New VoIP Wares Targeted At Channel

With the new system, the vendor and its partners will be targeting larger accounts, as the new system can handle up to 2,500 users, a big jump from the vendor's existing systems that top out at 500 users, said Rick Dell, vice president of sales at Inter-Tel, Tempe, Ariz.

In preparation for the move upstream, Inter-Tel earlier this year began to restructure in order to bring its independent direct and indirect sales organizations together, cutting down on conflict between the two, Dell said. As part of the effort, Inter-Tel has developed a specialized enterprise-focused sales team and a services division to assist its channel partners with high-end enterprise deployments.

"We get instant deployment expertise," said Craig Marowitz, founder and vice president of technology strategy at Expert Technology Associates, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa.-based solution provider. "We're going to learn it over time, but we'll need to be on the shoulders of those that are already doing it," he said, of the new services organization.

Several vendors also used the show to showcase their channel efforts. SyncVoice Communications launched its first formal channel program at the show for systems integrators working with its VXTracker unified management software.

VXTracker manages hybrid environments that use both traditional and IP-based communications. It also enables channel partners to give customers an accurate assessment of their current, traditional telephony usage to create a strong business case for moving to VoIP, said Kerry Shih, president of SyncVoice, Costa Mesa, Calif.

"The timing is perfect," Shih said of SyncVoice's program launch. "Because of the mass traction VoIP has gained, it has thrust the whole voice infrastructure into the CIO's lap."

Those CIO's will be turning to solution providers to help them build their IP telephony strategies, and "we want to be close to where the gear is moving because that's where the management questions are getting asked," he said.

SyncVoice is recruiting top partners that work with vendors such as Avaya, Cisco and Nortel Networks, Shih said.

Hosted VoIP provider Whaleback Systems, Portsmouth, N.H., also launched a channel program at the show for partners that want to sell its CrystalBlue Voice Service. Whaleback provides 24x7 monitoring of its service, taking that burden off its partners. The company is also offering a partner demo kit and providing its solution providers with discounted service for their own use.