platform for small and medium businesses in Africa, Middle East and India, providing new features such as push mobile and fax server solutions. The Extended Communication Server (ECS) is a solution that transforms the way small and medium enterprises communicate by delivering fully integrated communication, collaboration and mobility solutions that are scalable, reliable and cost-effective.

Part of the Alcatel-Lucent Office portfolio, the Extended Communication Server family and OmniPCX Office family of IP-PBX systems deliver collaboration and unified communication solutions tailored to the specific needs of SMBs. The push mobile feature within ECS lets employees retrieve emails, calendar, contacts and tasks on-the-fly and in real-time on their mobile devices, keeping in touch with their business anytime, anywhere. Push mobile offers a secure, flexible, easy to deploy provider independent solution without the need for specific subscription, where data carrier services are the only requirement.

With rapid, low cost services deployment, the Extended Communication Server allows integration of any open source professional web application by integrating an XML API framework as well as a standard LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, Python, PHP) environment into the solution. This open integration enables small businesses to transform to a dynamic communications model that strengthens relationships with their customers, simplifies interaction and improves performance in their business.

In a market where faxing is still a common and highly useful form of business management, the fully integrated fax server feature, available in November 2008 as part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Office Communication Solutions offer, lets users send and receive faxes on their email web interface bringing businesses increased productivity and efficiency, as well as better-centralized fax management. Features include flexibility and easy connection and the benefit of no additional dedicated hardware.

“Alcatel-Lucent has long lasting experience in communications innovation and expertise in developing and selling solutions tailored to small-medium businesses,” says Charles Braud, Vice President small business solutions for Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise activities. “We have leveraged this experience to bring to market an easy-to-use, plug-and-play solution.

Jan Zuurbier, Alcatel-Lucent Vice President Sales & Support for Emerging Markets added: “Business owners are always-on people, and need to connect both to their internal resources and to their eco-system of customers, partners, suppliers and colleagues. With the ECS, we help businesses to connect their people and processes for real productivity gains, with overnight cost savings. Time, resources, and budgets are limited, and the Extended Communication Server allows small businesses to do more, and at a competitive price point.”

Information Source:    Alcatel-Lucent