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Inok Systems

In this issue : Independent Research Firm Cites Numara Software as a Strong Performer in Interaction-Centric Customer Service Management Software Report XMediusFAX release 5.5 ships Case Study: Law firm switches to XMediusFAX and saves thousands of dollars		Representing :

Numara FootPrints Recognized for Ease of Deployment and Customization and Solid Workflow Capabilities

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Numara Software, Inc., a leader in service desk management solutions for IT and customer support professionals, today announced it was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in its The Forrester WaveTM: Customer Service Management (CSM) Software, Q2 2007. This recent report recognizes Numara FootPrints as a Strong Performer for interaction-centric customer service management.

Forrester assessed 22 select CSM vendors that are top of mind for Forrester clients, hold a strong presence in the customer service market and include functionality that spans multiple functional areas for customer service. Through its analysis, Forrester found that the various vendor offerings cluster around three product sub-segments: record-centric, interaction-centric and process-centric. Numara Software was named a Strong Performer within the interaction-centric group, which includes solutions suited to organizations that prioritize speed and accuracy of the customer interaction and desire a single CSM platform for all customer interaction channels.

The report cites Numara Software’s FootPrints solution as “simple to configure and use” and as an, “especially good fit for buyers that are seeking an easy-to-deploy set of customer service tools and are predominantly agent-based.” According to the report, Numara FootPrints’ strengths include, “strong email response management, agent collaboration tools, customer service analytics and a sound workflow engine.”

“Numara Software’s recognition by Forrester Research as a Strong Performer in the Interaction-Centric Customer Service Management category reflects our commitment to providing solutions that fit the way our customers work,” said David Weiss, president and CEO of Numara Software. “Our solutions are not only easy-to-deploy and use, but they also offer robust and configurable options, allowing them to grow with our customers’ expanding and changing customer service organizations.”

While Numara FootPrints was originally developed as an internal customer service solution, its "ease of deployment and customization has led about one-third of Numara Software customers to deploy [Numara FootPrints] for external customer service," states the companion report, The Forrester WaveTM Vendor Summary, Q2 2007, Numara Software is a Strong Performer in Interaction-Centric Customer Service Management Software. This is due to Numara FootPrints’ unique flexibility to track and manage business requirements beyond the customer support center, enabling organizations to use a single solution to track help desk, compliance, development and bug tracking, facilities management, and other business initiatives. The Vendor Summary report continues, “The product’s strengths lie in its workflow and follow-up capability, including a powerful escalation system, service-level agreements (SLAs), task management and change management for approvals.”

Numara Software helps its customers to deliver world-class customer support with a comprehensive automation solution that offers centralized tracking of all incoming requests via multiple communication channels, and integrates with their existing CRM solutions. Numara FootPrints offers world-class tools for online self-service, knowledge management, two-way email management, customer survey management, dynamic integration with existing corporate directories and databases, and automated metrics and reporting on productivity, trends, performance and more.

About Numara Software, Inc.

Founded in 1991, Numara Software, Inc. (formerly Blue Ocean Software) is a global provider of service desk management solutions for help desk and customer support professionals who need to simplify and gain control over their increasingly complex environments. Numara Software’s trusted solutions address critical IT and support functions, such as customer service desk, IT help desk, asset management, software patch and deployment, and network monitoring.

With its two flagship products, Numara Track-It! and Numara FootPrints, and more than 50,000 customer sites worldwide, Numara Software is the service desk management leader for small to mid-sized enterprises.

The full range of products from Numara Software are available from Inok Systems. To learn more please call 6233 6808 or email sales@inoks.com. Top..

XMediusFAX release 5.5 ships

Sagem-Interstar Inc. (SAFRAN Group), the global leader in boardless IP fax software for VoIP networks since 2002, has started shipping Release 5.5 of its award-winning XMediusFAX T.38 Fax over IP (FoIP) software. XMediusFAX Enterprise (for organizations of all sizes), SP (for service providers and large enterprises), and Express (for 100 users or less), will all deliver unprecedented feature sets.

XMediusFAX Release 5.5 fax server software fax-enables VoIP networks by integrating seamlessly with VoIP gateways from industry-leading IP Telephony vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, and AudioCodes. Release 5.5 offers salient highlights such as:

XMediusFAX 5.5 Administratration MMC Console
(click to enlarge)

Key architectural advancements for XMediusFAX Enterprise: Release 5.5 leverages XMediusFAX SP’s industry-leading and field-proven technology, which provides benefits such as: high scalability and optimized performance; open standards architecture and database; and centralized administration through a Microsoft Management Console (MMC). XMediusFAX SP still leads the FoIP market as the only boardless fax server product that offers both “multi-tenancy” and “built-in redundancy” for mission-critical faxing. Release 5.5 allows for a seamless and highly scalable upgrade path from one product version to another, as customers’ fax requirements evolve.

