Technology Options
The major technology trends that can happen in the PBX arena are support for open architecture-server based platform; support for open OSs like Linux, inter-operability with legacy and multiple vendors over open standards; VoIP support (H.323 and SIP) and integration of converged applications like UMS.

l IP Is Here and It’s the Future: IP-enabled and pure-IP voice and data switches are now the talk of the town. While an IP-enabled EPABX is basically a circuit switch with an IP interface, a pure IP EPABX is designed based on an IP platform. While both can enable VoIP, the former would permit a limited number of communication channels over IP and would require an intervening operator. Also, adding an IP line card into the EPABX shelf will offer no real advantage since all the drawbacks of the existing TDM platform of the EPABX, like limited scalability, high integration, administration and management costs remain.

On the other hand, a pure IP-based platform would incorporate remote access server (RAS) functionality and will allocate a unique IP address for each telephone, thereby permitting free and transparent connectivity with the IP world, without the need for an intervening operator. The key point here is that IP offers unlimited functionality and applications that an enterprise would surely need for achieving its business goals more efficiently and cost-effectively. For example, an IP-EPABX will allow companies to do such things as video-conferencing and unified messaging from a single platform. More importantly, upgrades are easy and less costly on the non-proprietary, open-standard platforms on which IP-EPABXs are based, unlike traditional switches that rely on vendor-owned proprietary standards. This essentially means that if an enterprise wants to integrate new applications into the solution, it can always look for any vendor. On the other hand, traditional EPABXs with their closed and proprietary architecture, bind users to one vendor for all additions and changes.

Going the IP way is giving organisations a competitive edge over their competitors. Even though initial investments are still high, IP does help in reducing costs by offering single network advantage from day one, leveraging existing WAN for intra-office traffic, lower costs of movements, additions, changes and management. Moreover, it can also facilitate a truly mobile enterprise as it enables employees to access applications and full functionalities from anywhere in the world. IP also offers better disaster-management capabilities for ensuring business continuity in case of a disaster.

l Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT): Mobility is another area where the voice communication has evolved. Today, in a cost optimization environment, ‘employee movement’, ‘reachability anywhere and anytime’ have become big necessities. The voice communication servers today offer these solutions using DECT technology. This has helped the user to move around within the premises at his will and still be in touch with the rest of the world and enjoy latest features set.

l Computer Telephony Integration (CTI): This offers a revolutionary change in the kind of desktop tools available to the user. Today, enterprises are implementing customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) applications for efficient performance and good customer care. Using CTI, telephony is integrated with any of the applications listed above to provide a unified window to the users so that they can perform all their telephony and application-related tasks at the click of a mouse. Now users are able to concentrate more on their work than learning how the telephone or other communication tools work.

l Unified Messaging: Unified messaging has revolutionized the mail handling in the enterprise, be it voicemail, fax mail or even e-mail. Unified messaging aims at providing a unified management of all sorts of mails through a single storage and management, making the system administrator’s life easier, and at the same time providing one single client window to the users to access any of their mails. Using the familiar window to access all his mails including voice, fax or e-mail, has made it easier for the users to send, receive, and archive mail. Using text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-recognition technologies, unified messaging solutions are able to deliver the messages anywhere, anytime on various media including the Web, on a landline or even on a mobile.

l LAN-based Telephony: Presently, LAN-based telephony is popular in SME market. Also, some of the large enterprises have implemented this technology for inter-office communication. The technology has yet to reach the reliability and feature-richness of traditional circuit-switched platforms. The best approach for enterprises today, is to go for an IP-converged platform, since it has all the advantages of traditional circuit-switched telephony, plus it also integrates the latest technologies like VoIP.

l IP-enabled Traditional PBX: The traditional PBX can be IP-enabled by adding external VoIP gateways and gatekeepers. Many vendors offer a migration path to their customer by upgrading the existing hardware and software. The cost for upgradation depends on the number of users and number of gateway ports.

