April 2002

By Michael Gallo, Technology Editor, TMC' Labs

While GoBeam's products may not yet have achieved the same degree of familiarity as Meatloaf's rock-opera epic, a first look at GoBeam's DashBoard offering illustrates a hearty, voice-hosted platform presenting an array of PBX, IP-PBX and IP services. Using Sylantro's SDK to fortify their c-Business iCentrex middleware, GoBeam has leveraged the IP network targeting enterprises from 20 to 500 employees through their Web-based GUI to bring conferencing, click-to-call, instant messaging, find-me call forwarding and auto-attendant features to end users without the need of a premise PBX.

Find Me
Appended to my DashBoard account was a phone number with a 415 area code. Many call-control options let me configure DashBoard to answer calls from different users in different ways. For example, while in the office, I set the UI to have all calls delivered to my office extension. Stepping out of the office, I'd only need to enable the Find Me feature with a specific call treatment to allow contact at certain phone numbers. Within each call treatment, users are able to define different types of callers (based on ANI information). This allows DashBoard to treat known callers differently than unknowns, or treat business-related callers differently than friends or family. DashBoard parses callers into five different categories: VIP, Family, Friends, Refuse and All Others.

Contacts
The Contact List is a core feature of the DashBoard product. It enables single-click access to company directories, and also integrates with other features such as conferencing and online data meetings, which aids in making the product intuitive and easy to use. DashBoard provides all the standard areas for information (addresses, phone numbers, titles) and also allows users to set their call treatments while creating a new contact. Adding a contact to a conference call requires only double clicking on an icon to add the name to a conferencing register. The Contact List is also searchable by keyword. GoBeam has partnered with 555-1212.com to offer a yellow and white page directory look up as well.

Conferencing
On-demand, unscheduled conference calls can be assembled at any time, without previous scheduling through DashBoard. Participants can be added at the time the call is initiated or during a call through the GUI. We tested this feature with a representative from GoBeam by first initiating a conference between two participants and then adding a third participant as the conference call was taking place. Voice quality was excellent. As the conference originator, I had the option to join all, or drop all calls, or mute a selected participant or participants. GoBeam also offers scheduled conferencing for the accommodation of more conference participants, which commands a different billing rate.

Data Meeting
DashBoard users can also schedule online meetings to share documents, attachments or desktops. The meeting interface allows users to define preferences, invitees, meeting roles (speakers/listeners) and send out meeting invitations via e-mail. I joined a meeting that a GoBeam representative set up for our product walk-through. Sharing a desktop with a representative from GoBeam's facility in Sunnyvale, California, I then discussed the product's feature set while I learned through example on his desktop.

Voice Mail
Visual Voice Mail has its own messaging inbox. Part of the GoBeam GUI, it allows users to check voice mail from any Web browser (provided the PC is audio enabled). DashBoard clearly denotes read and unread voice mail, while it allowed us to quickly select unheard messages or archive important ones. Voice mail is, of course, accessible via telephone as well.

Pricing
Starting at around $560 per month, a small office would typically get about 15 stations, and a 'bucket' or block of minutes which can be used for domestic calling and for unscheduled conference calling. Interoffice calling is not included in this pricing scheme; since the calls are pure IP, there is no charge. At the time this article was written, GoBeam said they were issuing California area codes and phone numbers, however, they expect penetration into the mid-west, Denver and Atlanta markets soon.

Conclusion
GoBeam's DashBoard offering targets SMBs by presenting managed voice services as an alternative to a premise PBX. Providing end-to-end voice capability as a subscriber service, while including many of the same features provided by PBX systems, less the burden of installation, maintenance, management and the high price tag associated with such equipment, may indeed be paradise for some smaller or start-up com-panies. But add GoBeam's beta soft phone and forthcoming ACD queues with other impending functionality, and SMBs may indeed think they've found heaven. GoBeam installs its service, trains GoBeam users and provides complete customer support for its product.