Looking for a unified comms solution for my startup

[dt_619]

[FONT=&quot]My startup has 12 employees and we’re looking to increase the workforce by 50% in the next year. We all have to travel a lot, and we’re never all in the office at the same time. We’ve got various devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops, and we’re looking for a unified comms solution that works well across all platforms. I’ve had a look around at options, but I’m interested in hearing suggestions from people’s own experiences. Can anyone help?[/FONT]

 

[Billmccallum]

have a chat with martin johnson his profile is http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/member.php?u=134501

 

[OnlineStarter]

For Video and Presenting

Gotomeeting if you have a lot of money
powwownow if you don't

For internal comms..... (Chat and sharing files etc)

Salesforce Chatter and Yammer are great (and free) for creating an internal dialogue that moves away from email... they are also multi device.

I also use Trello.com which is a free tool for managing projects and day to day work. Its great cause you can also add externals to the project boards.

 

[cjd]

Unified comms tends to mean different things to different people; what does it mean to you? Do you just mean telephony or are you hoping for IM, Live Chat and so on?

 

[kannank]

If you try mioot live chat is a leading live help software service provider offer complete live support solutions with industry specific features at affordable price. mioot brings a number of benefits to the business managers looking to improve the efficiency of their customer service and cost reduction. It includes know your web sites visitors in real time, increase your sales volume, increase your customer's confidence and trust and more.

 

[cjd]

[FONT=&quot]My startup has 12 employees and we’re looking to increase the workforce by 50% in the next year. We all have to travel a lot, and we’re never all in the office at the same time. We’ve got various devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops, and we’re looking for a unified comms solution that works well across all platforms. I’ve had a look around at options, but I’m interested in hearing suggestions from people’s own experiences. Can anyone help?[/FONT]

It sound like what you need is not so much full blown unified comms, more a solution for diverting calls to wherever you are.

The way we do that is by using diverts from desk phone to mobiles, by using simultaneous ringing (so that all the phones you have ring simultaneously and you answer the one you're on) and using our free GeoDivert smartphone app that automatically detects when you move away from or return to a location (usually your office) and sets the appropriate divert.

http://www.voipfone.co.uk/geodivert.php

 

[Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd]

Hi there,

If you really are looking for a full-blown UC solution (i.e. you want to be able to video/audio conference with employees and clients, want to have instant messaging (and the ability to connect it into the likes of Yahoo Messenger), and Rich Presence (like MSN Messenger used to offer), then Microsoft Lync could be a good option for you.

Do you have a budget in mind? Decent UC solutions aren't cheap but are worth it if they fit the bill...

Cheers

Ryan

 

[dt_619]

Hi there,

Thanks for all your responses. We're looking for a full UC solution with voice/video/conferencing/IM/ that works on all our devices. I've been looking into a few options today including Lync, and I came across this video for something called Jabber. They've got a hub where I managed to answer a few questions and then got a personalised summary, ciscoconnects.co.uk, so have added this to my list of options to consider

 

[Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd]

Good to hear you're looking for full-blown UC, they truly are amazing solutions. I can put some indicative pricing together for you for Lync if you'd like? Would need to run through some details so a phone call would be good; feel free to PM me if you're interested.

Given that we're a cloud provider, we could look at hosted Lync (which avoids the upfront server and licensing purchase costs) as well as more traditional onsite solutions.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[TecD]

[FONT=&quot]My startup has 12 employees and we’re looking to increase the workforce by 50% in the next year. We all have to travel a lot, and we’re never all in the office at the same time. We’ve got various devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops, and we’re looking for a unified comms solution that works well across all platforms. I’ve had a look around at options, but I’m interested in hearing suggestions from people’s own experiences. Can anyone help?[/FONT]

Hi i would check out Microsoft Lyncs i used to use that at a company i used to work for and its really good and easy to use a lot like MSN

 

[Flucidity]

If you want full UC with integration into email and a collaboration tool you could try Office 365 it comes with Lync.

There is integration with full voice service provider Jajah

It is a full solution not just UC.

If you need any more info or want us to help with setting up a trial (you could do this yourself of course) then let me know.

Thanks

Matthew Hughes
Flucidity

 

[lazypbx]

UC is a very broad term. It's difficult to say there's really such thing as true unified communications because there's such a wide usage of different communication tools and suites in use, some of which are totally propitiatory.

What you should do is look at the different means of communication required within your team (email, voice, chat, video ,conferencing, desktop sharing, document sharing etc... ) and determine how and if those services need to interact. Then do the same for the customer interaction with your staff. You also need to look at any tools you are using (CRM's, ticketing systems) and how you interact with them. When you have an understand of this you will have a better grasp of what you really need.

For many organisations simple email, presence and chat (gmail for example) with a separate phone system is more than enough and anything else is overkill (and placing your eggs in one basket). Also remember that if you stick with communication standards you can usually find tools which bridge any required divide.

 

[mikbarne]

Seeing as Unified Communications is all about getting different communications channels to work well together, I think it's great that you're considering this up-front even in a small company. In fact, size really doesn't matter here except that it does tend to point towards a hosted solution. BT do one based upon Cisco CallManager, though they (wrongly!) tend to focus on larger businesses. A number of providers offer solutions based upon Office 365 (including BT).

If you wanted something shrink-wrapped, Cisco do a business edition of their Unified Communications solution: they offer voicemail, call control and the rest from a single box, which actually is a mid-range office router. This is perfect for organisations of your size and aspirations.

If you want to discuss any options, feel free to PM me.