Toshiba Releases VIPedge Solution

The Telecommunication System Division of Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., has recently announced the release of VIPedge, a new cloud business telephone solution. VIPedge is designed to deliver features, functionality, and quality service and reliability through the cloud, available at a scalable monthly fee.

Toshiba's SMB and enterprise customers now have their choice of cloud, IP, or converged business phone systems, with the addition of VIPedge to its line of products, which includes IPedge and Strata CIX. VIPedge is based on the Toshiba IPedge on-premise solution, providing the same benefits but through the cloud.

The monthly fees are a fixed rate determined according to a customer's needs, averaging at around $29.99 per user, and additional users or applications can be added as needed. Software upgrades and system administration are included in the service fee to avoid hidden or additional charges.

Included in VIPedge's features are: call holding and transferring, voice mail, unified communications with Toshiba's Call Manager, call control from a personal computer, click-to-dial, and much more.

According to UCStrategies co-founder Blair Pleasant, “Toshiba noted that the company wanted to use its own product and have full-featured telephony capabilities with all the same features they offer today with their premise solution, and didn’t want to make compromises on functionality by partnering with another company that might not have the capabilities they want. This is obviously a dig at ShoreTel, and demonstrates the differences between the two companies’ approaches. They emphasized that this is a Toshiba product, and now the company can offer the best of both worlds to their customers, including two premise-based products and now also a hosted service.” Pleasant adds, “Toshiba is taking a cautious approach to its hosted service, and during a recent analyst briefing noted several times that they want to get their feet wet before scaling too high or throwing in too many enhanced features. For example, the service will initially support up to 60 users, and then will expand to larger systems later. Toshiba also plans on introducing other cloud-based services down the road, including contact center, conferencing, hosted Exchange and SQL, etc. This approach makes sense for Toshiba, and allows the company, its resellers, and customers to get used to the basic hosted service before expanding.”

VIPedge is available now through authorized Toshiba dealers. For more information, visit www.toshiba.com.

Also on UCStrategies.com on this topic:

• Toshiba’s New VIPedge Cloud Business Telephone Solution Delivers Toshiba Quality, Reliability and Service for SMBs, by Paul Robinson