2_1_DiscoverGermany_March15_Issue24:Scan Magazine 1
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Discover Germany | Special Theme | CeBIT 2015
Main image: Smart communication solutions for your enterprise. Right: UC extensions for safe global communications solutions. (top) Modern IT architecture future-proofs your company. (below)
Are you using your communication infrastructure effectively? How observing time wasted on menial tasks pointed to the potential for smarter, more cost efficient business based on an all-IP-approach to unified communication. TEXT & PHOTOS: FERRARI ELECTRONIC
Arno Huber owns an architectural office that specializes in private homes. One day in 2014, while watching a student trainee scan fax order confirmations, he decided it was time for a change.“That’s not the best use of anybody’s time,”he explains.“We take pride in the houses we construct, but frankly our IT architecture was pretty make-shift.” Not long after, Huber started looking into computer fax solutions that would do away with any paper transfer.“I realized: That’s not taking the idea far enough. My partners and I decided to adopt a unified communication approach as a basis for smart business processes.” The problem was, Huber notes, that no two pieces of his company’s communica-
60 | Issue 24 | March 2015
tion infrastructure were truly working together. Contractors relied on fax orders, customers demanded prompt email responses and when conducting on-site inspections he and his partners used their smartphones to keep in touch with the office, which itself had an ISDN PBX switchboard completely separate from the servers connecting the workstations to the internet. Accounting was done on one platform, design work on another.“It worked, but it wasn’t efficient.” The impetus for Huber’s insight led him to the solution he ultimately chose. “Ferrari electronic has been a pioneer in computer fax integration. It turns out they have a solid solution for using ISDN phones in Voice-over-IP telephony and integrating it
within the IT infrastructure as well. No matter whether we send or receive messages via fax, email or SMS, they’re all delivered to the correct user digitally and stored centrally. We’ve converted the room we used to store paper files into a kitchenette.” Additionally, the move to an all-IP architecture is a future-proof idea. The end of supplier-provided ISDN in Germany is scheduled for 2018. For Huber and his company, this date holds no terror.The Ferrari electronic OfficeMaster media gateway, after 2018, will integrate analog ISDN end devices into all-IP networks, thereby providing investment protection for already expended capital.“This [responding to the end of supplier-provided ISDN in 2018] would have come up anyway. Helping our trainees spend their time in better ways just gave me the incentive to stay ahead of this and use it to our advantage.” bit.ly/fe-gate