A partnership has been formed between Grandstream Networks and Objectworld Communications Corporation. The two companies plan to work together to deliver an end-to-end Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) solution for Pembina Trails School Division.

           

The solution is expected to broaden Pembina Trails School Division’s ability to build a stronger learning community with its 14,000 students and parents by making communications between parents, teachers, students and staff easier and more responsive.

The IT team for the school serves more than 2,000 staff members across 34 buildings that are each connected through Canada’s fastest educational dark fiber network. This partnership provides the staff members of Pembina Trails with over 500 of Grandstream’s GXP280 IP phones in combination with Objectworld (News - Alert) Communication Server.

This powerful combination provides everything from VoIP, unified messaging, call control, virtual voicemail, voice paging, emergency out-dialing and a wealth of other features with Grandstream’s high-quality, feature-rich and low-cost phones.  

"This partnership helps us put hundreds of quality phones together with unified communications capabilities across our schools for remarkably low cost,” said Don Reece, director of information technology at Pembina Trails School Division, in a Wednesday statement.

 

“Objectworld's solution already saves us up to $200,000/year with unified communications. By adding Grandstream's phones to the solution, it will help us save more while making it easier for our teachers and staff to stay in touch with parents,” added Reece.

By working together, Objectworld and Grandstream are able to provide the school division with a lower total cost of ownership. The school division will also be able to enjoy robust functionality and a plug-and-play solution.

Grandstream offers products that take mere minutes to install and provision, while Objectworld UC Server delivers a wealth of important features to education institutions that include emergency out dialing, notification and paging; virtual voicemail; auto-configuration and auto-detection of Grandstream’s phones; and unified e-mail, voicemail and fax.

"We are very excited to partner with Objectworld and Pembina Trails School Division to deliver 500+ phones to their teachers and staff. At Grandstream, our mission is to provide customers with the best products at an unrivaled price-performance point on the market," said David Li (News - Alert), CEO of Grandstream, in the Wednesday statement.

 

"The GXP 280 provides high fidelity wideband audio and a full-duplex speakerphone with rich functionality -- ideal for customers who want a high quality flexible phone for low-cost,” Li explained.

Grandstream manufactures high quality and affordable IP-PBXs, SIP trunking gateways, video and voice IP solutions for the global VoIP market. Objectworld delivers unified communications (UC) and communications-enabled business process (CEBP) solutions that small- to medium-sized businesses need for the price points they can afford.

"Schools rely on effective communication, whether it's reporting a child absent to the school or alerting parents with automatic emergency notification," said David Levy, Objectworld's president and chief executive officer, in the Wednesday statement.

 

"At Objectworld, we're very proud to be working with Grandstream and playing an important role in helping Pembina Trails School Division build their learning community with effective, low-cost unified communications,” added Levy.

Pembina Trails School division initially partnered with Objectworld to bring Unified Communications to the school division in 2006. The success of this implementation helped lead to further initiatives between the two organizations.

Reece added, "At the time, the vendors we were talking to were saying, 'you need a Cisco (News - Alert) solution'. We needed Objectworld. This new partnership with Grandstream, which would have been impossible had we bought Cisco, or another proprietary solution is another reminder that Objectworld was the right choice."

This latest Unified Communications project is a perfect example of where UC solutions should be going in the future. By combining two powerful players, Pembina Trails School Division is able to get the best of what both vendors offer by combining their strengths.

 

In order to maximize the potential of any UC implementation, companies, organizations and educational institutions have to be careful not to tie directly to just one vendor. It is in their best interest to look to a company who is willing to work with a partner to deliver the best solution overall.