Help, I Just Want a Basic Phone System!

A few months ago, I wrote a blog called “Why Voice Still Matters in Business Communications”.  It was about how important voice is to non-knowledge worker businesses.  I received a few emails about that, some even going so far as to say they just wanted a “basic” phone system, and it was hard for them to understand if one could even get that anymore. 

Let’s answer that question first.  Yes, it is.  All UC systems, while offering all kinds of ways to communicate (voice, video, chat, collaboration, etc.) offer PBX functionality.  If you just want voice / PBX, you’ll still get the other stuff since most systems include that.  However, if you only just want voice / PBX stuff, I would urge you to go with a vendor (like Clearspan!) who has their roots in voice.  Not roots in video.  Not roots in collaboration.  And I say that only because these systems will have much more mileage on them, and functionality, related to PBX. 

And let’s get to another issue “behind” the question.  Why are these kinds of questions coming up in the first place?  I believe there are at least two reasons which we’ll cover in next week’s blog post.