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Holiday Open House for new Des Moines Corporate Headquarters
In early November, LightEdge moved its headquarters in downtown Des Moines to the newly built Davis Brown Tower. To celebrate our new location, its new view of the city and the holiday season we're hosting an Open House for all of our customers and friends that are available to attend.
Wednesday, December 17th from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Davis Brown Tower, 215 10th Street, Suite 1220
Downtown Des Moines
Hors d'oeuvres and drinks will be served. This will be the perfect time to meet with LightEdge executives, sales and support staff to put faces with the names that you deal with through e-mail and phone conversation.
Click to RSVP with the number off attendees
Checklist: Are You Ready for an IP Phone System?
There are several possible reasons for moving to an IP phone system. Regardless of your personal motivations, you need to ask some serious questions to make sure you're getting a solution that meets your needs. Here are some reasons that might inspire your move, along with the questions to ask to make sure it succeeds.
Shifting IT Business Models in Times of Crisis
Peter Whatnell, CIO of Sunoco Inc., prepared three budgets for next year. The first scenario lays out what IT would have proposed had the financial crash not occurred. The second is the plan if his budget stays flat. And the third? What a 20% reduction in budget would look like.
Economy Puts Non-essential IT Projects on the Back Burner
These are insecure times, and everyone is feeling the strain of a down economy. But TechTarget's 2009 IT Priorities Survey reveals that while things may be shaky, the sky isn't exactly falling -- not in IT, anyway. There are bright spots. Any projects you had planned in building out your network or security infrastructures will likely remain intact. But the cloud hanging over everyone's head? You'll have fewer resources to support your project. People will be the first to go.
Safe bets for IT spending in '09
All indications are that IT spending growth will be below the rate of inflation in 2009, thus budgets will actually decrease in real terms.
If things get worse as many experts predict, it could get really ugly. Nevertheless, there are some technology areas that are close to a sure thing in 2009. Here is my non-exhaustive list:
SIP Trunking
As IP PBXs are beginning to climb in popularity and businesses are looking for additional ways to reduce the costs of providing voice services to their staff, LightEdge is proud to announce that SIP Trunking is now available through our Advanced Voice Services VoIP platform.
SIP Trunking is a way for businesses to exchange voice traffic between and IP PBX and the LightEdge VoIP platform over a dynamic IP connection (usually a T1 line) rather than a channelized PRI through a telecom provider. A SIP Trunk is able to reduce voice costs by utilizing IP connectivity, lower cost equipment and streamlining services to a single provider for Internet, Local and Long Distance phone service.
In addition to lowering costs, a SIP Trunk can also provide additional features such as Simultaneous Ring, Sequential Ring and Remote Office that may not be available through your IP PBX. These additional features will ensure that your employees can remain responsive and connected whether they are in the office or traveling.
If you have an IP PBX system in place or are looking to implement one, please contact your LightEdge Account Executive to learn more about SIP Trunking and how you can cut costs while actually improving your level of service.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
| Upgrading to Hosted Exchange 2007 |
Many businesses running Exchange version 2003 or earlier have put off upgrading because of the increased complexity and additional servers necessary to meet the roles of Exchange 2007. LightEdge and Microsoft are making it easier than ever to get on the latest platform and begin taking advantage to new features.
Hosted Environment
Utilizing a hosted environment immediately takes all the complexity and upfront costs out of the picture. In most cases your company can be up on the new platform within a day. Upgrades and platform maintenance is included in your low monthly fee.
Free Outlook 2007 or Entourage
Exchange is designed to work with Outlook and Entourage. With your service you have access to a free download for all the Hosted Exchange users in your company.
Credit against Software Assurance
If you think that you are locked into staying in a premise based environment because you have paid for a Software Assurance plan, get ready for a surprise. You are eligible for a monthly credit on Hosted Exchange services. Learn more by talking with your LightEdge Account Executive or visiting Microsoft Calculator. |
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Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST)
LightEdge will soon be launching Survivable Remote Site Telephony service as an available option for its Hosted PBX voice customers. This provides an additional layer of redundancy for the main office or remote offices which may not have access to local phone or IT personnel.
SRST provides business resiliency through an automated failover from the traditional T1 or Ethernet routing to an alternate route through an analog POTS line through a local telco provider. This service is a simply and effectively ensures that phone service is available despite a temporary loss of Internet or WAN connectivity.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
Unified Communications
Later this year, LightEdge will be offering two new products that integrate with our Hosted Exchange 2007 environment to create a complete hosted communications and collaboration suite of products called the LightEdge Connected Office. These products are designed for the fast-paced company that needs to communicate more effectively, share resources and multi-task.
Hosted Microsoft Communicator
Instead of allowing employees to use personal Instant Messaging accounts for corporate communications, you can equip them with a secure, encrypted environment with LightEdge Hosted Communicator.
 Presence - With a quick glance of the Communicator application you can tell who is available, who is busy and who is currently logged out of the system.
- Instant Messaging - Often times you just need to ask a colleague a quick question and don't want to get bogged down with a call or a meeting. Communicator allows you to get your answer quickly and save everyone precious time.
- Multiple Party Messaging - Add multiple parties to the same conversation to get all the viewpoints necessary to make and confirm decisions
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
 Hosted Microsoft SharePoint
Hosted SharePoint allows you to quickly create rich document and information sharing portals for your business without the need for any outside programming.
- Document Management -secure central repository for all share documents in the office with functionality for check-in, check-out, version history and alerts when items are modified.
- Corporate Intranet - complete with
announcements, Blog, discussion groups and RSS feeds.
- Project Management - Run your department more effectively with a shared hub of information including assigned tasks and status reporting.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
 Hosted Microsoft Live Meeting
Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a hosted web conferencing service that connects audiences for online meetings, training sessions, software demonstrations and remote collaborative initiatives. With meeting attendees participating from their PCs, you can deliver a presentation, kick off a project, brainstorm ideas, edit files, collaborate on whiteboards, and negotiate deals at a fraction of the cost and without the hassle of travel.
- More Collaboration. Less Travel. - get more done with fewer face-to-face meetings by limiting your need for travel.
- Engage your Audience - deliver multi-media presentations including presentation slides, live and recorded video, application sharing and audience feedback tools.
- Easy for any Meeting Size - whether you are collaborating with a colleague in another city or presenting a business model shift to the entire company, Live Meeting is easy to simple to use.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more |
