting that can take place with video conferencing.
Access With A Single Sign-On – With single sign-on ability, you don't have to worry about keeping track of multiple usernames and passwords. Only ONE secure authentication with access to all your communications and resources for collaboration is needed.
Work Anywhere – UC also lets you keep in touch with the office when travel is unavoidable, resources need to stay home, or a disaster is causing the workforce to be dispersed.

Unified Communications is Starting to Evolve

2010-03-15T06:56:00.000-04:00

The concept of Unified Communications is very empowering, especially for businesses that place a large emphasis on the power of information and communication as the key to growth. With various communication systems integrated for unified access to communications, the process of locating people, retrieving messages, making calls is easier, faster and much more convenient.

Traditional forms of this technology required large footprints, major infrastructure upgrades and the value remained within the integration and interoperability of core business applications such as Groupware, CRM, ERP and salesforce automation software. In many cases the cost of deploying, managing and maintaining these solutions along with unified communications technology would heavily out-weigh the value and return a company would receive in productivity and efficiency. Until now most mission critical elements such as voice, need local survivability, other core business applications are moving more and more to the cloud or hosted/managed footprint. This dramatically lowers the cost of ownership, management and maintenance of core business applications such as email, salesforce automation, CRM, and Groupware technology. Case in point, the major market share advancement of Google Apps and Salesforce.com in mid-size to large enterprises.

The economic downturn has had a significant impact on the enterprise communications market. Companies have limited capital available for investment, but are still considering unified communications as they look for ways to cut costs and increase productivity. Recession has generated a strong interest in alternative delivery methods that can avoid major infrastructure changes or investment into their legacy phone system. A topdown approach that provides the ability to layer on software to existing infrastructure, while affording seamless integration with a company's on-demand managed applications. The integration further provides companies with an immediate return on their investments, and propels them in the direction of focusing on their core business instead of managing technology infrastructure. Down economy favoring OPEX-based solutions, coupled with market needs for flexibility and focus on core competencies all boost the cloud-based services adoption. Both small business and large enterprises are interested in communications delivered as a service. In the case of small businesses, the lack of internal IT skills is a major factor spurning the uptake. The elimination of complexities resulting from managing and integrating multiple applications and vendors as well as testing various UC applications is attracting enterprises.

When it comes to voice solutions, companies have working technology with local survivability, its paid for and provides secure voice interaction. The result is a general preference for customer premise equipment when making the transition to hosted voice solutions. Today reliability and security issues are among the main customer concerns.

Key Trends in Real-Time Communications

2010-03-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Mobility Drives Business
Mobile access is driving the Unified Communications market. The spread of smart phones and unlimited data plans will help organizations project communications costs and only encourage the spread of mobile communications. The biggest users for mobile communications is the remote workforce that includes executives and field personnel such as support and sales

Ubiquitous Messaging
This is not your father's voice mail or email, it is about the entire Unified Communications package. Desktop videoconferencing showed the highest growth rate, increasing by 145% since last year and Web conferencing tool has a growth of 87% . Adding video, voice and mass alerts to email and text messaging is now more popular ever with massive ROI and TCO value. UC drives the content, but not the means of sending a messaging. Organizations simply post content and then based on the recipient, the UC technology decides how to deliver the content, i.e. voice alert, IM, text, video, voice or simply email.

Moving Instant Messaging into a Secure Business tool
Instant messaging is becoming real and viable in the enterprise. With the advent of enterprise grade IM that provides logging, compliance, and secure access, it is driving IM as a main tool to communicate between staff and becoming the tool of choice over voice and email. It provides real time communication with filters and with no spam noise or intrusion. The result is increasing info worker productivity in the event of an email outage. More than one-half of respondents indicated that it is very common for them to use instant messaging to support communications and collaboration.

Unified Communications Is Good For Business

2010-03-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Unified Communications is about unifying and simplifying real time and offline core communications such as your calendar, email, mobile, voice mail, voice and video. It is about better coordinating workflow, customer access and intra-company communications. Unified Communications, when combined with core business solutions and hosted technology such as Google Apps, corporate portals and CRM solutions, offers the potential to change the way business communicates and operates.

