Phone Systems Seattle

March 27, 2012 – BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Avaya today announced its plan to establish a strategic relationship with Level 3 Communications in support of the AvayaLive™ Connect solution in the U.S. The announcement was made at Enterprise Connect 2012, a leading industry conference and exhibition focused on enterprise communications and collaboration. AvayaLive Connect is currently in trials and is planned for general availability in the U.S. market by mid-2012.

AvayaLive Connect, announced today as part of the new AvayaLive suite of unique public cloud-based business collaboration solutions, provides voice, messaging, video, mobility, presence and conferencing.  The solution supports small businesses that can be traditional or highly virtual organizations with multiple offices, remote and mobile employees.

Avaya’s innovation and leadership in unified communications together with Level 3′s position as an innovative provider of IP-based communications services, built on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), will enable small businesses to access a robust, differentiated and easy to use solution.

This announcement highlights Avaya’s commitment to bringing The Power of We™ to every Avaya customer, helping businesses drive faster collaboration, smarter decisions and better business results.

Supporting Quotes:
“The AvayaLive Connect solution is a great way for small businesses to enjoy the benefits of unified communications without the burden of cumbersome implementations and ongoing management overhead. We strongly believe there is an excellent market opportunity for hosted solutions that allow customers to control communication expenditures and focus on their core business.”
Sara Baack, Senior Vice President, Voice Services, Level 3 Communications

“Avaya is focused on delivering best in class collaboration solutions that bring together the right people with the right information at the right time. The combination of our AvayaLive Connect solution with Level 3′s advanced SIP infrastructure and extensive network coverage will enable a new class of entrepreneurial business users that expect and demand our solution’s capabilities.”
Brett Shockley, senior vice president and GM, Applications and Emerging Technologies, Avaya

Further details will be announced as they become available.  Exciting news!

The end of an era.  The Partner system was first introduced by AT&T in 1990, and was the best-selling phone system for small businesses in the US for years, with over a million systems sold.  But, all good things must come to an end, and technology marches on.  The Partner Advanced Communications System was officially manufacturer-discontinued in November 2010.  But fear not, because of the huge installed base there is still a lot of hardware available for sale!  So if you’ve already got a hard-working Partner system installed at  your place of business, you can still expand, upgrade and maintain your system.  We have resources that supply expansion modules, phones, voice mail, etc., but keep in mind pricing can fluctuate based on supply/demand.  Just like the price of lobster at your favorite restaurant – when it’s out of season you pay “market price”.  Give us a call if you need any components for your Partner system, or drop an e-mail to sales@stargateti.com.

A great choice for small business phone systems in seattle is the NEC DSX. The NEC DSX system is affordable and feature rich.

What exactly does feature rich mean to your business? It means that you can take advantage of options that normally would only be available to larger businesses. You can put your most professional image forward to the public and take advantage of features such as automated attendant and having voice mail messages sent to your email inbox.

The base NEC DSX 40 starts with capacity for 4 lines and 8 phones. You do not have to have this many lines or phones but the system comes ready to hand that many. So if you have 2 lines and 4 phones you are ready to go. You can add a voice mail module for professional call handling and you have room to grow with more lines and more phones. The NEC DSX phone systems can continue to grow to handle the needs of business that have 20 to 50 as well.

Email us at contact@stargateti.com and we can provide you with a quote based on your specific needs.

More and more businesses are looking for used phone systems.  People are tightening budgets in every area and this is no exception. So we thought about it here at Stargate and decided we better do a post to help people understand the pros and cons of the used and refurbished markets. It can be a great way to get a deal on a telephone system but it can also be way to get something that does not work for you and costs you more in the long run. Actually it may not be that long.

Here is a list of things that you should know if you want to purchase a used or refurbished system. Keep these things in mind and you should be able to steer clear of any problems and get a system that will serve you well for years to come. If all the stuff below get’s to be just too much then skip to the end of the post for a way to make things quick and easy.
First things first

1)    So first off, keep in mind that right now telephone system manufacturers are offering very aggressive discounts so depending on the used system you find, it may only save you a very small amount over a new system. It does not make sense to purchase a system with no warranty or ongoing support if you only save a tiny amount. Or to get a system that does not accomplish what you need. Bottom line? Get a price on a new system so you know whether  the used system price makes sense.

Who is going to install the system?

2)    Take into consideration that the system needs to be installed by someone. Sure you can go get that system you found on Craigslist but who is going to install it? Telephone systems need to be installed by someone who knows something about that particular brand of phone system. Having someone who knows nothing about phone systems or who is used to working with a different brand of phone system install the phones you found at a discount website may end up being a very frustrating and costly experience.

Phone system manufacturers have different ways of doing things and different software components to the systems they design. So it would not be a good idea to ask someone who has only worked with Panasonic systems to install a Toshiba phone system. Bottom line? Make sure you if plan to buy a particular brand that you first find someone who can install that brand of system and has worked on that kind of system before. Otherwise you may be purchasing a fancy paperweight.
Ugh! Details, Details, Details.

