This is the second post in a series outlining Versature’s move.
With the walls down, and the network gear coming online at our new facility, it seems like the perfect opportunity to reflect on how moving has changed over the last decade.
While historically my involvement in move planning has been limited to the transition of IT related infrastructure, over the last several years my role has moved far beyond the (more…)
After over a year of planning and waiting, it's almost here !
As anyone who has been following our company knows, we’re in the middle of a major move to a new building. The backstory on this move is an interesting one. We’ve been growing at 60% year over year and we had completely outgrown our old space last year. People are doubled up in small offices and making due. As teams grew that needed to work together, they were unfortunately separated out of necessity, causing some communications breakdowns. It has been tough, but the staff have been troopers and totally understanding. (more…)
Moving Your Business : Introduction
With a month to go before Versature’s big move across town, our last few months of planning will quickly change into action over the coming weeks. For those followers who don’t know, Versature is moving into a larger space to accommodate our growth and change to a more team oriented layout.
Having spent years helping clients plan moves I am well versed in the complexities of moving a functioning organization from one location to another while continuing with business as usual. For most businesses a move is a necessary evil, but (more…)
Bria Mobile Softphone on Sale
A few weeks back our CTO, Adam Sherman, put a post together recalling his success in using the Bria softphone client on his iPhone and how he is using it on a daily basis in addition to his Polycom desk set for increased mobility around the office.
If you missed it, check out: Office Extension in your Pocket
For a limited time Counterpath, the Canadian company who created the Bria softphone application, is offering a discount worth mentioning (half price!) on the Bria Mobile product line for both iOS (iPhone) and Android : http://t.co/z767vs2R
This week was the first time we received a competitor's phones from a customer in their "original packaging"
In our early years, all of our new business came from either startup businesses or from companies transitioning from the big telcos (Bell, Telus, Rogers, etc..). Most of our new business still comes from these sources, but lately we’re seeing a third source. Other VoIP providers who are doing a poor job with respect to quality or customer service and driving customers to us. We love this trend because the customer is already educated as to why VoIP is a good idea, and is excited about the features. It’s just that the current provider is not living up to expectations. (more…)
Le Dashboard en Français
(English text follows.)
Cette semaine, j’ai une nouvelle importante: nous avons terminé la localisation de l’interface Dashboard de Versature, en français. Ceux qui sont familiers avec la localisation de logiciels ressentiront la douleur de l’équipe DevOps de Versature, mais nous sommes vraiment fiers d’avoir franchi cette étape. Nous continuons à corriger certains problèmes de mises-en-page restants, mais nous avons vraiment voulu mettre cette nouvelle version à la disposition de nos utilisateurs francophones et donc la version 0.11.1 est maintenant disponible.
Si vous avez déjà configuré votre système d’exploitation en français, vous devriez voir automatiquement l’application en français. Vu que l’équipe de service à la clientèle Versature est aussi disponible en français, n’hésitez pas à nous appeler au 877.498.3772 ou en composant le 611 de votre téléphone Versature. (more…)
At Versature, we almost exclusively use Polycom desktop VoIP phones. (Our most popular model is the SoundPoint IP 550.) These phones run firmware that is frequently updated by the manufacturer to add features and fix bugs. Users of Versature’s Hosted PBX expect stability, so we are always extremely careful when rolling out firmware updates to our user-base.
CounterPath Bria for iOS
It has always been a dream of mine to be able to use my smartphone as a Hosted PBX extension that was always with me. Callers wouldn’t know that I was not at my desk. And it would solve the issue of frequent missed calls when I was working with one of our customer service representatives in another office.
I am an iPhone user and while there are many SIP clients available for iOS, none seemed to actually do the job in such a way as to encourage me to actually adopt them as a regular part of my day. Problems such as the need to manually start them, poor call quality, unreliable inbound calling and massive battery drain were all reasons to not bother. I’ve tried CounterPath Bria and Acrobits GroundWire, among others.
Recently, I gave it another try and discovered that Bria actually works very well on my iPhone 4S–with some caveats (more…)
Skype - A Solution for Micro-business and Consumers only.
This post was inspired by one of Versature’s awesome employees. You know who you are.
I was at a gathering of fellow tech CEOs this past week and after introducing myself and explaining what Versature does, the conversation turned to Skype and how one CEO was convinced that in a couple of years everyone would be using it as their exclusive business phone. While we have always paid special attention to Skype and the good things that they have done in the past (popularizing the softphone, paying attention to quality and adding video (more…)
As we move up-market, we're seeing more large companies go to tender (RFP)
In a previous company I worked in, we responded to a number of RFPs with very little success. It always seemed that either the RFP had been written with one pre-determined vendor in mind, or that the RFP process favoured larger companies (the Cisco’s of the world). We did so poorly on responding to RFPs in my previous role, that when we started to see Telecom RFPs come across our desk here at Versature, I informed our salespeople to ignore them completely.
Over time, sales wore me down and we started to try our luck again with RFPs. At the beginning, I’d say 95% of the RFPs we read were specifying an on-premise solution, and at times even specifying that it be Cisco equipment. Of course, we weren’t interested in those types of RFPs, but a few RFPs left the door open for us to offer up a “Hosted, Off-Premise” or “Cloud-based” solution, with our standard Polycom sets. We made sure to submit our solution but (more…)