Enhanced directory integration: Fully supports multiple LDAP-based directories such as Active Directory and Lotus Domino without any database schema modifications. It streamlines various administrative functions and eliminates the need to load and maintain user-account data in XMediusFAX through the retrieval of user data from existing directories.

Extended third-party support: Support for new or recently updated Microsoft products such as Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Microsoft Exchange 2007 (with 64-bit support).

Multilingual support: XMediusFAX now offers enhanced user interface options in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

“XMediusFAX Enterprise Release 5.5 is the next-generation T.38 FoIP solution. It targets organizations of all sizes, and is the most future-ready technology available on the fax server market. Employing features of XMediusFAX SP’s robust, standards-based architecture – and with its new, enhanced directory integration support – XMediusFAX Enterprise is solidly poised to continue its technology leadership,” said Jean Champagne, General Manager of Sagem-Interstar.

“The XMediusFAX boardless T.38 FoIP software suite optimizes an organization’s VoIP investment. XMediusFAX is also the industry’s only Avaya Compliant-Tested T.38 FoIP server that allows for IP fax deployment without the expense of additional hardware.”

If you are interested to find out more about XMediusFAX please call +65 6233 6808 or email sales@inoks.com. Top..

The Client

As one of the top Atlanta law firms, Arnall Golden Gregory (AGG) has helped many growing enterprises turn legal challenges into business opportunities with guidance on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets financing, joint ventures, litigation, and other legal services. Electronic communications and data exchange are critical to the firm’s ability to serve its clients effectively. AGG employees send and receive hundreds of faxes a day.

"The greatest benefit with XMediusFAX is the cost savings and the ability to leverage our current infrastructure.

The quality of the fax image is superb and the interface is very easy to use.

By removing the maintenance contracts with RightFax, and with the removal of one PRI line, we are able to realize a savings of nearly $22,000 a year."

– Paul Grulke,
Director of Information Services

The Challenge

Legal contracts and agreements are critical to AGG. Nearly 200 staff members rely on faxing to transmit these documents quickly, securely and confidentially.

AGG had recently replaced a legacy analog phone system with a state-of-the-art Cisco VoIP system. This meant that their Captaris RightFax server was not compatible with their new VoIP phone system. AGG looked into upgrading RightFax, but soon learned that would be costly. They would have needed to purchase new hardware and software, and then reimplement their fax server system, and yet it still wouldn’t leverage their VoIP implementation.

Therefore, AGG set out to find a fax server that would:

Truly leverage their Cisco VoIP environment and integrate directly with CallManager
Offer reliability, scalability and easy-to-use administration tools
Save them as much money as possible while still delivering a best-of-breed solution
Be a software-only system featuring the same or even more functionality than the outdated RightFax software
Not be dependent on analog technology (e.g., fax boards/cards, modems, hardware, etc.)
Be implemented with minimal downtime while the old system was replaced
Be transparent to end-users, who were already sending and receiving faxes via their Microsoft Outlook/Exchange email programs

The Solution

AGG briefly considered an eFax-like service, but it was too expensive based on AGG’s anticipated fax throughput. Turning to Sagem-Interstar, AGG was very impressed with the XMediusFAX T.38 Fax over IP (FoIP) solution. “XMediusFAX leveraged our current Cisco VoIP infrastructure,” said Paul Grulke, Director of Information Services at AGG.

Another factor that drove the decision to implement XMediusFAX was price. Grulke noted, “The cost was far better than RightFax, and we were able to eliminate one of our trunks by removing the Brooktrout board. XMediusFAX enabled us to share PRI circuits between voice and fax traffic, allowing us to minimize our telecom expenditures.”

After running XMediusFAX through its paces with a small test group, AGG was ready to move the test server into production. To accomplish this, AGG simply replaced the RightFax Microsoft Exchange connector with the XMediusFAX connector. Grulke noted, “there was minimal downtime” during the transition.

Now fax traffic comes directly into AGG’s PRI routers and is forwarded to the XMediusFAX server utilizing the T.38 protocol.

Results and Benefits

AGG is guaranteed significant ROI with its XMediusFAX investment, since it no longer requires an expensive fax board and a dedicated fax trunk line. As well, XMediusFAX requires less administration, saving AGG labour costs. In fact, AGG estimates that terminating RightFax maintenance contracts and removing its PRI line will save nearly $22,000 a year.

AGG users were already used to faxing through Microsoft Exchange, so very little product training was necessary. However, they were particularly impressed with several new features that XMediusFAX provided, such as:

HTML email notification, which displays the first page of each incoming fax. This saves time because it allows AGG employees to quickly search for and identify specific faxes directly in the Microsoft Outlook preview pane
Superb fax image quality
Easy-to-use interface featuring custom Microsoft Outlook forms

In the end, AGG traded in an outdated fax-board-based fax server for a robust and ultra-flexible boardless FoIP solution backed by stellar customer service. And best of all, AGG easily recouped their investment in less than one year.

If you are interested to find out more about XMediusFAX please call +65 6233 6808 or email sales@inoks.com. Top..