Industry Telecommunications Founded 1997 | Website www.virtualpbx.com Type of business Private | |
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Key people Paul Hammond, President and CEO; Stephen Lange, Founder and Chief Technology Officer; Lon Baker, Chief Operating Officer Products Hosted PBX Phone Services Headquarters San Jose, California, United States Profiles | ||
VirtualPBX is a privately held communications service provider that pioneered the type of private branch exchange (PBX) technology called a virtual or hosted PBX.
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A business uses PBX technology to manage phone tasks such as call routing, allowing more than one person to be reached from a single number, voicemail, faxing, automated greetings, conference calling, and sending phone calls to the first available person in a department.
A hosted PBX offers remote office users, small businesses, and home-based businesses an alternative to purchasing, installing and maintaining their own PBX hardware on site. This approach allows these companies to have access to similar features that a larger company would without the high costs associated with the purchase of on-premises PBX equipment.
Recognized as one of the leaders in its market, Virtual PBX’s services make use of traditional public switched telephone network technology as well as VoIP technology. Virtual PBX also provides a service called PBX Parachute, which gives companies that own an on-site PBX a disaster recovery backup capability to keep their phone service running in case a power failure disrupts local service.
History
The company was founded in San Francisco in 1997 by voice-based application developer Stephen Lange—now its chief technology officer—whom the company credits with coining the term virtual PBX. Current President and CEO Paul Hammond joined the company in 2002 from BEA Systems and in 2003, company headquarters were moved to San Jose, California.
On the technology front, the company released its skills-based routing feature in 2004 and in 2006, released a number of new features including AutoRoute, which allows calls to automatically be sent directly to ACD queues, support or sales personnel, individual extensions, or voicemail, based on the caller's area code, area code and prefix, or entire phone number. The company acquired Open Communication Systems in 2007, and in 2008, announced VoIP interoperability through native support for open-system VoIP peering using the SIP standard. Its VoIP announcement included mention of a collaboration with Gizmo5, which was formally unveiled in March 2009.
As more small business owners adopt smart phones, Virtual PBX introduced applications for Android and iOS smart phones and tablets that allow people to use their mobile device as business phone extension. The mobile applications use data connections, including Wi-Fi, to manage call routing, extensions, and take business calls from their smart phone, rather than simply route calls to their mobile phone number.
VirtualPBX has publicly commented that it has recorded record profit, revenue and growth in customer signups year-over-year since 2002. Its open-system VoIP peering offering has won awards from technology publications Communications Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Network Products Guide, NGN Magazine and Unified Communications Magazine.
Offerings
VirtualPBX claims to have the lowest-cost package for a hosted PBX service among the leading providers.
VirtualPBX Office and Anywhere plans are the company’s end-to-end hosted phone products for small and midsize companies. The services works as either an inbound call router to existing phones (mobile) or they can set up a VoIP service with lines and phones. Virtual PBX includes dial-tone service, optional VoIP phones, conferencing, machine-less faxing, voicemail with phone, online, and email retrieval, call recording, and an auto-receptionist function with customizable greetings. iPhone and Android Apps allow people to use their mobile device as business phone extension. The mobile applications use data connections, including Wi-Fi, to manage call routing, extensions, and take business calls from their smart phone, rather than simply route calls to their mobile phone number.
PBX Parachute provides a standby PBX that can field calls in the event of storm or other external event that causes a disruption in power or connections that cause the main phone system to stop working. In the event of a disruption, PBX Parachute routes calls to any preselected phone number, such as at a hotel room, home or other location.
Other companies that offer hosted PBX services include MightyCall, Vocalocity, Grasshopper (formerly GotVmail), FonGenie, RingCentral, PhonePeople and Phone.com., Velantro, Inc., QuickPBX