November 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: GrandCentral is one number for all your phones
Andriod and interest in the 700 MHz wireless spectrum may be generating the majority of recent press about Google’s future telephony plans. But GrandCentral, the VoIP online product that Google purchased in July 2007, shows this strategy in action.
Upfront, GrandCentral doesn’t have the small business features (such as toll-free numbers, multiple extensions, and faxing) that you’ll find with RingCentral. Still, after testing the GrandCentral beta, I found more than enough benefits to justify business people taking a look.
Put simply, GrandCentral gives you a single local phone number (which are available for most areas of the United States). At this point, you easily define which of up to six phones (and one temporary number) ring based on who’s calling your main number. One advantage is as you change service providers or jobs, you just update GrandCentral set-tings; your GrandCentral number never changes and users are transparently routed to any of your new phone numbers.
GrandCentral’s other features – including voicemail, call recording, and notifications – then help you mange your communications from one spot.
The heart of GrandCentral, which is operated from a simple Web interface, is the Address Book. Unfortunately, the beta won’t currently let you import contact lists (Outlook, Out-look Express, CVS, vCard, Yahoo, and Gmail should be supported at some point). But once I manually added a contact, GrandCentral routed calls from that person (as detected by Caller ID) to any device I specified or to voicemail.
These options are easily changed on the fly – but rules can’t be created based on the time or day as you find with RingCentral. Still, GrandCentral has enough flexibility to, say, automatically forward a call from an important client to your cell phone if you’re away from the office. Additionally, I recorded a custom greeting for each person.
Besides e-mail and SMS notifications of voicemail, the Address Book has an Inbox showing messages from that person. From here it’s especially easy to return the call, forward to an e-mail address, and reply using e-mail. In an early look at how this system integrates with other Google technologies, I clicked the Map tab to see the caller’s location using Google Maps. Optionally, you view messages from everyone on the main Inbox page.
To accommodate wholesale routing changes, I placed contacts into one of four available groups (friends, family, work, and others). You then select which phone rings for each group. However, there’s currently no option to add custom groups.
GrandCentral’s ListenIn feature, which is controlled from your physical phone, gives you several answering machine features. For instance, I heard what people had to say before picking up the call and listened to voicemails as they were recorded. Also, I blocked un-wanted callers from ever reaching me.
CallSwitch is a neat feature that let me change phones in the middle of a call; for in-stance, I switched from cell phone to landline and the caller wasn’t even aware of the change.
Finally, there’s Visual voicemail, which works on just about any mobile phone with a Web browser. Sorry, but this implementation doesn’t look elegant next to the iPhone’s feature of the same name.
Still, I enjoyed access to GrandCentral messages and other basic settings from my cell phone without the need to install any client software.
GrandCentral is clearly a work-in-progress. Google won’t publically discuss its plans for the product – though based on the beta I doubt they’ll add many more features for an initial launch.
Yet it does solve a fundamental business problem: simplifying communications for managers and other mobile professionals. As such, there’s enough here to merit considering GrandCentral once it’s in general release.
Availability: Private beta that requires invitation from current tester to join.
Pricing: Free for light use; cost for paid features to be announced.
Verdict: GrandCentral reaches you through a single phone number, yet lets you answer the call using up to six devices. The system offers voicemail, which is accessed by phone, e-mail, or online. You customize greetings for each user – and decide what to do when re-ceiving a call from that person. GrandCentral notifies you of messages using e-mail or SMS. And basic functions can be performed from a cell phone with Web browsing capability.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 29, 2007 10:42 PM
November 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: RingCentral online telephone service makes small businesses sound like enterprises
The first contact – and impression – of your organization is often by phone. To make clients and prospects feel welcome, enterprises typically use expensive Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems that route calls efficiently and offer fancy features such as automated directory assistance. With RingCentral, an affordable virtual phone system, professionals and small businesses can sound like a Fortune 500 organization. (For another communications option, please read my review of Google’s GrandCentral.)
Signing up for RingCentral, which takes a few minutes, gets you a new phone number (toll-free, custom vanity, or local; extra fees apply to the first two options). You may also transfer an existing number to RingCentral. The latest version of the service I tested also offers DigitalLine VoIP, where your calls to and from RingCentral go through your broadband Internet connection. This option (an extra $4.99 per month) lets you use your PC as a telephone; alternately, you can integrate an IP Phone or any unlocked SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) compatible device with this service.
RingCentral has a plethora of features, yet I think most users should be able to get the basics of their system setup and functioning within an hour – steps that are done through a decent Web user interface. However, some of the more advanced options are either down a few levels or not completely obvious – so I’d recommend the company consider further simplifying the user experience. In the meantime, RingCentral provides several good online tutorials and videos if you get stuck at any point.
I first established core settings for my main phone number, including business hours, and then recorded custom greetings. RingCentral offers great flexibility in creating rules. For example, I built a rule that automatically routed calls from an important client (based on their caller ID) to a specific helpdesk agent.
Similarly, I created rules for when someone could not answer the main number, which included call forwarding and voicemail. Further, the system has multiple notification options such as e-mail alerts when voice and fax messages are received.
In all my test calls to RingCentral, the system operated just as my rules specified. I also successfully used other functions, including call screening (where you see who is calling and accept, reject, or send the call to voicemail) and blocking unwanted calls forever. Moreover, audio quality of announcements and voicemail was very good.
As you’d expect, RingCentral’s Web interface provides an overview of calls received, lets you play messages, and perform other tasks, such as adding the caller to your contact list – all that I easily accomplished.
Extensions represent another advantage of RingCentral compared to other services. I easily created extensions for co-workers and added them to my company directory. Just like your main business number, each user can create rules and set notifications for their ex-tension. For instance, if I didn’t answer my extension in four rings I had RingCentral sequence the call to my home phone, cell phone, and finally to voicemail.
Similar to the Overview page, the Extension Summary lets each user see their new and saved messages. For security, access to extensions is password protected.
RingCentral provides client software – Call Controller – to perform many call functions from a Windows PC. I liked the way this application let me answer incoming calls (using a headset), screen voicemail, make conference calls, and transfer calls. If you have DigitalLine, you can also dial outbound calls from Call Controller. RingCentral Mobile (for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices) let me make outbound calls – plus access my online mes-sages and call logs – from my HP iPAQ PDA.
Internet Fax, included with every account, is a nice bonus. Incoming faxes were quickly processed and delivered to one of my extensions. Moreover, you can send faxes from any Windows application (outbound fees apply, which start at 3.9 cents per page).
SMB owners have other telephony options, yet many involve hardware purchases and ex-tra complexity. One example is Microsoft’s Response Point. Therefore, RingCentral’s feature breadth and depth, generally intuitive operation, and pricing structure make it a very good pick.
RingCentral
Pricing: Monthly payments from $14.99 to 99.99, with annual payment discounts
Verdict: RingCentral is a notable system that offers a local or toll-free phone number. This sophisticated, yet easily managed service routes calls (based on sophisticated rules) to other numbers or alternately takes voice messages. You can screen or block calls, record calls, send and receive faxes, and access the system from both a browser and Windows Mobile device. Integration with VoIP and Internet Faxing complete this unified small business communications offering.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 28, 2007 11:34 AM