Linksys Voice System 9000 Launch Completes the Full Range of Telephony Products for Small Businesses

March 13, 2006

By Jason Deign, News@Cisco

Small businesses could have been forgiven not long ago for thinking that they were being somewhat overlooked by IP telephony vendors. Systems had historically been aimed large enterprises that already had an IP network in place.

The situation has changed radically in the last few months, however, with a slew of product launches from Linksys® and Cisco Systems®, culminating with the unveiling this week of the Linksys Voice System (LVS) 9000 series line of IP communications products.

The new line of products consists of an IP private branch exchange, five desktop IP telephones and an SPA3000 Analog PSTN Gateway for connection to the public switched telephone network.

The LVS 9000 provides an array of IP telephony products that can bring the benefits of IP communication to home offices and small businesses.

It is specifically aimed at the very smallest of businesses: those ranging from one-person outfits based in a simple home office to small companies of one to five people, with room to grow to 16 users.

The new Linksys multi-line voice over IP (VoIP) telephone system that allows small businesses users to take advantage of the Internet for saving on phone calls and providing big-business features like auto-attendant, music or message on hold and much more.

Other features of the system are:

• It is inexpensive to buy and easy to install.
• It has advanced private branch exchange (PBX) features such Call Transfer, Call Parking, Intercom Paging, Multi-Line Conference Calls, Hunting, Shared Lines and Call Forwarding.
• VoIP allows users to choose a preferred area code and keep the phone number wherever the business relocates to.
• It also doubles up as multi-line residential system for busy, active families, with a retail launch scheduled for later this year.

Previously, small businesses would have had to make do with traditional home telephone systems, consumer VoIP telephones such as the Linksys CIT200 Cordless Internet Telephony kit, which works with Skype^TM, or a Linksys Phone Adapter to make cheap calls over the Internet.

The multi-line and advanced PBX features of the LVS 9000 series make it an obvious first step up from a consumer phone, and from this point on growing businesses have an ever-widening choice of IP phone systems available to them.

Once a company grows to more than 16 workers, for example, it may want to progress to a Linksys One^TM hosted IP communications system that includes both voice and data services.

Linksys One was launched in the US in November last year, billed as an advanced technology for Cisco, and is being rolled out worldwide throughout 2006.

It is the ultimate 'all in one box' service, offering just one converged services infrastructure for everything: phones, data networking, Internet and business applications.

Linksys One is mainly aimed at businesses of between five and 50 workers, and can support up to 100. At around the 20-person level, however, another option becomes available to SMBs: the Cisco Business Communications Solution.

Launched last September, the Cisco Business Communications Solution is a tailored family of products, services, support and financing options to help businesses control costs, improve operations and gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

The product family is based on a Cisco Catalyst® Express 500 switch and a Cisco Integrated Services Router supporting Cisco CallManager Express and Cisco Unity Express.

It caters for SMBs and branch offices with up to 250 employees, beyond which most organizations would want to move to a full-blown enterprise IP telephony system.

Together, the LVS 9000, Linksys One and Cisco Business Communications Solution portfolios provide a seamless upgrade path for growing SMBs. Size is not the only factor that might determine which of these product families a business would choose, however.

The more flexible and fully-featured nature of the Cisco Business Communications System means it is more likely to appeal to purchasers who are pragmatists or innovators.

The two Linksys systems, meanwhile, are designed with more price-driven customers in mind, while the Linksys One portfolio might additionally be attractive to those who treasure independent advice.

Whatever the appeal, it is expected that the new product portfolios will prove of great value to the SMB sector, the largest motor of commercial activity worldwide.

AMI Partners, a market research firm, says there are more than 35 million small businesses with less than 100 employees world wide. In 2005, this commercial sector spent more than US$12 billion dollars on networking and telecom-related infrastructure.

Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.