The software provides features unavailable on competing products and ensures that the users of Zultys IP telephony systems have the best productivity tools available.

"This release is the culmination of a major software development effort that has been in process for over a year," said Iain Milnes, president of Zultys. "There has been extensive testing done for the past six months at over 80 trial sites around the globe. The feedback has been extremely positive and puts us way ahead of those companies struggling to shore up their telephony offerings."

Some of the major features introduced are:

--  instant message (IM) bridge between the Zultys PBX and public IM
    services such as AOL, ICQ, Yahoo!, and MSN
--  advanced automated attendant (AA), or basic IVR
--  integration with Microsoft Exchange for unified messaging
--  support for fractional PCM (T1 or E1) on the MX30 system
    

"Our customers are extremely happy to have this IM to the outside feature," said Charles Green, Business Development Manager, Government Accounts, at MidAtlantic Broadband, a broadband services provider with headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. "Before release 3 from Zultys we had to block all of the ports on our customers' firewalls so that no one could use external IM. With version 3 on the MX250, they will now have the security they want and the control the law requires, while at the same time getting the benefits of archiving the text. It's great!"

The advanced AA allows the MX system to interact with a caller to collect information that can be used to access a database for further interaction or to determine how the call should be routed. The information from a database can be spoken back to the caller, attached as data and forwarded simultaneously with the call to an agent, or can be used to route the call. Multiple interactions are permitted, all controlled by scripts running on the MX system and an external HTTP server. This feature is highly customizable to support multiple vertical markets such as banking, real estate, pharmacy, and automotive.

"We implemented our first advanced AA solution for a financial services firm about three months ago," said Mike Fredrickson, Vice President of Sales for KineticWorks. "The Zultys solution is powerful and really flexible. It allowed us to easily address the customer's needs, and since then, we've been applying this same model to customers in other industries. It's hard to believe how many applications are out there that we can fit with Zultys."

The integration with Microsoft Exchange synchronizes operations between the MX system and the Exchange server when accessing voice mail and fax messages. For example, when a user deletes the message on one system it is automatically deleted on the other.

This software upgrade is available at no charge to those customers with a current software subscription. Although some new features are licensed, existing customers benefit from upgrading to this version by having:

--  better archiving (more items to be archived and a tool to query and
    view the archived elements)
--  better fax (customized cover pages)
--  better inbound call center (route by multiple DIDs to support multiple
    campaigns, full time call recording, enhanced statistics)
--  better language support (multiple languages supported simultaneously
    in the automated attendants and voice mails; over 25 languages now
    supported)
--  better support for emergency call handling (allows emergency services
    personnel to call back the specific device that placed an emergency call)
--  better E1 CAS support (MF R2 certified for Mexico and Brazil)
--  better diagnostics and system monitors (allowing the administrator to
    find network faults faster and review usage patterns easier)
--  better global support for Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs)
    (numerous configurable options allow the MX systems to interoperate with a
    greater number of ITSPs worldwide)
    

Other customers and channel partners around the world had these further comments about the version 3 software:

"The fractional E1 is a fantastic addition to the MX30 product," said Jules Rumsey, managing director of Australian VAR, Telarus. "This now allows us to deliver customers with smaller offices over double the capacity previously available with the MX30 when using traditional access services. This further enhances the value offered by such a compact, feature rich platform."

"We are pleased that we have the ability to record all calls on our call centre," said Suresh Ramaswami, Chief Operating Officer at Quscient Business Services, a Business Process Outsourcing company with a large call center located in Chennai, India. "This makes it much easier for us to provide better training for our agents. Ultimately, it means we are providing our customers with better service."

DLA Telecomunicaciones Digitales, S.A. de C.V., a Zultys reseller located in Mexico City, is very pleased with the support for MF R2. "This will allow us to sell to larger corporations all over the country," explained Dario Jimenez Aguilar, DLA President. "It also lets us service multinational corporations, many of which may have offices in the US as well as in Mexico."

Pricing and Availability:

Release 3.0 is available at no charge for Zultys customers with an existing software subscription. Customers without a subscription can upgrade for a fee. Some features are licensed separately. The software will be available for general release on 10 July 2006 through certified Zultys resellers around the world. Further details are available at: http://www.zultys.com/version3