OTTAWA, CANADA: Objectworld Communications Corp., today announced the industry's widest support for multiple PBX and unified messaging systems integrated with its award-winning Objectworld Unified Communication (UC) Server software. By adding support for multiple PBXs, as well as adding support for Google Gmail and Novell GroupWise to its unified messaging capabilities, Objectworld enables businesses to integrate a wide variety of PBX systems, messages stores, PBX systems, SIP phones and gateways and third-party hardware, software and services into a single unified communications solution.

With this increased flexibility, Objectworld UC Server is a particularly attractive solution for small- to medium-sized businesses, delivering UC at a very competitive price – as low as 7 cents per day per user. Objectworld UC Server's capabilities include legacy PBX integration and SIP-based VoIP, teleconferencing, call queues, presence-based console, individual and organizational call control, unified messaging with integrated fax, ODBC-enabled phone-based applications and services and service creation environment for customized Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions.

"The benefit of being a software only solution is that it allows Objectworld UC Server to interoperate with a wide variety of hardware, software and services," said David Levy, Objectworld's president and chief executive officer. "Objectworld UC Server allows businesses to leverage the tools and solutions they have in place for considerable costs savings, to integrate unified communications for very low cost with what they have, and to manage their business communications centrally from Microsoft Windows. No other unified communications solution pairs this level of flexibility with Objectworld's trademark ease of use in the industry today." 

The new, multiple PBX support further simplifies the transition from one PBX system to another PBX or IP-PBX, or from one IMAP/MAPI client/mail server combination to another, or the use of several PBXs and mail systems at the same time. The solution also allows businesses to keep their existing disparate phone and messaging systems and manage them more centrally and homogenously with a single UC solution.

"Businesses in the SMB market segment are at different stages on their road to unified communications, spanning from having PSTN connections and SIP trunking all the way through to having deployed the most user-centric, real-time collaboration and productivity tools," said Krithi Rao, industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan. "As a consequence, interoperability poses a serious challenge to the uptake of true unified communications, making flexible solutions ideal. Assuming a solution is truly flexible enough to meet existing and new challenges as a business grows over time and allows a business to keep much of the hardware and software that they already have, even relatively small businesses can save considerably by implementing UC." 

As software for Microsoft Windows platforms, IT administrators manage the solution through Windows-based administration tools, including Microsoft Active Directory, and end-users, through point and click Windows-based software. Customers can choose Windows compatible hardware from Dell, HP, IBM or other server hardware that suits their needs. The solution provides its own embedded SIP telephony capabilities and/or adds unified communications as an adjunct to 95% of the existing PBX market, including NEC, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, Siemens, Nortel and other PBXs, or several of them simultaneously (including Objectworld's own embedded SIP PBX), providing mix-and-match telephony or a simple, staged migration path to a full VoIP solution. 

The software also delivers unified messaging with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes, and now Gmail and Novell GroupWise, all four at the same time, or with any other IMAP/MAPI based client/server e-mail solution. Through the Objectworld Connect Interoperability Program, businesses can also deploy phones from Polycom, snom, Grandstream, CyberData, Aastra, CounterPath, Cisco, Linksys, Mitel and other vendors (or mix and match), as well as media gateways from Dialogic, AudioCodes, Ingate, Quintum, VegaStream and Mediatrix, as well as Internet Telephony Service Providers and other hardware, software and services.