Mitel to extend PBX to outsiders' phones

16.04.2009
Although it's three months away, Mitel Networks is already drumming up interest in the next release of its call control software.

Release 10 of Communications Director will introduce Dynamic Extension, giving users of the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform the ability to designate up to eight phones to be rung when a call is made through a linked PBX. No client software is needed and the devices can be any hard or softphone. As a result, the Canadian telephony equipment maker says, organizations don't have to standardize on office or mobile phones.

For example, a mobile worker in a supplier's office who is out of cell phone range could, by calling his employer's PBX and entering a PIN number, set one of the supplier's phones to ring for his calls.

"So it's very simple for keeping people in touch with and through their corporation," Stephen Beamish, Mitel's vice-president for business development and marketing said Thursday in an interview.In another example of how the capability can be used, he cited a U.S. company that in a found it expensive to pay for employees using RIM's Blackberry smartphone for business and personal calls. Instead, by using Dynamic Extension in a pilot, it saved money as staffers made business calls through the company's PBX, and personal calls on a separate phone.

The devices don't have to be Mitel phones, he said. Nor, does a customer have to rip out an old PBX and install one from Mitel. The feature can be turned on by attaching a Mitel 3300 at the gateway or running the Communications Platform on a Sun, HP or IBM server, which is the hooked to the legacy PBX by a PRI line. That IP-enables any phone.

Dynamic Extension is the first of what the Ottawa company calls its Series X features, which are aimed at "simplifying the user experience," Beamish said.