Unified Communications brings together core elements of business communications technologies invented over the last few decades into a manageable format. Unified Communication provides the ability to leverage and engage in communications easily, meeting the user's personal needs and requirements.

Unified Communications seamlessly integrates with CRMs such as Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics. Such integration offers the possibility of making business more proactive and responsive to customers, without burning out your internal workforce or resources.

Unified Communications can track the whereabouts and activities of the people you communicate with daily. Instead of receiving multiple messages from co-workers, vendors and customers etc., you can receive just one message, thereby accelerating the basic business process. More importantly, when you add video and other advanced technology, what used to require meeting "face-to-face" now only requires "personal" interaction through video/conferencing technology.

Collaboration through real-time communication technology can reduce, and in many cases eliminate wasted processes. The reduced need for constant Live interactions will create greater efficiency while providing major competitive advantages.

Integrating Unified Communications

2010-02-22T14:52:00.000-05:00

Organizations find themselves spending too much time and money on their voice communications both in office and on mobile. Running tight budgets and organizations day to day communication costs could be the difference between losing money and being profitable.

Unified communications technology provides the ability to upgrade that legacy environment with minimal investment. It will also provide an increase in productivity and top dollar achievement, which leads to major savings and cost reductions in mobility and long distance charges.

Unified functions: It can be used for various functions such as fax, e-mail, voice messaging etc. from any endpoint- email, mobile or the web.

Interaction efficient: It allows the work personals working in the same company to interact easily. This easy mode of interaction enables them to schedule, plan etc. of upcoming and urgent activities.

Quick communication: The users can use it for other quick communication purposes such as paging, instant messaging, conferencing etc.

By integrating a software based solution, leveraging SIP technology organizations can deploy applications with minimal investment in time and costs to integrate both mobile phones and your office PBX to critical business applications and processes. This makes your organization IP ready when you have budget and time to migrate to a future IP based solution.

Unified Communications- Enabling Healthcare to Communicate

2010-02-16T06:55:00.000-05:00

What does Unified Communications Mean?
Unified Communications is any device and/or type of application or interface that allows you to aggregate your communications. For instance, say you use a GroupWare solution such as MS exchange or Google apps to manage your day to day email and schedule, with UC technology implemented you can receive faxes, calls and have voicemails transcribed and sent to your email inbox. The technology allows you to unify these forms of communication and therefore turns your GroupWare interface into a Unified Communications application.

Key technologies such as Desktop Video can be seamlessly integrated into a facilities existing phone system leveraging SIP based VCPN (Virtual Communication Private Networking)technology. This integration creates a SIP based extension to your existing infrastructure allowing you to now network doctor offices, and practices to the main hospital facility. This would provide single digit or DID access to any doctor regardless of where he or she may be. Enabling speech technology would take this one step further and allow speech access from any land line or mobile device to say any employee or patient name and seamlessly be connected. With the integration of video, doctors can have extended devices in their private practice ad and be instantly connected to a room or group for real-time collaboration.

No longer are we restricted to the telephone for communicating with colleagues or patients. Depending on the nature of the message, where I am and what I’m doing, I can decide to use either a real-time ( voice & Video) or offline ( IM/text). No more waiting on hold or playing phone tag on the telephone. Office telephone, Smartphone, laptop, Tablet-PC or desktop PC will all be able to do the job whether it’s an instant message, e-mail, voice, or video communication that is required. This technology will also have a profound effect on the way we conduct meetings and do training in the future. Finally, advances in and the incorporation of speech recognition technology into Unified Communications will open up new vistas for securely accessing patient information and relaying clinical orders.

Common Unified Communications Technologies
Unified Communications systems can fall into a variety of categories. Common business Unified Communications technologies are Unified Messaging, Presence and Mobility services that unify these critical communication technologies with your existing interfaces i.e phones, email, web, business applications etc. Examples of unified communications technologies are smart phones, like the iPhone or Blackberry, and web services such as Portals and IVR's .

