It's good to have options. Markets run on the strength of how many options potential customers have in the field, and products improve in a bid to fend off competition from those other products in the field. It's no different when it comes to business communications, and Startel has made a new move in a bid to give itself an edge in the marketplace, bringing out the new Startel External SoftPhone application for softphones.
Perhaps the biggest feature the Startel External SoftPhone can offer is that it allows for easy, efficient management of communications systems from a platform many of us use daily: PCs and laptops. Previously, according to reports, such management would be more commonly done from a telephone, and that could be a difficult process to say the least. But the new Startel External SoftPhone allows for the use of a PC’s power and capability to serve as a device emulating an IP phone, and even provide two different major options for users, the Contact Management Center and the embedded Agent Interface, which can be controlled by telephony keys from there.
It's not just new management systems, though, as the Startel External SoftPhone has quite a bit more to offer than that. First, the Startel External SoftPhone can use a local device's audio resources for its own, and use these to send communications based on the session initiation protocol (SIP) platform. That makes the Startel External SoftPhone particularly valuable for remote agents that use remote desktop servers. Moreover, there are also several options in terms of deployment, allowing not only remote agents to benefit, but local agents as well, not to mention those in home offices or even satellite offices, while not sacrificing speed and accuracy in terms of handling calls. Perhaps best of all, the whole thing can be done without excessive costs, meaning that users get more value overall out of the system.
Startel's president and CEO, Bill Lane, offered up comment on the release, saying “We are excited to leverage the benefits of SIP-based communication and provide the marketplace with a powerful voice solution that requires little hardware and no dedicated phone lines. The Startel External SoftPhone is a great complement to our unified communications services – and a very affordable alternative for both local and remote agents, and traveling business owners, who need to stay connected.”
Those interested in getting in on the action, meanwhile, can start right now if using Startel CMC 12.1, and those customers who haven't made the jump yet can do so, at last report, at no charge, assuming said customers are on maintenance plans. Users will, however, need a Startel Soft Switch in order to operate the system.
This is a great move for users. Not only does it improve a system that was already sound to begin with, it offers up more options in terms of deployment and use and all for a lower investment. That's a winning combination for just about any firm out there, and one that most would be hard pressed not to take advantage of in some way. Of course, not every firm will jump in on this; some firms already have a solid solution for use in place already, and the idea of fixing what isn't really broke may not appeal. But even for these firms, it's still likely to be a valuable consideration, and giving said firms every reason to consider bringing this in even if there's already such a solution in place.
Edited by Alisen Downey