Dell Brings VoIP to Small Businesses

Dell has teamed up with Fonality, a developer of unified communications and contact center solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, to create a VoIP (Voice Over IP) phone system suitable for businesses with fewer than 150 employees.The system uses Fonality software running on a Dell OptiPlex 330 server. Fonality CEO Chris Lyman claims that all a customer will have to do is plug in an appropriate phone, and the server will automatically detect it, provide an extension, and restart the phone.

The software incorporates Fonality's hosted model, in which the phone system at the customer's premises is remotely monitored and administered by Fonality. "The customer gets a server running our phone system and software, but they do moves, adds and changes from our Web site, like software as a service," according to Lyman. The system also supports mobility, because the Fonality services can be accessed off the premises. All this should make the Dell-Fonality partnership a low-overhead VoIP option for small business.VoIP-News