Business telecommunications and IT systems

Businesses in Berkshire learned more about Hosted VoIP telephone systems yesterday with a seminar that highlighted benefits including flexible working and disaster recovery.

A number of local companies met to see how Voice over IP technology can create real business benefit while often reducing the costs of IT and telecoms.

The seminar began with an opportunity for networking over coffee before Piers du Pré, Chairman of du Pré plc, introduced the seminar with his own experiences of IP telephony in business.

Kim Hollamby, Managing Director, explained how disaster recovery was being managed by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, and Barry Anns, Deputy MD, took everyone through a detailed demonstration of du Pré Connect, an IP telephony solution using Cisco 7941 and 7961 handsets.

The final talk of the morning was by John Maddocks from the Bradfords building supplies company, a muti-branch business headquartered in Yeovil, Somerset. Bradfords is currently a user of over 700 extensions of du Pré Connect.  Mr Maddocks gave his own personal experience of Hosted VoIP telephone systems from du Pré which gave a full insight into the technology and the people supporting it.

The addition of real-life user experiences of du Pré Connect was well received by all attendees, providing an unbiased evalution of the system and enabling their own questions to be answered by a customer who had already invested in Hosted IP telephones.

Tony Coleman, Managing Director at Acedes Gear Tools commented, "The guest speaker was very honest and was important as an exisiting user of the system."  Acedes Gear Tools is a specialist manufacturer of gear cutting tools in Newbury, Berkshire.