This year Grandstream is celebrating our 15^th anniversary. In 2002 our founders set out to build what ended up being some of the first SIP devices anywhere in the world. They were looking to take advantage of what was at the time a new technology fad known as “Voice over internet protocol.” In 2003, the first official Grandstream products hit the market: the BT100, a simple IP phone, and the HT286, a 1-line Analog Telephone Adapter.

This article was originally published in Comms Business Magazine - the UK's leading magazine for the ICT channel. Click here to view the article on their website.

Every business is always looking for ways to make their company more productive while increasing their bottom line. Most of the changes a business will consider usually come down to increasing resources at the expense of increased costs, or decreasing costs at the expense of lowering resources. There is one, easy and often overlooked change that a business can make to increase resources, productivity and bottom-line revenue while actually lowering costs. Changing your communications platform to a modern, digital communications platform is that change.

Since their launch in June of 2013, the UCM series has become one of the most popular on-premise IP PBXs in the world. It offers small to medium sized businesses an almost unprecedented unified communications manager (hence the UCM acronym) that gives them access to enterprise-grade voice, video, data and mobility features in an easy-to-setup, easy-to-manage fashion with no licensing or recurring fees.

Back in 2002 when Grandstream was founded, we were one of the first companies in the world to manufacture SIP products – and one of the very first products we made were analog telephone adapters (ATAs). We now have over 15 years of expertise building SIP devices, and we have more experience building VoIP gateways and ATAs than almost any one in the world. Thanks to close relationships with service providers and partners, all of our ATAs and Gateways are not only thoroughly tested within Grandstream, but they are stringently tested with the help from some of the largest service providers in the world. Our devices provide a variety of high-end features and functionalities that allow analog phones not only to be integrated with VoIP networks, but provide VoIP functions for analog devices as well. Let’s take a look at some of the features and functionalities of Grandstream’s gateways and ATAs that you may have missed.

The internet is like a very crowded Los Angeles highway, but instead of being full of cars, it’s full of information. Due to crowding, this information needs guidance to ensure that it gets where it’s going.  This is why transmission protocols exist to make sure the information gets transported as intended.

Choosing a service provider might seem like an easy task. When it comes to VoIP however, there are a few housekeeping items to keep in mind. Before you sign up with your preferred provider, I’m going to walk you through a few key points to look out for when choosing a VoIP service provider.

Did you know that converting your outdated analog phone system into a powerful VoIP network is almost as easy as plugging your charger into a power socket? Long gone are the days of complicated and costly implementation processes. Thanks to improved technology, upgrading to VoIP just got easy.

In recent years, there’s been lot of talk about bringing mobility to the workplace. Employers are focusing on increasing performance and productivity while supporting more flexible work environments. You may wonder, how exactly can that be achieved? At Grandstream, we use our own IP products to increase employee productivity, like our DECT Cordless IP solution. Implementing this product has led to increased efficiency and improved business practices all around.

When it comes to strategizing for your business, size matters. Creating a comprehensive marketing plan that highlights the value of targeting the right market size is important. This will build an accurate B2B profile, making it easy to design targeted content which contributes to the success of your campaigns. Not to mention the impact it will have on your ROI. That’s one effective way to market.

On my last post I briefly talked about Unified Communications. Specifically, how a business can unify and streamline all of its communication into one powerful solution. If you are thinking about implementing Unified Communication Management in your business, it’s worth taking a deeper look into the many benefits. Here are my top 5 reasons why Unified Communications is a must in any business.