Thursday, January 22, 2009

Small Businesses should check out Virtual PBX Systems when looking to Save Money

I remember starting in business and thinking that one day soon I should be able to afford a phone system with multiple extensions and multiple voicemail boxes, and yes of course music on hold and many of the features of larger systems were standard in my mind. So about 3 years ago I started checking out VoIP, and realized that the prices were still pretty high and adding music on hold involved a lot of added cost to any system.

So I started to look for the right and affordable PBX system, and found rather quickly that I actually had 2 choices, software that I can install on a server or computer and have it provide the features for me or finding a hosted solution offering it all. Next and in the next couple of posts we will look at the two best choices for either hosted or software based telephony.

Services offered by stand alone hosted Virtual PBX's dedicated to SMBs have become quite good, with RingCentral's Digital Line service leading the pack - a virtual PBX system with voicemail and Internet Fax.
RingCentral Office Business Phone System - 30-day No-Risk Trial

On the other hand, on the software solution that would provide these features - the clear winner was Parliant’s Phone Valet and its newer companions Phone Herald and Curb Talker which are still today without a doubt the best telephony solutions for Mac OS X.

The next posts will each concentrate on either the software based virtual PBX or the hosted telephony solutions that we have recommended to many businesses since.

Small Business Advice directly from small business owners.

After thinking of all the help I could have used in business, and how much further I probably would be today if I would have known everything I learned since about how to run a business I decided to help everyone get there easier.


So this blog was born...