Telecoms and Data in 2008

If we look at emerging trends in 2008 we see a proliferation of low cost one box devices for Small Business users - for example BT Micro, Xcelerator etc. These offer Smaller Businesses an extremely low cost way of having both a Data network and a simple Telecoms System in a single box, and are expandable up to a certain point - and fair to say that point is about when a growing business would need to be reviewing their Telecoms and Data solutions anyway. A capable IT Manager can install and manage this type of solution themselves, if you can install a Router and Wireless LAN you should be able to get your head around configuring a Basic Phone System, if you take the time to undersand the Telecoms Terminology (and different Manufacturers use different terms for the same thing!)

A word of warning about this type of system - which to be fair applies to most PBX solutions - they only do what they specifically say they can do. The PBX software is hard coded onto a dedicated chip and so is not very flexible at all - so dont expect the system to do anything that the sales information doesnt promise!

Also growing in popularity are Hosted PBX solutions - you pay a few Pounds a month per user, and get all the functionality of a "proper" phone system, without the big up front cost. Most Hosted PBX solutions are based on IP for the telephony side, however some are flexible enough to send calls to any type of destination ie. old Analogue phone at home or in an office, Mobile Phone, old PBX office phone system etc.

A trend I expect to see more of are "niche" Hosted Telecoms solutions, for example the very clever GoHello system, which is designed for Business Start-ups that need the features of a phone system (Call Routing and Queueing, Presence Management) but only use Mobile Phones as their Call Device or "Endpoint" (Endpoint - is the term being used in IP Telephony to indicate where you want to send and make calls from. This can be an IP phone, a mobile phone, an analogue phone, a PDA, whatever you want). http://www.gohello.co.uk/eclic

Other emerging niche Hosted Solutions are for companies that need a specific function, for example Call Recording, but dont want to or cannot afford to buy expensive dedicated Call Recorders, for example small Debt Collection Agencies. A good example of this is CR2 http://www.nsd.co.uk/

As more interesting solutions like this arrive on the marketplace I will review them here ....