A revised product line and new offerings from Objectworld Communications aims to make it easier for VARs to integrate the world of legacy telephony with the world of unified communications.
The Ottawa-based provider of unified communications (UC) and communications-enabled business process (CEBP) software solutions for SMBs running Microsoft Windows-based platforms recently announced a revised product portfolio that includes both new offerings and a repackaging of its existing portfolio.
Objectworld president Martin Suter says the company’s flagship Call Attendant Office product was previously focused on delivering CEPB to Avaya customers, through primarily an Avaya channel. With its new product line though, Suter says Objectworld can now offer out of the box CEBP to users of virtually any existing phone system.
“Whether it’s Nortel, Cisco Call Manager, NEC or Toshiba we don’t really care anymore, and we don’t have to care,” said Suter. “All of the core capabilities the Avaya community has come to know and love are now much more broadly available.”
With the wider market Objectworld is now supporting, Suter says the company decided to consolidate everything under an umbrella brand, Objectworld UC Server, with three sub editions. At its core, it’s a software-only solution, bridging traditional telephony hardware with the IT data centre.
The former Call Attendant Office product is now Objectworld UC Server Standard Edition, and is designed for SMB customers with an existing PBX looking to get into UC.
The second edition is Objectworld UC Server SIP edition, designed for SMBs looking to replace their existing phones with a completely SIP-based solution, and wanting to transition to VoIP without purchasing an existing convergence solution.
Third is Objectworld UC Server CEBP edition, a Windows-based service creation environment the company says will open up new revenue opportunities for VARs, and that is ideal for partners that want to build communications-enabled applications for customers with an existing PBX.
“There’s some exciting activity in the market that allows us to greatly extend our reach,” said Suter. “From a channel perspective, it has some very exciting implications as well.”
For VARs, Suter says all three editions are designed to be easily deployable, and manageable with Active Directory-enabled system administration and integration with existing business applications.
He adds by making the platform more vendor agnostic, the channel can now target a wider potential customer base and sit down with them for a business discussion, without being concerned about some of the challenges around dial tone delivery.
There’s still a skills gap in the Microsoft channel, says Suter, around getting customers to dial tone.
“The average IT solution provider may not understand what trunks are, but is highly knowledgeable in Active Directory and Exchange,” said Suter. “What Objectworld enables is the bridging of those two worlds so the Microsoft solution partner channel, with their existing skillets, can go into a customer that has a phone system and begin to talk about automating businesses processes, integrating communications with line of business applications to solve real business problems.”
Response to the new offerings from VARs has been favourable, says Suter, adding it has eliminated the need to qualify or disqualify certain customers by the type of telephony system they have in place.
“Being PBX agnostic is probably of the most interest to VARs, because it means they can go in and have discussions with a much larger potential customer base,” said. Suter.
Gisnet Inc., a Florida-based VAR and Microsoft Gold partner that has been working with Objectworld for two years, provides managed services, systems integration and IT support to customers across the Southeastern U.S.
Omar Armenteros, president of Gisnet, says there’s no other product he has found that encompasses everything Objectworld does, particularly the way it integrates with Active Directory and Microsoft.
“I really haven’t found any other competing product that comes close to what they’re doing now,” said Armenteros. “They’re way ahead of the game when it comes to playing with Microsoft. Microsoft can’t even do it themselves.”
