Bring on the VoIP apps

Four users share how voice-enabling enterprise apps has increased productivity and enhanced customer service.

Voice over IP was once marketed purely as a money saver. But increasingly, companies are choosing to build a VoIP infrastructure as much for the applications it will enable as the long-term dollars it could save.

"It is kind of a 'tastes great, less filling' argument, in terms of applications vs. cost savings," says Brian Strachman, an analyst with In-stat/MDR.

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Voice over IP was once marketed purely as a money saver. But increasingly, companies are choosing to build a VoIP infrastructure as much for the applications it will enable as the long-term dollars it could save.

"It is kind of a 'tastes great, less filling' argument, in terms of applications vs. cost savings," says Brian Strachman, an analyst with In-stat/MDR.

While many corporate users still look for ROI from long-term savings in areas such as administration and long-distance charges, Strachman stresses that VoIP-enabled applications are where the real opportunities lie. "The industry can't base its whole future on saving a few bucks. The long-term future of voice over IP is going to be in the applications area," he says.

VoIP vendors are starting to focus on that future. They are pushing to establish application development programs and partnerships for IP telephony, and shifting marketing focus from cost savings to productivity applications. The goal is to make voice an integrated software component in messaging and other enterprise applications. Some vendors promise integration of IP PBXs with back-end business systems, while others are adding functions to IP phones aimed at turning the devices into Java- and XML-based network terminals.

And a handful of enterprise users have started taking advantage of VoIP-enabled applications to increase productivity, enhance customer service or otherwise improve their businesses. Here's a look at how four companies are VoIP-enabling business applications.

A unified salesforce

Prudential Northwest Properties, a real-estate firm with 20 locations in the Pacific Northwest, says it hopes a VoIP-enabled unified messaging application will make its always-on-the-go real-estate agents more assessable and productive. "Unified messaging is very important to us," says Sean McRae, CIO for the Portland, Ore., company. "Our agents are always out in the field, so we had to find technology to help break the chains to the desktop."

For its VoIP infrastructure, Prudential Northwest Properties uses 3Com's NBX IP PBXs, IP phones, CommWorks VoIP Gateway and its carrier-class CommWorks Softswitch with Unified Communications software. The CommWorks Softswitch, which runs on redundant Sun Solaris servers, is located at a central site, while the NBXs, VoIP gateways and IP phones operate in the larger branch offices. NBXs in the branches tie into the centralized CommWorks Softswitch, via the gateways, as a single phone system with one database for management, administration and system configuration. Smaller offices, those with five to 10 agents, get the 3Com phones and CommWorks VoIP Gateways, but not the NBXs. The central CommWorks Softswitch provides the call control, features and public network connectivity for those offices.

The Unified software, which supports the IETF's Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for real-time communications, ties together voice mail, fax and e-mail systems. From Microsoft Outlook e-mail clients, Prudential Northwest Properties' 700 agents can get voice and fax messages. Or the agents can get e-mail while on the road by calling into the system. A text-to-speech server application reads the messages to them. While all offices are not yet on the IP telephony system, every agent has access to the Unified applications.