You’ve probably heard the saying “the cobbler’s children go barefoot”. So it is sometimes in our business – sometimes we get so busy, we don’t have time to implement the latest and greatest technology in house for our own use. So it was with ShoreTel’s new conferencing solution, which has been available since Q3 of last year, but which we just got around to installing for ourselves at the turn of the new year.

First let me say that I have seen and done demos of this product, but nothing really brings it home like when your boss instantly launches a screen sharing session from the ShoreTel Communicator. The slickness of being able to invite participants without having to send en email cannot be overstated. Likewise, the ability to schedule a conference call and have the system call out to the participants is realy nice – no more wondering if they lost the call in information. The drawing tools are pretty good, though not yet on par with GoToMeeting. The system’s recording feature works well, and allows you to archive sessions and play them back via a hyperlink.

With a maximum capacity of 50 audio connections and 30 web connections, the ShoreTel Conferencing Solution will accommodate most clients’ conferencing needs. Best of all, if you have the older conference bridge, ShoreTel has a very reasonable upgrade path. To learn more about the new ShoreTel Conference Solution, call Matt Nye at 877-837-8357 x1459 today.

ShoreTel’s new Mobility solution is the holy grail of Unified Communication, allowing you to use your smartphone as the primary endpoint on your company’s pbx. That’s right – now you can use your iPhone, Blackberry or Droid cell phone as your primary extension on your company’s phone system, while retaining your own personal cell phone “identity” as well.

The solution is comprised of two parts: a hardware router that sits on the host side and a software application for the mobile device. Depending upon the manufacturer, ShoreTel either replaces or modifies the mobile device’s dialer to add pbx style functionality like a display of the user’s pbx extension and options for transfers and conferencing.

In areas where WiFi coverage is available, the ShoreTel Roam Anywhere Dialer (RAD) uses the WiFi connection to make a PBX call. The software is constantly monitoring for WiFi connections and automatially creates a VPN tunnel back to the Mobility Router – no user intervention is required.

This technology can result in massive cost savings in International roaming scenarios, because instead of connecting via the cellular network and incurring exorbitant international roaming charges, road warriors can connect via WiFi at a hotel or coffee shop and place and receive calls over a standard data connection. The technology also feature a virtually seamless handoff to 3G and 4G data networks; should the user move out of the WiFi coverage, the software automatically moves the call over to the cellular data network if there is sufficient coverage/bandwidth. After a delay of 4-5 seconds during the hand-off, the call continues uninterrupted.

In terms of useability, users can dial internal four digit extensions and the app is smart enought to know to place the call in pbx mode, which shows the user’s company caller ID. Likewise, users can flag certain contacts as personal so calls placed to those contacts go out via the regular cell phone, thus showing the caller’s cell phone caller ID.

The ShoreTel Mobility Solution doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to user presence; ShoreTel users on smart phones can display their presence just as they do on regular desktop handsets.

The best part about the ShoreTel Mobility Solution? You don’t have to have a ShoreTel system in place to take advantage of it – it works with all of the major PBX manufacturers!

I’ve been looking for a reliable, easy-to-use application to access my PC and network from my iPad, and after trying several apps, I can recommend iTap RDP. I use this app almost every day and it’s extremely reliable and useful. With a few seconds of quick setup, you can easily access a Terminal Server in your network, or directly access your desktop. It’s easy to pan and zoom, easy to use a keyboard, or even issue a CTRL+ALT+DEL.

I use iTap RDP and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an easy way to use an iPad to access the corporate Windows network or Windows PC. You can download a trial version on the app store, or learn more on the website: http://itap-mobile.com/itap-rdp

ShoreTel recently announced an update to ShoreTel Mobility, a smartphone integration solution that simply and intelligently integrates all leading smartphones and tablets with leading IP PBX systems extending full UC and cost-saving calling capabilities to the mobile workforce.  IT professionals can now empower their users with enterprise UC on the smartphones they love, leveraging the IP PBX platform that they already have – all while reducing costs and securing enterprise communications. To see a demo of this exciting technology, contact your Verteks Consulting account manager, or call us toll-free at 877-VERTEKS.

ShoreTel Mobility is a solution that goes against conventional IT wisdom – counter to the complexity some vendors push. By design, ShoreTel marries its hallmark ease-of-use with uncompromising sophistication to deliver incredible value back to the enterprise, the IT team and the end user.

