“I first heard about SpliceCom’s migration strategy for INDeX customers in 2005,” says Steve Walker, Managing Director of IP Integration. “Their plans appeared to be well thought through, addressing the needs of end-users and the channel alike, whilst allowing existing investment in INDeX to be retained, enhanced and then migrated to a Pure IP PBX infrastructure under the customer’s control.”
Launched by SDX Business Systems to critical acclaim in 1995, acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1998 and then spun-off within the Avaya portfolio in 2000, sales of the INDeX business telephone system finally ceased in June 2006. With SDX’s former Managing Director and Sales & Marketing Director being founder members of SpliceCom – Frank Bretherton & Jeremy Cooke respectively – it’s perhaps unsurprising that SpliceCom have put together a technology upgrade path and commercial pricing package, based on maximiser, that’s second to none.
SpliceCom’s evolutionary approach allows existing INDeX customers access to all the business benefits associated with IP Telephony and Voice over IP whilst still retaining the investment made in their existing telephone system. maximiser has been developed to enhance both the INDeX feature set and business efficiency tools. As such SpliceCom have identified eight key areas that are core to business communications for INDeX customers’. They are: INDeX DT/20 Series Visual Voice integration, Unified Messaging, Meet Me Conferencing, Mobility – Mobile/Home/Teleworker Solutions, Wireless – IP/DECT or WiFi, Contact Centre, Voice Networking and Additional User & Trunk Capacity
“The lack of a coherent migration strategy from Avaya for INDeX following their “end of life” announcement in June 2006, allied to SpliceCom’s positive offering led us to dig deeper,” continued Walker. “It’s a large undertaking for a business of our size to introduce a new manufacturer into our product portfolio, however, its clear that SpliceCom understand this – one of the many benefits we have witnessed from a manufacturer who enjoy working closely with their channel. We found that maximiser provides a very low cost of entry, whilst its modular and open architecture requires us to hold minimal inventory and lets us leverage our existing skill sets. Connectivity, scalability and flexibility are all terms that are very much over used and over hyped in our industry. maximiser does them justice because here is a single product range which we can use to address the needs of any customer – be they small or large, with simple or sophisticated business telephony needs.”
“We’ve chosen to bring maximiser on board primarily for our INDeX customers because it allows them to “maximise” their return on investment whilst taking advantage of IP and Unified Messaging technologies. In addition, maximiser provides connectivity to SIP trunks, which is of significant interest to our multi-site customers as it allows them to take advantage of free “on net” connectivity as a more cost effective solution than MPLS services,” said Walker. IP Integration’s first installation saw maximiser integrated with an existing INDeX system to deliver Unified Messaging. The legacy Avaya PBX is unable to natively support UM itself. “The system went in on time, on budget and worked,” said Walker. “What more can a business ask for?”
“We’re very pleased that IP Integration have chosen SpliceCom as their technology partner to safeguard and migrate their existing INDeX customer base,” said Graham Harris, UK Sales Manager for SpliceCom. “As such we’re very much looking forward to working even closer with Steve and his team over the coming years to mutually define and expand the sales opportunities for maximiser within IP Integration further still.”
“The bottom line for IP Integration is that maximiser allows us to retain our significant legacy base of INDeX users, in addition to addressing the growing demand for SIP trunking, Unified Messaging and Voice Recording amongst SME customers - in a cost effective and credible manner. It’s a pleasure doing business with a company who understand the true meaning of Partnership,” concluded Walker.