Why is Unified Communications Important?
Experts believe that Unified Communications technologies are the future communications best practices to drive productivity and to enhance core business processes. The issue is, based on most organizations' legacy infrastructure, the bottom up approach of RIP and replace to VoIP services is not practical or feasible for many organizations with budget constraint environments such as healthcare. Industries that are straddled with working legacy infrastructure need to look at technology that takes a top down approach and deliver on the promise of streamline communications by applying software application on the existing infrastructure. This delivers real time applications that will enhance communications with their existing business applications with no change to their existing phone infrastructure. The concept is to deliver Unified Communications with TDM security and reliability.

Healthcare facilities can still amortize their existing equipment while upgrading them with the latest and greatest Mobility, Messaging, and Presence application that will provide anywhere access to doctors, nurses and patients with min change or investment.

Wainhouse Research report states that, “the UC (Unified Communications) market is projected to reach $30 billion by 2013.” It goes on to say that products under the Unified Communications umbrella will grow with the market.

Enabling Voice and Video on Legacy PBX Environments

2010-02-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

Today the addressable market for video within an organization is limited to boardroom infrastructure and new high end IP deployments. Bringing video to the desktop is a major challenge as users now have to have two separate networks infrastructure and even devices at their desktop to manage this adoption. This requirement limits deployment to the executive few and limits the actualization of enhanced business processes through the use of live high quality video integration. UC applications focused on interoperability and legacy integration can solve these issues. By enabling UC on existing infrastructure and leveraging enhanced SIP services, organizations can take advantage of SIP based video to seamlessly integrate it into their existing voice network and truly deliver video as a viable alternative to their traditional voice communications.

The Esnatech UC Link suite enables UC middle ware for Polycom SIP devices (phone and video). By leveraging SIP interoperability and existing legacy PBX integrations such as T1, QSIG and analog, Esnatech UC services can integrate SIP based Polycom devices to deliver access to real-time unified communication solutions to improve productivity and lower costs with any phone system or PBX.

The idea is with a TDM phone system or legacy Centrex services you can now enable both voip/video communications right to the desktop. Organizations can not only seamlessly integrate video devices into their uniform dialing plan but they can offer seamless transition between voice and video calls leveraging Esnatech's FMC services. The Esnatech UC services would provide SIP integration to any legacy PBX or SIP enabled PBX SIP services that registers Ploycom SIP devices and connects them into any legacy PBX environment. This enables voice and video integration to any Avaya, Nortel, Cisco PBX with no PBX programming or special configurations. For more on this check out our latest video production on seamless Polycom integration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_tTxbYoxzY

Esnatech Launches SIP Based Application Server for Avaya Aura

2010-02-02T06:53:00.000-05:00

Esnatech launched Telephony Office-LinX SIP based application server for Avaya Aura Communication framework. The Telephony Office-LinX 7.1 is a suite of core communication applications that drive mobility and increase productivity within an organization. The application is now compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with: Avaya Aura™ Communications Manager 5.2 and Avaya Aura™ SIP Enablement Services 5.2.

Having validation and compatibility with Avaya's market leading Aura Technology, it allows our company to provide tested and trusted SIP based applications to enterprise customers. Avaya's SIP based Architecture with Avaya Aura helped esnatech incorporate new technology easily and cost-effectively. Consequently new applications were uncovered, so we were able to integrate with an organization's existing communications infrastructure with minimum investment into new or proprietary development.

One of the companies benefiting from the interoperability of Esnatech and Avaya solutions is UAIG, a business that specializes in automobile insurance. Jorge Espinosa from UAIG Insurance stated, "UAIG for a year now has been using the Esna Telephony Office-LinX solution that has been providing centralized messaging for our roll-out to Avaya Aura Communication Manager 5.2 with our Gateway deployments across the United States. The Esna solution is also providing Speech enabled directory services, Voice Messaging and Unified Messaging on a single platform. We are very pleaed with the products performance".

Esnatech is a Gold Avaya DevConnect partner– an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative applications that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network. As a Gold Member of the program, Esnatech has focused and invested in developing open SIP based applications that integrate into any legacy and IP environment. As a result, the transition into AURA is more palatable with a quicker ROI achieved, and core communication application ready to deploy before and after the transition to AURA. Doing so ensures that businesses can confidently add best-in-class capabilities to their network without having to replace their existing infrastructure – speeding deployment of new applications and reducing both network and implementation costs.