LBS - it's no B.S.

Do you ever have those paranoid thoughts that our technology is getting so advanced that it may actually take over the world one day (kind of like in that movie, I, Robot with Will Smith...)?

Will Smith talks to robots.

Well, don't worry, you're not paranoid. It's already beginning to happen.

Just kidding. It's not. If you're feeling that paranoid, you might want to consider taking up meditation or yoga. But, we can't blame you for being in awe at how far our society has come with technology in recent years, and how much further we can potentially go.

In the telecommunications world, so much progress has been made in the growth of technology uses that it's hard not to let our jaws drop just a bit (see Geeking out over VoIP-enabled toys and Virtualizing for the future). One such advancement really isn't all that new, but it is something that people might not normally think about because it's been incorporated in their day-to-day lives so much within the last 10 years.

Location-based service (LBS) has played a major role in helping technology help to make our lives easier. Generally, it requires global positioning system (GPS) technology to track where a device is and where it travels to. In fact, if you're an owner of a smart phone or tablet, you encounter LBS daily and probably don't even realize it.

When you update your Facebook status from your DROID RAZR, LBS is registering your exact location, even if you don't "check in" anywhere. When you do a Google search on your brand new iPad for the closest Greek restaurant to your office, LBS is using your GPS location to help narrow your search results.

Mitel, a global provider of business communications and collaboration software services, has a mobility application called Unified Communicator Advanced (UCA). With this application, LBS is used to help determine your availability based on your location via GPS and your Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection.

For example, Tiffany, one of our communications consultants, uses the Mitel UCA application on her personal cell phone to twin her desk phone number. That way, she can make and receive calls from her cell phone under the guise of her desk phone number while she's out in the field. But, say she goes home instead of heading back to the office after being out on a client site visit all day. While her UCA status is set to mobile over her phone's own internet connection, the moment she comes in to her personal Wi-Fi zone at her house, her UCA status will change to whatever she had previously programmed it to change to (for this purpose, let's say she programmed is to change to "Gone for the Day" when she's at home). So, if she's ready to end her work day and her phone is already set to "Gone for the Day," any calls coming in to her number will be automatically directed to her voicemail.

ShoreTel, another leading provider of unified communications solutions and IP business phone systems, has a similar product that allows for its users with mobility enabled on their mobile devices. With the ShoreWare Mobile Call Manager, LBS is enabled by a waypoint, or:

"a data point that associates an action with a specific location. When your device receives a GPS signal in the location specified by the waypoint, while Mobile Call Manager is in the foreground application, the action defined by the waypoint is performed." 

DrVoIP, a VoIP blog, highlights these capabilities:

"With the ShoreTel Version 9 the GPS in my phone can use my current location to set my call handling mode and effectively change my external assignment. So when I am in the office, all the calls to my extension ring in at my desk. If I go out for lunch the GPS notes my location as 'not in the office' [and] changes my external assignment and my calls start ringing in on my cell. When I finally get home from a long day at the beach, the GPS notes that I am home and assigns my extension to my home phone."

So while our technology might not be taking over the world any time soon, with the ability for a tablet or phone to detect its owner's location and adjust their mobility statuses for their work phone, perhaps we should start calling smart phones intelligent phones, instead. We think it has a bit of a ring to it!

Is your jaw dropping (even just a little bit) at this LBS business? Talk to us! We partner with both Mitel and ShoreTel, and can tell you which phone system will best fit your company's needs. Visit our website - www.mavericknetworks.net - or send us an e-mail to info@mavericknetworks.net!

Customer Profile: Fast moving company needed a solution... Fast!

Zettaset, provider of a Hadoop-based data platform for storing and analyzing large data sets, had a lot going on.

They were moving to a new office, hiring people at a quickening pace, and about to launch their first public marketing campaign.

“We realized that the phone was going to start ringing, but we didn’t have a plan for dealing with that,” said Tim Reilly, Zettaset Controller.

“I was familiar with Maverick Networks, and knew they had done a great job for some colleagues of mine. We didn’t have time or the ‘bandwidth’ to go through a lengthy process and review a lot of options, so I just called on Maverick to step in and take care of it,” he said.

Enter Maverick Networks.

“Zettaset needed us to move fast, but we also knew it was critical to do a thorough evaluation of their needs,” explained Aaron Lee, Maverick Networks CEO. The Maverick team has done this numerous times, so they quickly sized up Zettaset’s situation and recommended a solution that would make both fiscal and operational sense.

“Given their plans to tie a couple of U.S. offices together, expected growth in the European market, and desired features, the Small Enterprise Package from ShoreTel was a good fit,” Lee said.

In addition to the Small Enterprise Package, Maverick Networks offered Zettaset the Compass Solution payment program, greatly impressing Reilly.

