Dell set to shake-up SME IP-PBX market with Fonality

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 24 January 2008 04:55

IT Industry - Strategy

Dell is set to shake-up the SME end of the IP-PBX market by offering a bundle of the Fonality IP-PBX software running on Dell hardware. Given Dell's entrenched position in the PC supply chain, the offering is being tipped to create a significant challenge to the leading incumbents. There has been no official statement from Dell, Fonality says the deal is being soft-launched, but the products are already on offer on its US web site, for businesses needing between 5-125 extensions. They are complemented by a Nortel product for the 5-500 user market. iTWire has so far been unable to confirm if and when Dell will offer the Fonality and or the Nortel product in Australia. They are not at present listed on the Dell Australia web site.

According to the Dell website, "Fonality is a leader in unified communications and contact centre solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. From single-site businesses with basic telephony needs to distributed call centres to national corporations with advanced presence management and communication tool needs, Fonality's solutions are ideal for any business with 5-125 employees." It has a comparison chart between the Nortel and Fonality products, the main difference being that the Fonality products is self-installable, the Nortel offering not.

The deal was announced by Fonality CEO, Chris Lyman, on his blog where he said: "Dell spent 2007 scouring the market for telephony partners to serve its customer base. They were looking for two different types: an enterprise-focused solution for their larger customers and a low-cost / high performance solution for their SMB customers — one that could be self-managed. Dell has selected Fonality for the latter...Dell was looking for three things. The product: must be high in value must be super-easy to use; must run on Dell."

He added: "IDC claims that Dell has more than 28 percent market share in the SMB space in the US, with some 25m US businesses. This means that Dell could be delivering Fonality's award-winning PBX and unified communications software applications (on Dell hardware) to around  seven million existing small-to-medium business customers."

The Fonality product being offered by Dell is the recently released trixbox Pro software based on an underlying platform of the Asterisk open source software IP PBX. And it is already on sale in Australia, from Fonality's recently acquired subsidiary.