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Trends in SMB Communications
3Com (News - Alert) has announced a new SMB solution set designed to bring all the benefits that large enterprises currently enjoy to small and medium sized businesses.
The company, which Friday announced it is being acquired by Bain Capital and Huawei (News - Alert), is introducing two new versions of their VCX platform: the VCX Connect 100 and VCX Connect 200.
Created for organizations with 25 to 200 phone users, VCX Connect is an all-in-one platform that delivers SIP-based IP
 telephony call control and unified messaging applications in a single-server package. The VCX Connect 100 is targeted at enterprises with 30 to 100 users. The VCX Connect 200 scales up to 250 users.The company also announced a solution based on Digium’s Asterisk (News - Alert) Business Edition Open Source VoIP PBX
. 3Com Asterisk, is intended for five to 30 phone users.“VCX Connect enables even small organizations to benefit from enterprise-class IP telephony features and performance such as integration of communications with productivity applications and system redundancy to ensure survivability in an easy-to-use, low-cost package,” said Bipin Mistry, 3Com’s vice president and general manager of voice products. “3Com Asterisk delivers easy-to-deploy telephony features in an Open Source environment.”
Key to this announcement is that the VCX Connect solutions utilize the same SIP-based software that is found in the VCX Enterprise IP telephony application, albeit at a price point more palatable to the SMB. The software is integrated with applications such as unified messaging
that provides a single inbox, connecting voice mail and fax with e-mail and find-me/follow-me capabilities.Among the features that SMBs will now have access to:
VCX Connect can be deployed in both single site and multi-site organizations and can be configured with primary and secondary servers to provide a completely survivable solution for organizations that require business continuity.
The VCX Connect 100 integrated server and gateway has a U.S. list price of $7,000 for a single or primary server. A secondary server has a U.S. list price of $5,500.
The VCX Connect 200 has a U.S. list price of $7,500 for a single or primary server. A secondary server for the 200 has a U.S. list price of $6,000. VoIP
Gateways for the VCX Connect 200 are available separately.3Com Asterisk targets small businesses that want a small-footprint, Open Source VoIP system for a single site. It is a combination of pre-configured software and hardware for easy deployment.
Features include:
The solution comes standard with four ports for CO
lines, four ports for analog devices such as single-line phones, and four LAN ports for IP phones, and can support up to 25 simultaneous SIP sessions.3Com Global Service offers a complete portfolio of support services for its Asterisk product including onsite and remote maintenance and installation services.
3Com Asterisk has a U.S. list price of $1,595.
While the VCX 100 and the 3Com Asterisk solutions may seem to overlap with 3Com’s current NBX offering, company officials insist they are not going to eliminate sales and support of the successful 3Com SMB platform.
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