“As the VP of Finance and Operations, I am especially impressed by the Compass Solution Maverick put together. Instead of buying the system as a capital expensive, we pay a single, low monthly payment to cover use, upgrades and maintenance of the system. This was the right move for our young company,” Reilly said.

Within a matter of two weeks, Maverick Networks coordinated installation of cabling, provisioning of Internet connectivity, installation and configuration of the equipment, and use training.

“It was miraculous,” Reilly said. “I couldn’t believe that in the midst of everything going on, we were up and running on our new system with time to spare before our public launch at a big trade show. Maverick Networks made it smooth, and the ShoreTel system was so easy to use, our team was immediately comfortable and productive. Managing the system is just as easy – because as a company that’s investing in engineering and our product, we are keeping administrative costs as lean as possible. In other words, I have to manage our infrastructure myself.”

Total Cost of Ownership - What are you REALLY paying for?

Purchasing a new phone system is like buying a new car. If you’re in the market for a new automobile, you’re not going to fork over money for the first piece of metal on wheels that you see. Chances are, you’ve researched the kind of car you want – the year, the make, the model, the engine power, etc. Then, when thinking about how much you’re going to spend on the car, you don’t think of how much just the car itself will cost. Other factors come in to play financially – the interior of the car (do you want leather or cloth?), the built-in amenities (do you want a car that’s OnStar-ready, or one with hands-free, Bluetooth capabilities?), the type of tires the car needs, the oil that goes in it, the type of gas it needs (regular, premium, or diesel?), and, most importantly, how much car insurance will cost with your new purchase.

If you’re an IT director at a company in need of a new phone system, you’re probably shopping for handsets and network providers in the same way. You’re going to look at different vendors and providers that match your company’s needs to the products available from these suppliers. You’ll look at the pricing of the products and services and compare them to what your company’s budget can afford. But one of the main things you should be wary of when shopping for a new phone system is the total cost of ownership (TCO), especially with an economy that’s seen brighter days.

Considering the financial landscape of the last four years, IT spending may not be at the forefront of many CIOs’ agendas. However, according to an article on CIO.com, a survey conducted by CDW IT Monitor revealed that there is an uptick in economic confidence with increasing IT budgets.

“CIOs are looking at every IT investment in terms of how it makes sense for the business and our data shows they are still spending on key investments including software and hardware – particularly mobile devices, virtualization and security... The investments that are being planned by CIOs for late this year reflect a decided shift to software installations – at a level that CDW calls the greatest on record, and covering a significant part of their organizations.”

With the shift of budget focus to software installations that allow for mobility, virtualization and security, analyzing the overall TCO of a purchase from a vendor is incredibly important.

Last month, ShoreTel revealed results from a comprehensive industry study from Aberdeen Group that showed ShoreTel Unified Communications solution as having the lowest TCO in the telecommunications industry.

"The survey of 236 different businesses validates that ShoreTel’s unified communications solution is the easiest to use, deploy and manage when compared to other solutions in the market today…

ShoreTel’s UC solution was designed from the ground up to take advantage of IP technology – making it better suited to the realities of business than other ‘IP-enabled’ legacy technology or bolted-together systems, which are inherently complex… Enterprises can scale with ease by simply plugging in an addition switch – without the need to rip and replace infrastructure. Moves, adds and changes (MACs) can easily be performed in-house because of the ability to manage users instead of devices, reducing the time, complexity and cost of system administration. These fundamental differences are what enable ShoreTel to provide the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry.”

When considering a phone system, measuring the TCO requires planning for the future. Important things to consider outside of the hardware itself are installation and implementation (ensuring proper cabling and a service provider that is compatible with your phone system), maintenance costs (in a perfect world, the only time an organization would need a new phone system would be for an upgrade to keep “with the times”… but it’s not a perfect world, and things break, wear out, and stop working), additional application add-ons and their compatibility with the phone system (like we’ve mentioned before, mobility and BYOD are increasingly being adopted by businesses to expand their efficiency and cut costs), training (let’s face it – new technology, especially conference-capable technology, can be confusing and hard to learn on your own), and licensing.

Upfront training cost for new Deployments from Aberdeen study.

The survey also revealed that ShoreTel IP phone deployment took only 53 minutes to complete as compared to Avaya Aura, which took more than 2.5 hours for each phone, and the cost for recurring training for a ShoreTel system was 85 percent less than the recurring training cost for an Avaya IP Office system.

At Maverick Networks, Inc., we partner with companies like ShoreTel to ensure that our customers and clients are getting the most for their money. We offer the best products at competitive prices because we know that it’s the quality of the products and services that matter the most in the long-term when it comes to IT spending.

For more information on what we offer, or to get a quote for your company’s UC needs, visit our website or contact us at info@mavericknetworks.net