What’s New:

• Enable corporate communication applications on employee-owned smartphones and tablets, reducing support costs and burden with a simple and easy separation of personal and business identities on a single mobile device.
• Native telephony interface integration on Android OS 2.2+ such as Motorola ATRIX 4G, Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid X2, HTC Droid Incredible 2, and Motorola Droid.
• Full-feature suite available for the latest devices on the BlackBerry OS 6 platform, including the Blackberry Torch 9800, Bold 9700, and Bold 9780.
• Ongoing support for Apple iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

You can learn more at ShoreTel.com – http://www.shoretel.com/solutions/enterprise_mobility To see a demo of this exciting technology, contact your Verteks Consulting account manager, or call us toll-free at 877-VERTEKS.

In our world of digital photos, on-demand videos and ubiquitous e-mail, fax technology seems almost primitive. When sent via traditional methods, where one fax machine scans a document and transmits it to another fax machine which prints it out, faxes even present a multitude of problems:

• Paper jams or a lack of paper can cause a transmission to fail.
• Multi-page faxes can pile up on the machine – or spill to the floor.
• Fax machines are rarely private, making it impossible to guarantee privacy for medical records, financial records and more.

If they are to be stored electronically, faxes must be scanned manually.

These problems, however, can all be solved with new technology that allows each person in an office – or even those in remote offices – to receive faxes directly to their desktop via email.

For our clients, we have recommended and installed FaxFinder. This all-in-one fax server provides distributed faxing capabilities over the corporate network. Inbound faxes are converted to either .pdf or .tiff files and delivered to an e-mail inbox or network folder. Or, they can even be printed on a network printer.

On the outbound side, users can send a fax through a Microsoft Office application (e-mail-to-fax) or via the FaxFinder web client. When a user is working in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook or another Office application, they can simply click the FaxFinder button in the menu. Then, they will be given options to create a cover sheet, choose a recipient from their Microsoft Outlook address book, and more.

With the FaxFinder web client, users can take advantage of advanced features that make it easier to get the job done. For example, multiple documents from various applications can be uploaded to create a single, large fax. In addition, when fax transmissions fail, users are informed via e-mail in a timely manner.

Other advanced features include:

• Both inbound and outbound faxes can be archived in a shared network folder
• Outbound faxes can require approval before being sent
• Error correction mode creates fast and reliable fax transmissions

Best of all, each employee in the company can be provided with a virtual fax number. When the FaxFinder fax server receives a fax, it automatically routes the document to the correct location. This eliminates the risk associated with receiving confidential financial or medical faxes, which might cause security concerns if they are being sent to a traditional fax machine. No longer do recipients have to hover over the fax machine waiting for important documents.

Similarly, professionals who rely upon faxed documents to complete transactions or files now will have immediate access to electronic copies of the information. For example, real estate documents that can be received and stored electronically will make it easier for a mortgage broker or real estate agent to do their jobs.

Don’t let the hassles associate with a traditional fax stop you from offering this convenient communications technology to your clients and customers. Instead, update it with a more reliable, secure way of sending and receiving faxes.

For more information, visit the MultiTech site, or call our consulting department.  Current customers of Verteks Consulting qualify for a free 30-day trial of FaxFinder, call us at 877-VERTEKS to learn more.

FaxFinder Site: http://www.multitech.com/en_US/PRODUCTS/Families/FaxFinder/

The kind of email system you use makes a difference. Full access and full control of your email account – even when on the go – can be essential tools for people who work in the field. But just the same, you might need a few tweaks to a less fully featured system to keep operations efficient and cost-effective.

Whether you work from an office or are productive while on the go, email most likely plays a big factor in the way you go about your business. Unbeknownst to many, some types of email systems have certain limitations that by extension can also limit the level of productivity of your business, and especially for people in the organization who must also work while out in the field.

One major issue for many people is synchronicity. Many people need their emails to be accessible on their mobile phones, PDAs, or other mobile devices, and they need them to be properly synchronized with their desktop workstations. The need to constantly update conversations and email threads from mobile devices to desktops with certain types of email can prove to be tedious and unproductive– and some email system types don’t include this ability at all.

Depending on the way you use your email, especially when on the go, having full access and full control of your account can define how productive you and others in your organization can be. Besides providing a much better degree of synchronization and integration with mobile devices, certain types of email systems also have features for sharing and collaboration features that allow you to set schedules and share files from your mailbox, as well as central storage for emails that allows you to access your account seamlessly with any mobile device, regardless of where you are located.

Of course, having a full-featured email system might not be best for everyone. The key is to know whether adapting a more bare-bones system is cost-effective for your business (especially in the long run). Sometimes the top of the line may be needed, and sometimes all you need is a bit of tweaking on your less fully featured system. Not sure which is best? Call us and we’ll be glad to sit down with you and assess what kind of email system is best suited for you and your business.

