snom technology AG (News - Alert) offers IP phones and phone systems that include SIP firmware. They are used for diverse business communications and are very flexible. The snom phones are SIP-compatible and work with any SIP-based platform. That means they can be used with hosted or on-premise offerings.

snom phones support most of the IP-PBX (News - Alert) platforms, as well as open source platforms used by small-to-medium-sized businesses. The phones also can be used at home-based offices, SMBs and large enterprises – or anything in between, according to a company statement. snom also partners with carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and Original Equipment Manufacturers. In addition, with the Unified Communication (UC) edition firmware, snom’s SIP phones can work with both SIP and Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync products.

“The SIP-based firmware in our phones means that they work with an already large and growing number of telephony platforms,” Tommy Lee (News - Alert), snom’s director of Partner Alliances, explained in a recent company blog post. “This gives incredible flexibility, versatility and investment protection when a business chooses to deploy a SIP-based platform or Microsoft Lync. Businesses can keep the same phone technology as they grow and change in the future. Retaining the investment in snom phones is a huge cost savings. Further, if a business already has snom phones installed and they decide to move to Microsoft Lync for their PBX functionality, they simply upgrade the snom phone firmware to the ‘qualified for Lync’ UC edition firmware (for free!) and can begin to benefit from the tight integration between our phones and Lync, including Lync presence status information and quick dialing from Lync buddy lists.”

Customers can also monitor incoming phone lines from different SIP-based systems – concurrently, according to the blog post. The customer could use a SIP-based PBX and a Microsoft Lync and monitor related incoming phone lines – using just one snom phone, the blog post adds.

snom was started in Berlin in 1996, and is now a developer of IP desktop phones and IP communications solutions, according to TMCnet.The company has a presence in some 40 nations.