3CX Phone System Gets Skype Connect Certified

3CX Phone System for Windows allows businesses to connect with Skype users worldwide with its support of Skype Connect.

3CX, developer of the award-winning 3CX Phone System for Windows, has announced that its internationally used cross-platform communications application has received Skype Connect™ interoperability certification. Businesses of all sizes that are using the 3CX Phone System can now communicate more efficiently and economically by directing their outbound calls to mobile phones and landlines around the world through Skype. It will also allow those companies to receive inbound calls from their clients, partners and suppliers who are Skype users.

“By utilizing Skype Connect, businesses running a 3CX Phone System can allow customers, partners and employees to call them. Click & Call buttons on a company’s Web site can make it quick and easy for customers to reach out and buy – thereby increasing sales.” – Nick Galea, CEO, 3CX.

Businesses of all sizes are looking for ways to reduce their communications costs. Skype Connect™ delivers an offering to business customers that can interoperate with existing SIP enabled PBX or UC systems. Skype Connect integrates easily with a business’ 3CX Phone System, enabling employees to use Skype to make outbound calls to landlines or mobile phones at Skype’s standard calling rates. In addition, through the separate purchase of Skype’s online numbers, a company can receive inbound calls via Skype from business contacts and customers calling from landlines and mobile phones.

Customers can also call a business by using Skype’s Click & Call feature. By adding a Click & Call button to a company’s Web site, email and other online promotions, customers using Skype can call with just a click of a button, making the business easier to reach, as well as providing a free communication between your business and your customers. All Skype calls being received in the 3CX Phone System via the Click & Call button will be handled like any other call, which means call queuing, transferring of calls, making use of the digital receptionist and additional features available with the 3CX Phone System can reduce the barriers to communicating with your business and help increase sales, as your business will be far more accessible to potential and existing customers.

The 3CX Phone System can help improve employee productivity since users can take advantage of Skype Connect™ to call around the world, while also taking full advantage of the additional key features of the 3CX Phone System, such as call switching, routing, queuing, call recording and more.

3CX Version 10 BETA Released!

3CX, the company behind the IP 3CX Phone System, have announced BETA of their new version 10 PBX. Version 10 is a major release, using Silverlight for the user portal, 3CX MyPhone for the first time. MyPhone replaces the 3CX Assistant and the old 3CX MyPhone portal as everything has been grouped in one easy to use portal.

The new 3CX MyPhone will be web based, but users will also be able to install MyPhone as a desktop app (it does also work on Macs). 3CX say that in this mode it uses the browser in the background but allows the user to resize 3CX MyPhone to their preference, as well as launch it automatically.

I'm definitely going to be checking it out, especially when I saw these these features:

• Notification to Windows Event log, 3CX Event Log and optionally by e-mail on key events
• PnP support for 3CXPhone for iPhone, Android and Windows, Grandstream Executive GXP-21xx and Yealink phones. This means that you can just plug in the phone, assign extension in the management console and the phone will be automatically configured. This eliminates the need to specify the provisioning URL in the phone or via DHCP option 66.
• Complete support for the new Grandstream GXP-1450, GXP 2100, GXP 2110 and GXP 2120 phones. Requires firmware v. 1.0.1.56 and up. Note that these phones are still in BETA
• Support for the Grandstream GXP 3140, GXP 3175 video phones
• Support for the Yealink VP 2009 video phones
• Ability to black list IPs
• Ability to block extensions being registered from outside the network
• You can configure that particular extensions can not be used outside of the local network
• Ability to limit extensions registering externally to use tunnel
• Native 64 bit version (not available in beta)
• Ability to record prompts via the phone – simply click on prompt, enter extension name and record prompt
• Reduced memory footprint and elimination of extra service
• Specify extension group in outbound rules to easily create Class of Service rules

3CX have provided a downloads section where you can try out the BETA version 10.

3CX BETA Version 10 Phone System can be downloaded here. The administration manual can be found here (PDF). The 3CX MyPhone and Extension user manual is web based and can be found here while users can post any questions about the BETA here in the 3CX Phone System V10 BETA forum.

You can use this Beta V10 Demo Key to activate enterprise features: LFMD-4QDR-7OHP-ZZO2