3)    Next take care to purchase enough system and not too little. What does this mean? Most phone systems have a “switch” or “central brain” of the system which routes the calls to and from the phones. It typically comes with a basic configuration. Maybe it can handle 4 lines and 8 phones. From there the system can be expanded in features and capacity. So if you need voice mail you add a voice mail card to the “switch” to give your system that feature. If you need more than 8 phones for example you would install an “expansion card” which would allow you to add more phones to the system. So the bottom line on this one is that you need to do some research on the system you are looking at to make sure you are getting the right components and that they all work together.

4)    Software: We are used to the phones we use just working when we pick it up and rarely if ever think about the technology behind it. But it is important to keep in mind that phone systems used in business have software installed in them, and that changes the game a bit. So remember that if you are looking at a used phone system it is best to purchase something that is not pieced together. In other words unless you have expert help you don’t want to go out and get parts from different places and put them together and try to make a phone system out of them even if all those parts are all from the same manufacturer. Telephone system hardware often only works within a particular product line. So “Product Line A” phones may not work on a “Product Line B” system even though they are both “Brand X” phone systems. To compound matters more, some hardware may work with the software on your system while other components don’t. So you can end up with multiple levels of incompatibility.

5)    Does the system you are looking at do what you want it to do? Here is one quick example; Say you want the voice mail on the system you are purchasing to forward calls out to your cell phone when someone reaches your voice mail. This is a fairly common request. Many manufacturers have two or three different voice mail modules for the same system. They do this to provide choice and cost flexibility to their customers. The thing is only one or two of these voice mails modules may do the function of sending calls to cell phones. So if a particular feature is important to you make sure you find out if the system you are looking at can do that feature. You may need to read the technical specifications which can typically be downloaded at the manufacturer’s website. This may be a 300 page PDF file so use the search function to find the right section.

So how do you remember all this stuff and avoid problems? Fortunately you do not need to become an expert on phone systems just to save a little money on the purchase. Remember that we promised you a way to make all this easy when we started the post. Here’s way to make it easy.

Refurbished systems can be purchased from a phone system dealer. Dealers handle these types of orders frequently and can quickly determine what you would need and install the system for you rapidly and guide you through the challenges we talked about above.

If you get your refurbished or used system from a dealer you can get the same cost savings you wanted elsewhere and you should also be able to get:

a.) A price on a new system so you can compare.

b.) A dealer will assure that you are getting hardware that will all work together so you don’t have to worry about learning all the details of telephone systems.

c.) Dealers will make sure you have the correct software to run the system.

d.) A dealer will ask questions to find out your needs and help you find the hardware components that actually do the things you want your system to do.

e.) Ongoing support. You will know who to call if you have trouble later or just want to ask a basic question.

f.)And a dealer can often offer you a warranty on refurbished hardware which you won’t get elsewhere.

So that is about it. Pay attention to the information above and you can get a great system without making any of the common mistakes we see when people get used systems.

The easiest thing to do is get expert help and avoid having to know all that stuff though. Find a dealer for the product you are interested in or just give us a call and we will guide you through the process. We are happy to discuss your options and you are under no obligation. Stargate Technologies can help you find the right system for your business while helping you get the same savings you were looking for in the first place by purchasing a used telephone system. sales@stargateti.com or 425-609-6200

How do you decide on which phone system best meets your needs?

There are so many choices that it is easy to make a selection that does not fit your business or that may fit now but not in the future. The following is a checklist of items to consider when purchasing a phone system. If you stick to the list you should be able to easily avoid the biggest mistakes that can be made when purchasing a telephone system and ask the right questions to get the system that best meets your company’s needs.

Here are the questions that are asked by telephone system experts:

1. How many users will there be?
2. Are there phones that do not have and single user. (example: lobby phones, hall phones, break room phones)
3. How many telephone lines (dial tones) do you need?
4. Do you need voicemail? (See the voice mail page for information about voicemail)
5. Will a receptionist handle your incoming calls, or do you need an automated attendant? (Not sure what the difference is between automated attendant and voicemail? Please see the voice mail page.)
6. Do any of your workers need their own phone numbers that can be called directly? (Direct Dial)
7. How will you provide phone service and voice mail for your remote workers or telecommuters?
8. Do a group of your employees handle specific kinds of incoming calls?  For example, customer service or sales calls?  Do you want to measure their performance?
9. Is it important that your mobile employees receive their calls or messages right away?
10. How fast is your business growing?  What’s the trend over the last 5 years?
11. Do you have workers that need voice mail, but not an extension?
12. Do you need the ability to see if an employee is on a call?
13. Will your building wiring support the type of phones that you need?
14. Is incoming Caller ID information important to your business?

It can be easy to get bogged down by too many choices and or side tracked by alluring technology that does not really fit your business. By asking the questions above as you go through the process of selecting a system you can keep yourself on track and moving toward the right decision. This list is not meant to be all inclusive and will not cover every scenario. For help with asking the the right questions for your unique business needs it is best to work with someone in the business of providing phone systems. Or feel free to contact us by email sales@stargateti.com or post your question below.