PhoneGnome Virtual PBX Launched

PhoneGnome has introduced a new “PhoneGnome for Business” product with a “virtual receptionist” feature, allowing PhoneGnome boxes to be used by small and medium business or other small organizations.

The service works with or without the PhoneGnome box, an appliance-based way to integrate IP telephony with standard telephone service.

However, when the virtual attendant function is used in conjunction with remote users also equipped with a PhoneGnome box, any existing telephony number with the Virtual Receptionist, used as a company’s main number, gets free inbound minutes.

"If you set up each virtual location with the box, all inter-office calls and transfers will be 100 percent free - even if those locations are oceans apart," says David Beckemeyer, PhoneGnome CEO.

"And what’s nice about the PhoneGnome approach is you don’t have to be a SIP or VOIP expert to set it up," says Beckemeyer. "The box self-configures when you connect it, doesn’t need a computer, and you use your existing regular phone numbers to call and transfer."

Beckemeyer is an astute observer of user behavior, and obviously has figured out that one of the most-popular features of any IP phone system, in a smaller business setting, is the virtual attendant feature.

So what he's done is take a simple IP telephony appliance and add the single most valuable feature for many small businesses.

Of late, when observing the ways communication habits seem to be forming among younger users, I have asked the question of whether it will necessarily be logical for business managers to buy PBXes. If you assume everybody already has a smart phone, then you are talking about some software that creates business personalities for users, without requiring dedicated hardware.

Virtual Attendant is an interesting way to add a very-popular feature to a very low cost way of integrating IP telephony with standard POTS in a smaller business setting.