Cisco UC 500 "perfect" for SMBs, claims Tarsus PM

25 August 2008

With high level benefits such as cost savings, increased ease of use and flexible communications management on offer from today's more advanced Voice over IP and converged communications solutions, most SMBs with aging infrastructures are strongly considering the consolidation of their voice and data networks into a single more capable environment.

"Although numerous solutions exist today, a company of between eight and 48 employees looking for a converged networking device need not look any further than what's on offer from Cisco's Unified Communications 500 series of devices for small business," says Marius Vermeulen, Cisco technical specialist at Tarsus Technologies.

"The Unified Communications 500 (or UC500 for short) is an affordable appliance that provides voice, data, voicemail, automated attendant, video, security, and wireless capabilities while integrating with existing desktop applications such as calendar, e-mail, and customer relationship management (CRM) packages," he says.

"On the data front, it includes all of the routing, switching, firewalling and security functionality an SMB could require today; and on the voice front, it's also a digital PABX and voicemail server that supports up to 50 users and flexible deployment options based on what the customer's needs are. It supports a wide array of both IP and PSTN phones and a number of different Internet connectivity options, and through the addition of a wireless module to the device, it can become a secure wireless access point. The UC500 incorporates all of the converged networking infrastructure that a company of between eight and 48 users would require today. I truly believe that the UC500 offers exceptional value for money and completeness of functionality that would be difficult to match."