Your reputation and your company’s reputation are important. When people talk about you or your company, depending on what’s being said, it can have either a helpful or a damaging effect. In the online world this can be even more challenging, as the proliferation of websites and social media tools make monitoring these comments more difficult to do. Here are some tools to help you make sense out of the sea of information—so you can keep track of and manage what’s being said about you or your business.

Besides your own eyes and ears, there are plenty of tools—for free or for a price—available to help you monitor your presence online. The simplest of these is your familiar search engines such as Google or Bing. By simply searching online, you can find where your name or your company’s name appears in various websites. With Google in particular, you can set up “alerts” which will email you when a specific word or term appears in their website index.

What words or terms should you use? Start with your name, or your company name, then try the name of your products and/or services, and maybe even the names of your employees, directors, and other stakeholders. It might also be helpful to search for the competition as well. As results come in you can refine your search by expanding or narrowing the scope of terms you would like to search or be alerted on. If you want to be able to search across all different search engines and not just one or two, you can use Monitor This.

Next you can use specialized website or social media monitoring tools to search only specific sites or services as opposed to the entire Internet. One example is Greplin, which allows you to search all of your accounts or accounts that you own. This is very helpful to be able to execute highly filtered searches on specific information in your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts, or your blog. Another option is Rollyo, which allows you to set up your own specialized search engines that cull content from public or open websites of your choosing.

Other more generalized tools include RSS feed readers—which allow you to consume news or information feeds from news sites or blogs. Examples include Newsgator.com, Bloglines.com, Google Reader or Pluck.com. Other generalized tools include those that monitor specific newsgroups or message boards like BoardReader.com, ForumFind.com, Big-Boards.com, BoardTracker.com, iVillage, Yahoo Message Boards, and MSN Money. Still others track changes to content of specific sites (Copernic Tracker, Website Watcher and WatchThatPage.com), as well as their domain information (DomainTools.com and BetterWhois.com).

The really interesting new services actually give you an explicit idea of the status of your reputation—especially if you are a relatively well known name or your business has an established brand. In this category are sites like Amplicate, which monitors general feelings or impressions about brands, businesses, or services; Klout, which tries to measure the influence of individuals based on their social interactions; and SendLove.to, which focuses on celebrities and media personalities.

There are literally dozens more tools you can use to monitor and manage your reputation online. To find out more, a great resource is here at the Duct Tape Marketing blog. If you have any additional suggestions, feel free to let us know!

While the decision to have some of your IT resources “in the cloud” can be a complex one, one area we get asked about often is email and productivity applications. Below is a summary from two industry giants: one from Google and the other from Microsoft, and see how they compare:

Google Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google that started in 2006, with the introduction of Gmail—a hosted email service, and which later incorporated other apps such as Google Calendar, Groups, Talk, Docs and Sites. Google Apps allow customers an independently customizable version of these Google products under their own domain name. The entry level option is free, but the package offered for Businesses is a paid service with an annual fee per user and additional storage space.

1. Storage. Gmail, Google Apps’ email service starts with a sizable 7GB of free storage. Business users get 25GB. Bear in mind however that this storage space is shared with any data you have in other Google properties such as Picasa Web Album and Google Docs. Extra space can be bought however starting with USD $5 per year for an extra 20GB of storage. E-mail attachment sizes are limited to 25MB.
2. Calendaring and Task Management. Gmail can be integrated with the overall excellent Google Calendar application. Google Calendar allows you to easily share personal calendars with colleagues, or create shared calendars used by groups of people (such as a calendar to track meeting room reservations, marketing events and others). Google Calendar also offers a built-in, but somewhat underpowered task management tool. Tasks can readily be added with due dates, but not readily shared or cannot be nested or linked with other tasks.
3. Spam filtering, security and reliability. Gmail’s spam filtering features a community-driven system. Email tagged as spam by users help identifies similar messages as Spam for all other Gmail users. Generally the system works well, although some have complained that it can get over aggressive in its filters. In terms of security and reliability—Gmail has been criticized in the past with showing ads in its free Gmail service that display based on key words in the user’s messages—potentially violating their privacy. Its paid service offers however the option of disable these ads. Reliability is generally good with very few, but widely publicized disruptions in service.
4. Usability. Gmail offers a host of unique usability enhancements that make it different from most other mail services. For one for a web app it loads really fast, as Google has been known to studiously optimize web page loading performance for their products. Another is that it offers a threaded view of messages by default. It also uses a starring/labeling system to tag and segregate messages instead of using folders. Another interesting enhancement done recently is the ability to sort messages by “importance” where it learns based on your usage over time what email messages it thinks you think are important.
5. Mobile access. Gmail offers a version optimized for mobile devices, as well as support for a variety of devices for their native mail applications such as iOS and Android.

