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The Symbian Foundation estimates savings of approximately £10,000 per month using its Asterisk PBX solution together with the Skype for Asterisk software module. |
About Symbian
The Symbian Foundation is an independent, non-profit organisation whose mission is to enable an open ecosystem that collaborates to create the most complete and richest user experiences for mobile devices. It maintains the code for an open source software platform based on Symbian OS and software assets contributed by Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, and Sony Ericsson.
The Challenge
When it came to implementing a communication system for its new London HQ, Symbian wanted to ensure the solution would encourage its own aim of promoting collaboration, contributions and active participation.
In an environment where the preferred method of communicating is on mobiles, Skype and instant messaging tools, one consideration for Symbian was whether a PBX and telephone system was even necessary to the organisation. "Skype is a tool widely used at Symbian - for some employees, it's their main form of communication" observes Ian McDonald, Head of IT for The Symbian Foundation.
There was also another challenge as Ian explained. "As a non-profit organization Symbian needed a solution that would allow us flexible, easy and unrestricted collaboration, while ensuring we could control costs."
The Solution
As Symbian relied heavily on Skype, Foehn designed a solution making use of the Skype for Asterisk module. This would allow Symbian to receive Skype calls into the PBX and handle them with Asterisk features such as call routing, conferencing, phone menus and voicemail.
It took six weeks from design to deployment of Symbian's unified communication solution. The end-result is that callers can contact Symbian employees via Skype, mobile phone, fixed line or Google Talk.These lines of communication feed into the Asterisk PBX which then redirects it to the individual via their own preferred device. If they are not available the voicemail is sent to their email account.
If the call comes to reception it can simply be transferred through one click on an intuitive interface, letting Asterisk do the hard work of finding the recipient and how they would like to take to the call.
The Result
The Symbian Foundation estimates savings of approximately £10,000 per month using its Asterisk PBX solution together with the Skype for Asterisk software module.
"We can now be much more cost effective by using Skype. A Symbian employee based in Japan can call via Skype to speak to our legal counsel in London on her desk phone. It doesn't matter how long they are talking for - since the call is delivered over Skype, it's essentially free." said McDonald.
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