With high level benefits such as cost savings, increased ease of use and flexible communications management on offer from today's more advanced voice over IP and converged communications solutions, most SMEs with aging infrastructures are strongly considering the consolidation of their voice and data networks into a single more capable environment.
"Although numerous solutions exist today, a company of between eight and 48 employees looking for a converged networking device need not look any further than what's on offer from Cisco's Unified Communications 500 series of devices for small business," says Marius Vermeulen, Cisco technical specialist at Tarsus Technologies.
"The Unified Communications 500 (or UC500 for short) is an affordable appliance that provides voice, data, voicemail, automated attendant, video, security, and wireless capabilities while integrating with existing desktop applications such as calendar, e-mail, and customer relationship management (CRM) packages," he says.
"On the data front, it includes all of the routing, switching, firewalling and security functionality an SME could require today; and on the voice front, it's also a digital PABX and voicemail server that supports up to 50 users and flexible deployment options based on what the customer's needs are.
"It supports a wide array of both IP and PSTN phones and a number of different Internet connectivity options, and through the addition of a wireless module to the device, it can become a secure wireless access point.
"The UC500 incorporates all of the converged networking infrastructure that a company of between eight and 48 users would require today.
"I truly believe the UC500 offers exceptional value for money and completeness of functionality that would be difficult to match," he concludes.
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With more than 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world's foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.
Tarsus strives to meet the channel's needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.
The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large roll-outs. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.
With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.
Brands represented by the Tarsus stable include industry leaders like Acer, APC Cisco, HP, IBM, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Logitech, OKI, PEAK, Samsung, TallyGenicom, Targus and Wyse Technology.
More information about Tarsus is available at: http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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