Teo launches single-server unified comms system

Teo UC allows universal voice mail retrieval, voice conferencing, integrated presence and more

Teo announced a unified communications (UC) platform today that relies on a Linux -based server to provide multiple applications including voice mail across a variety of devices.

Teo, which has been making telecom equipment for 30 years, said the Teo UC relies on a single server, a single administrator's portal and a single user interface to track calls, e-mails, voice mails and more.

Teo didn't disclose pricing for a single server, but said the system averages about $500 per user for a system with 200 users who each have several ways of communicating such as a smartphone , desk phone and laptop.

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Teo announced a unified communications (UC) platform today that relies on a Linux -based server to provide multiple applications including voice mail across a variety of devices.

Teo, which has been making telecom equipment for 30 years, said the Teo UC relies on a single server, a single administrator's portal and a single user interface to track calls, e-mails, voice mails and more.

Teo didn't disclose pricing for a single server, but said the system averages about $500 per user for a system with 200 users who each have several ways of communicating such as a smartphone , desk phone and laptop.

A single server will serve as many as 2,000 users, while a multiple-server system is scalable to 100,000 users, said Tom Beck, business strategy executive at Teo. The company said the Teo UC could cost 30% less than conventional approaches, which tend to rely on many server boxes, each serving a single communications function.

Beck said many major UC applications are supported, giving users such features as voice mail over all their devices, voice conferencing, integrated presence and others.

Teo UC does not include Web conferencing but supports other systems. Teo UC also includes an emergency 911 console view to help a central administrator know where an emergency call was initiated in a business, and to track other information useful to emergency response crews.

Teo announced two beta customers using Teo UC, a real estate company and Proactive Marketing Group, a marketing firm based in Seattle.

Frank Rigsby, vice president of sales and marketing for Proactive, said Teo UC has been especially helpful with his company's small eight-person mobile sales force, who can take calls anywhere as if they were at their desks.

Rigsby said the system has been in use for four months and makes it easy to retrieve voice mail messages left on his deskphone as a WAV file on his BlackBerry, eliminating the need to call the deskphone to retrieve the messages.

"Teo creates a larger presence for us and helps us a lot because we don't have inside people manning the phones," Rigsby added. Teo UC was low cost when compared with some other products on the market, Rigsby said, but he wouldn't say how much Proactive spent on the system.

Beck said Teo UC will compete mainly against systems from Shoretel and Mytel, which compete for medium-sized businesses, while Cisco Systems, Avaya and IBM have targeted larger companies.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

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