David Dadds of VanillaIP

says As the key to any

hosted unified
communications solution,
the end-user device
unlocks the full capabilities
of the hosted platform.
David Dadds, Managing Director of VanillaIP
V
anilla IPs concept of hosted unified
communications (UC) is about total
functionality combined with simplicity of
deployment and scale - and you cannot have
one of these things without the others. The
twin pillars that underpin this are breadth of
device and features combined with automation
and On-demand delivery.
What is clear is that you must support a
range of SIP endpoints that can sit across PC,
Mac and different tablet and mobile platforms.
As a Service Provider you want to get away
from mandating which platforms customers
have to run and embrace Bring Your Own
Device. But even SIP hardphones from
different manufactures can vary enormously in
a number of areas; from how the soft
(intuitive) keys function (some phone have
many some have none), to how well the
resellers logo views on the phone display. As
some resellers have found, often the hosted
promise does not deliver at some very basic
levels. This always ends up restricting the
opportunity to sell true hosted PABX into
anything much above 20 users and often ends
up back with SIP trunks or even ISDN to get
around the perceived weakness. At VanillaIP
Device integration
driving the hosted
PABX market
we have spent seven years developing the
system and interfaces to ensure the full
potential of the Hosted PABX can be realised,
by both reseller and clients. Lets look at how
the devices contribute to this mix.
Contact Directory Search
It might come as a surprise that many hosted
PABX soft switches dont have a dial by name
corporate directory akin to what many users
have on their traditional PABX and definitely
have on their mobile. This, when rolling out
100s or even 10s of phones across multi sites,
can be a big problem. With the VanillaIP open
-based LDAP directory this problem is
overcome, with all new internal users being
automatically added and the ability via the
Uboss portal to update and add external
contacts.
Handset branding
The ability to brand the screen of IP handsets
is probably more important to most white
label resellers than putting a logo on a portal,
as the phone is naturally the focal point for
most users. A good hosted portal will allow
resellers to load a resellers logo that is
displayed on all phone screens across a
number of different manufactures phone
models.
Automated configuration
Using HTTPS device configuration allows
device configured files to be created
dynamically including a logo as soon as a user
is added. . The fulfilment house will pre-load
the HTTPS details and the reseller has a plug-
and-play deployment. The important points
here are that the reseller has the choice as to
which distribution partners they use and
importantly it reduces the overhead on on-site
engineering costs in both the initial
deployment and on-going support and
handset upgrades.
Device protocol
In theory any SIP endpoint can connect to a
SIP switch like Broadsoft. In reality many of
them will make and receive a call but feature
integration back to the host Broadsoft
platform is limited. This is even more so in the
case of Cisco Call Manager phones which run
Skinny (SCCP) protocol by default, by being
able to support Skinny in the core hosted
network clients can maximise their existing
handset investment.
Soft clients
Soft Clients are an important part of the mix,
in some environments like call centre all user
devices can be soft phone to make the whole
hot desking and single log-in effective, With
other deployments for example the CEO will
have a hard-phone in the office and the same
extensions provided on his laptop via a soft
phone. This needs to be achievable in the same
way as the hard phones deployment with auto
provision and branding opportunities
Im not sure if the range of mobile and
desktop platforms is great for Service Providers
or a nightmare, but either way we need to
provide a common experience for our user
community across their platform of choice.
Mobile client (FMC)
FMC has been steadily moving along with
services like One Number being available with
the added ability to transfer a call from the
GSM mobile, this along with a number of
Mobile SIP clients have moved the mobile
integration forward. The holy grail of FMC we
believe is still 12-24 months away, but then you
will have a truly converged device supporting
all services across both GSM and WiFi(SIP),
that is easy to use and does not kill the battery!
Video support
If we look at industry analyst predictions,
video is going to be bigger than Ben Hur in the
near future. The bandwidth is nearly there, the
codecs are in place and the video endpoints are
coming on-line. Today we have point-to-point
video on Polycom hard and Bria soft devices,
again deployable as plug and play
Summary
The end-user Device whatever it is needs to be
considered with care, as just like the Iceberg
providing Hosted PABX services is much more
about what is below the waterline !
36INSIGHT
SUMMIT NORTH 2012