Based on Digium's Asterisk, the world's most popular open source telephony engine, Switchvox® SMB 4.5, is a powerful new version of Switchvox, the full-featured and cost-effective Voice over IP (VoIP) Unified Communications (UC) solution. Switchvox SMB 4.5 delivers mission-critical applications traditionally accessed through the web interface directly to phone handsets, and adds greater flexibility and control for both users and administrators.
National Instruments offers expert, technical solutions to over 25,000 client organisations in the science and research sector from offices around the world and as such the design and provision of its communications solution is a strategic consideration.
“We have people and offices all over the globe, all communicating with each other,” explained Rene Sanchez, Regional Commodity Manager for National Instruments in the US. “Therefore, we need a VoIP system where we can control the configuration from our central location in the US and capitalize on the lower call costs of SIP trunking.”
National Instruments chose Switchvox because it could provide the call-routing flexibility required of a VoIP system and also came with a long list of affordable UC features.
The Nasdaq listed technology firm engaged with Foehn, Digium’s Premier Solutions Partner and Switchvox integrator for Europe to handle the installation because of the systems integrator’s experience in handling Asterisk-based systems. Last month, Foehn spent four days installing, training and integrating the Switchvox platform with the current VoIP infrastructure at the Belgium HQ for National Instruments based in Brussels.
Technical Director and Founder at Foehn, James Passingham commented “We’re pleased that National Instruments chose Switchvox and Foehn. Unlike other systems, Switchvox comes with so many features as standard. That means we were able to offer a comprehensive solution and we’re looking forward to providing a rich communications infrastructure to National Instruments group.”
One feature National Instruments already plans on to using is the SoftPhones. This means if staff can’t make it into work, as was the case in the recent snow storms of the new year, they can simply log on to their SoftPhone reducing disruption for the office and the employee.
Gui Vieiro, Network and Telecom Manager at National Instruments was the project manager responsible for the deployment. “We were pleased with Foehn’s efficient deployment and subsequent support. Besides the cost savings from intelligent call routing, we are also benefiting from the simplified commercial licensing. With Switchvox, we only need to purchase a one-off license fee to access all software features available. We look forward to using Switchvox at further National Instrument locations in the future.”
