May 1999

TMC Labs Compares PC-PBXs

The PC-PBX, as one of the hottest product categories in CTI, keeps attracting new entrants. Already, more than a few PC-PBXs have hit the market. Soon, we may see a profusion of PC-PBXs. Why are they so popular?

Well, PC-PBXs bring several advantages to the table that make them a practicable alternative to traditional PBXs. These advantages include an "open" architecture, more user-friendly GUI-based administration, TAPI support for third-party applications, CTI functionality, as well as built-in voice mail, auto-attendant/IVR, and unified messaging functionality.

While not every PC-PBX supports all the aforementioned features, most do. And, even though PC-PBXs vary in the feature sets they offer, they all offer the key advantage of liberalizing administration. That is, PC-based PBXs allow you leave certain management chores to MIS, rather than forcing you to always rely on a third party, even for such simple tasks as adding mailboxes or reconfiguring hunt groups. Why pay high hourly rates for onsite visits for such simple chores if you don't have to?

TMC Labs has examined several of the top PC-PBXs in the industry. We presented two PC-PBX reviews in our April issue. And now, in this, our May issue, we present four more. Of course, we would have liked to present all six reviews in the same issue, but we had to allow for space constraints. So, to compensate, we decided to create a comparison chart including all six PC-PBXs, and to run the chart in both the April and May issues.

In addition, in this issue, the chart's main topics correspond to sections within our comparative analysis, which appears at the end of the reviews. The analysis focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of all of the PC-PBXs. It is our hope that the reviews, the chart, and the analysis will help interested readers (most likely small to medium-sized businesses and resellers) make educated choices as to which PC-PBX is best suited to meet their needs.

That concludes our introduction, except for a brief list of the six PC-PBXs. The list includes notes to clarify which PC-PBXs were reviewed in the previous issue.

The PC-PBXs:

• AltiGen's AltiServ
• Artisoft's TeleVantage
• Comdial's FXS (reviewed in April)
• IBM's Computer Telephony Business Solutions Server
• Picazo's VS1 (reviewed in April)
• TeleSynergy (USA)'s TelePCX