Buying Tips
With hundreds of choices available in the EPABX market, choosing one that would not only meet your current business requirements, but also take care of future needs is not going to be easy. The task is compounded by the fact that cutthroat competition between vendors has meant that they are always more eager to push their own product and less interested in considering the needs of the user. Listed below are some tips that an enterprise should keep in mind before finalizing an EPABX deal.

• Calculating Costs: To arrive at the cost of investment, avoid calculating on the basis of the immediate expenditure that would be incurred by buying a solution. Instead, you need to consider all future operational and other assorted costs.
  Remember a short-term saving today, could prove costly for your business tomorrow.

• Don’t Look for Boxes: Instead, buy a platform so that you can make additions and changes in the communication network built around it. This way you can maximize your investment. Buying a box will limit your options and could prove to be disruptive in the future.

• Other Important Things: Overall, an enterprise should keep these considerations in mind when deciding on an EPABX: open server-based architecture; open operating system—Linux, Unix etc; VoIP ready—H323, H.248 and future SIP compliance; support for all kind of network interfaces—ISDN, E1 and CO; support for all kind of end points—analog, digital, IP soft, hard phones, wireless phones etc.; security features on IP—encryption etc.; interoperability for smooth multi-vendor environment functioning, ease of management—GUI LAN-based administration and application and feature functionality integration, support, and roadmap.

• Bet on Non-proprietary Open Standards: Ensure that whichever solution you buy from the vendor, avoid proprietary and closed-architecture based solutions. While upgrades are easy and less costly on non-proprietary, open-standard platforms, additions and changes are either impossible or very difficult on proprietary and closed standards.

• Don’t Buy Unwanted Features or Applications: You need not buy applications, which you do not need currently. But make sure that you can easily add new applications in the future as and when the need arises and that too, without incurring considerable costs. For example, today, you may not need a video-conferencing application, but make sure that when you need it, you do not need to change the entire EPABX, but just add a video-conferencing solution to it.

• Ensure Interoperability: If you are looking for not only voice but also other applications, buy a solution that would be inter-operable with applications from a diverse set of vendors and solution providers.

• Check for Reliability and Redundancies: Don’t take every word of the vendor for granted. Should you encounter conflicting versions on issues like reliability and redundancies in a solution, it would do well to check out with the existing users.

• A Pure IP-EPABX: Before you plan for an IP EPABX, make sure that your existing infrastructure (like wiring) supports such a solution, and also check out for inter-operability of the new EPABX with the existing devices. Also ensure that the IP-addressing system can handle the new voice IP application. Also remember that in India, voice and data integration over a single network is still not allowed. So, you would not be able to fully exploit the benefits of IP. Enterprises looking for more applications in an EPABX should not necessarily buy an IP EPABX now. For many of the enterprises, it would be a costly investment that cannot be justified in a country like India that still does not permit integrated voice and data networks.

However, every enterprise willing to buy an EPABX should at least look for a solution that would facilitate easy migration to IP whenever such a need arises.

Most big vendors would give a definite roadmap for IP enablement of their PBX by adding the gatekeeper, gateway functionalities and some software upgrades. However, they do differ in the level of functionalities, scalabilities and costs etc. Also, few would have live sites demonstrating the same in India. Hence the customer should ensure that the road map provided is scalable and without any loss of feature functionalities and is not a forklift upgrade to be cost effective. Also look for demo sites to ensure local vendor support of the solution.

l Service Is Important: Service-level agreements with vendors are important. Services are varied in nature, and include both usual nut-and-bolt kind of fixing of problems and sophisticated remote management. The more complex solution you employ, the better services you should ask for. Some vendors offer graded services, i.e. different categories of services. So ensure what suits you best. The best service is the one that proactively monitors the system.

l Indulge in Some Hard Bargaining: Most vendors usually offer a price flexibility that ranges from 15–30 percent. This means that whatever price a vendor asks for, you can bring it down by 15 to 30 percent. But be cautious of a situation where the vendor succeeds in selling a phone system that is too small for your growth but sounds attractive price-wise.