Overall Gmail is a solid mature choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud and are not afraid of being on the bleeding edge of cloud services and technology.

Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365, like Google Apps, offers a host of applications such as online versions of productivity tools which we all already know and use such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Most however work best when they are used in conjunction with your desktop-installed Office applications. Focusing on email, Office 365 offers a Hosted Exchange service, which transforms the mature, business-proven on-premise application to an on-demand service. Compared to Google Apps, it is quite new—being introduced only last June this year, although its suite of products in an alternate form has been around for much earlier.

1. Storage. Microsoft’s Hosted Exchange email service gives users 25GB of storage. Attachment file sizes are limited to 35MB. Additional storage can be purchased for $2.5 per GB per user per month.
2. Calendaring and Task Management. Exchange integrates a mature feature set for personal productivity including calendaring, resource management, and task management. As an example tasks can be grouped, color coded and easily sorted. Emails can be converted as tasks and so on.
3. Spam filtering, security and reliability. This is an area where perhaps Microsoft easily outshines Google with Exchange’s roots as an enterprise-class application. It offers spam protection, antivirus and others via Microsoft’s Forefore Online Protection for Exchange technology. It offers other features such as more full features user management, identity access management, mail archiving, etc. If you are in a highly regulated industry like financial services or healthcare these features may be essential for your business.
4. Usability. While the web apps of Office 365 is not as fast loading or as slick as Google, it does offer familiarity. Modeled after their desktop brethren, or directly integrating with them—they offer a smoother migration experience for users specially if they have been weaned on Outlook.
5. Mobile access. Like Gmail Microsoft made sure to support a variety of devices on launch, as well as integration with a variety of devices—specially enterprise stalwarts like Blackberry mobile phones.

Overall Office 365 is a solid choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud but may be hesitant with changing the apps your users already know and use. Also if you are a business with strict policies related to security and compliance—this service may be something your auditors and IT people may be more comfortable with.

Interested in learning more? Can’t decide which to try? Let us know and find out how we can help get you the right balance between your existing IT systems and infrastructure and the cloud.

The advent of social networking these days gives smaller businesses a bigger voice in the market, allowing them to rise to a level nearly at par with their larger competitors – and elevating the playing field to a battle of efficiency, cost effectiveness, and quality service rather than advertising and marketing budgets.

One of the most difficult challenges smaller businesses face is having a bigger presence in the market. While many of these companies offer good, quality services at much more affordable rates, they are many times overshadowed by larger firms that have bigger budgets to spend on marketing, advertising, and the like.

Things have changed, though, with the advent of social networking. What was once a simple, social, get-to-know-each-other tool between people on the internet has now evolved into a tool that small businesses can take advantage of in order to get their voices heard.

The gist of social networking for business is the simple concept of reaching potentially millions of people at a mere fraction of what is normally spent on advertising and traditional marketing. The wide reach of social media allows businesses to find their voices and showcase what they can do. The playing field then moves from an unfair balance of advertising budgets to a battle of service quality and value for money, as it should be – and many smaller firms can compete effectively in this arena.

There are many ways to tap into the social networking phenomenon to boost your online presence and aid in your marketing. If you are interested in knowing more about this, please contact us and we’ll be glad to assist you in developing strategies that fit your specific requirements and needs.

It is a misconception among many businesses that using a cheap, basic router/firewall is sufficient for day-to-day operations. But it is important to realize that there is more to it than just price – especially since more often than not, going cheap will only get you what you pay for (or maybe even less).

In business, protecting important information and data is paramount. This is why it is recommended for any sort of business to invest in a security system that will prevent any cyber-attacks that might be launched against you.

Unfortunately, though, it’s lost on many that a security system is not just made up of one single thing – software, better staff, better hardware, et cetera. A good and solid security system is composed of several factors working together to create a virtual chain that envelops your business and keeps it safe.

And one of the most underestimated links in this chain is the router/firewall. Many businesses are content using the most basic and cheapest option available on the market, without realizing that their security chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And if you make do with a cheap router/firewall, odds are you’ll get what you pay for – not much.

While basic routers might work fine for homes or individual users, it is a much different scenario when it comes to business operations where basic just doesn’t cut it. Plus, there’s more at stake with business data, so why take the risk with cheap routers that lack the proper security features?

With viruses, malware, and the cyber thieves behind them continuing to grow and evolve, it is important that you understand what it takes to protect your system and your data – and invest in the best solution. Remember that it can take only one incident, one infiltration, to bring your whole business down.

We realize that every system is different and every business has its own specific needs, so if you want to know more about getting the right router/firewall for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us.