With the Thanksgiving holiday only two days away, the single biggest shopping day is also nearly upon us. The fourth Friday in November, “Black Friday” has become the starting gun for the annual holiday shopping extravaganza in the United States. Even with the economy down, retailers nationwide are preparing to entice customers with one-day sales events, and on thing is certain – while spending may end up being down over recent years, this November 28^th is sure to result in more consumer spending than any other day this holiday season. 

 

Of course, as with each holiday season, electronics vendors are again looking forward to increased sales of their shiny new gadgets and devices, including new iPhones and BlackBerry (News - Alert) Storms.

 

But consumers aren’t the only ones in need of shiny new phones. The combination of cost savings and workplace productivity enhancements delivered by a new VoIP phone system will make a nice present for SMB IT managers and employees alike. For several years now, they have wondered when they, too, would be able to enjoy the nice new handsets that deliver the features and benefits of IP-based telephony.

 

This may not seem to be the optimal time for many businesses to be investing in new phone systems, but the case can be made in two ways. First, the simple cost savings of moving from a legacy system to IP communications is often enough, given the quick ROI that can often be achieved. Second, the added benefits of an IP PBX (News - Alert), like Grandstream Networks’ GXE502x, including a built-in fax server, voicemail, auto-attendant, unified messaging, multiple conference bridges, call center support, and more, bring business process enhancements that pay for themselves.

 

But these features aside — most are available on IP PBXs from many vendors — the wonder of the GXE502x, as TMC (News - Alert) President Rich Tehrani notes, is its remarkably low price point, which is specifically set to bring enterprise-class benefits to SMBs without breaking their budgets.

 

In addition to its call control and messaging features, Grandstream also has added a single button SIP Trunking provisioning capability to its IP PBX, which allows customers to very quickly and easily connect SIP Trunking services from many of Grandstream’s SIP Trunking partners, which include babyTEL, Bandwidth.com, Broadvox, CommPartners, Covad, Excel, MegaPath, Quantumvoice, RNK, Telappliant, and Voxitas (News - Alert). Grandstream has successfully completed extensive interoperability testing between each of these providers’ services and the GXE502x.

 

If the already low price point of Grandstream’s All-in-One IP PBX isn’t enough, Grandstream is getting into the holiday shopping spirit, offering a Black Friday special. For every GXE502x purchased, customers will receive a free GXP2010 IP phone. The GXP2010 is a sleek, feature-rich endpoint, as suitable for a call center or a small office, combining enterprise-class features with high quality audio.

 

In addition to being priced right for the SMB market, Grandstream’s IP PBX is easy to deploy — a key selling point for SMBs, which often lack the expertise and personnel to deploy a more complicated system.

 

“After testing many IP PBX systems, the Grandstream GXE-502x IP PBX has by far been the easiest to use and configure,” said John Dunscomb, president of operations at Emerald Technologies, which recently began enjoying the benefits. “It is also very flexible, upgrading software couldn’t be more user-friendly.”

 

There may never be a perfect time to invest in a new phone system, but between the cost of the system, the business benefits and features, and ease of deployment, combined with a free IP phone from Grandstream, this is an opportunity for SMBs to give the gift of VoIP to their employees, IT staff, and finance departments.