Business communications is a well developed and a fast growing industry that is brining many positive outcomes to its manufacturers, distributors and final users. Business communications is designed to make the communications process simple and accessible by the end user at any time. It provides a great flexibility and is capable of connecting users all over the world in the matter of minutes. There are several main large manufacturers in the telecommunications industry, they are:
·         Avaya (now is the owner of Nortel)
·         Cisco
·         NEC
·         Shoretel
·         Mitel
·        And others
As the global business communications providers they are all responsible for producing innovative, robust and efficient equipment to solve many challenges that organizations of any type and size face on the daily bases in their communications process. To be a successful and active member in the telecommunications community you have to be able to offer something unique and well developed to your customers in order to attract them to your product.
Every organization despite the size or type needs an efficient and a reliable communications channel. With the growth of internet and cell phone market, we can see an increase in email and text messages usage; however telephone communications is still the leading player when it comes to connecting one or several users and engaging them into discussion.
There are several main phone systems technologies that are used on the market, they are: PBX’s (private branch exchange), Virtual or Hosted PBX’s (the device is installed in the service provider’s space), VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and several others. In addition, phone systems are categorized as:
·         SMB Phone Systems
·         Enterprise Phone Systems
Small-Medium Business Phone Systems are designed to suite SMB sized companies and their needs without added costs and functions of the Enterprise level system. Although, SMB phone system might have the same functionality and benefits it will come to the difference in the supported size of users that the system can handle. For example, Avaya IP Office phone system can handle 5 to 250 users from a single box without adding additional ports, which is enough to support SMB or a branch. However, Avaya CS1000 can go up to several thousands of users per device and is created for the Enterprise level organizations. Also, we can use NEC Univerge SV8100 as an example of SMB solution.
There are also phone systems that are designed to serve for a specific industry or as a specific solution. For example, NEC UNIVERGE Sphericall for Hospitality is specifically designed to solve the needs of many hotels, motels and other hospitality organizations, as it provides the most cost effective, robust and ROI solution in the industry.  Also, we can use Shoretel phone systems as a great solution for Unified Communications and organizations with many locations that have to be centralized.
Business Communications provides solutions to increase the communications level and develop a planned and cost effective communications strategy. Whether it is an SMB or an Enterprise level organization, both of them need the same outcome – reliable and efficient solutions.