There's a company I've been watching across the blogs for a while now. They're new and just getting started really. Jazinga is a new company with a new solution coming that I'm really excited about.

Their website says "Jazinga will enable you to look like a bigger company to the outside world with features such as automated attendant, company directory, individual voice mailboxes, voicemail to e-mail and the ability to integrate remote users." That's nice sales speak, and every company needs a snappy phrase on the web page, but Jazinga strikes me as so much more.

First and foremost, I don't see Jazinga as a large enterprise solution. It simply isn't their target. They're focused on small to medium businesses. Their sweet spot is really the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) space. It isn't just where they focus; it's where they shine.

Jazinga produces a hardware solution that embodies some key elements:

• Ethernet and WiFi Router
• Hybrid IP and Traditional PBX functionality
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

It's unified communications for the small/home business without the need for an IT department. They promise an easy and simple setup that doesn't require and IT department. That's one of the biggest strengths and where I believe they will dominate the market.

Here's some of the feature set(s) supported:

Telephony

• Analog & VoIP phone support
• Automated VoIP phone configuration
• Multiple service provider support
• Automated call attendant
• Automated call distribution
• Configurable call routing
• Least cost routing (LD providers)
• Company directory
• Browser-based administration
• Conferencing
• Paging
• Voicemail integration with e-mail
• Call logging
• Distinctive ring

Telephone support

• Standard analog phones
• Popular VoIP phones from:
• Aastra
• Cisco
• Linksys
• Polycom
• Snom

Networking

• LAN Ethernet
• 802.11b/g wireless networking
• Quality of Service (priority for voice)
• Jitter buffering
• WPA, WEP and MAC address filtering
• DHCP, DNS
• Firewall, VPN pass through

E-mail

• E-mail integration for voicemail delivery
• Integrated messaging for voice mailboxmanagement
  

Hosted Services

• Live Update service
• Remote management
• Remote backup

In small business, we don't have time or money invest in cutting edge solutions that require constant fiddling and are cumbersome to set up.

I've been fortunate enough to be given a prototype Jazinga box, and this week I'm going to work on setting it up. My plan is to first take some pictures to share with you all, so you can see what it is. Then I'm going to set it up and do some screenshots along the way. I'm not sure how accurately I'll capture timestamps of my activity, but I'd like to share a sense of how long it takes to get the system up, running and fully functional.

In the first setup, I'll install a single VoIP phone (Linksys). I'll add another hardware phone and a softphone after I know it's up and running. I thought I'd post a preliminary message here to let you know I've finally come up for air to start testing on this solution, and I'll be sharing my findings here as I progress through the setup.

Technorati Tags: Jazinga, VoIP, unified communications