Vendor Profile
Szeto Technologies Inc: 
Always Customizable - Always Reliable

Szeto Technologies Inc. is a Canadian company headquartered in Montreal.  Headed by Charles Szeto, a veteran in the voice, data, and telephony industry, this equipment supplier is marvelously flexible.  It designs and manufactures call management equipment, namely VMS4000 (voice messaging), SP500 (paging) and its newest offering, Call Linx TAS system.  What differentiates this company from others can be summed up in one word: customization. 

“Szeto Technologies makes a shoe fit you rather than making you fit the shoe.”  That’s the analogy Szeto staff use.  Szeto systems are customized to fit teleservices providers’ needs, because teleservices providers offer varying services to their clients, so they have diverse equipment requirements.

Charlie: Fondly referred to as Charlie by his friends and associates, Charles Szeto is an electrical and electronics engineer.  He started his career in 1971 at Acme Devices Inc., “aspiring to be part of the electronic radio paging industry” as he puts it.  He worked jointly with Motorola, Bell & Howell and the British Multitone paging divisions in the development of various paging schemes, and designed paging terminals to work with their pagers.

Prior to founding Szeto Technologies, Szeto was the technical founder of VoiceTek*, a Boston company that manufactured digitized voice storage and retrieval systems.  This company specialized in IVR (Interactive Voice Response) products.  Szeto was a pioneer in developing IVR systems via touch-tone phones.  He designed the first installation of the IVR “Dial-A-Stock-Quote” system in Los Angeles in 1981.  Within six years, VoiceTek had installed IVR systems all across the United States, offering information and entertainment services.  While developing voice-processing products, Szeto was granted several patents in this field in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.

Lured by research and development grants offered by the Canadian government, Szeto relocated to Montreal in 1986, when he founded Szeto Technologies.

MADVS is Szeto’s first product, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) voice-processing product that continues to be used in training simulators all over the world, including in the U.S. military.

The Szeto Box: In 1990 Stanley Arron of On Call Message Centre in Ottawa commissioned Szeto to develop a voice messaging system, using the MADVS platform.  And VMS4000, “The Szeto Box,” was born.  Since then, this system has gone through several expansions at On Call Message Centre, and Arron considers Szeto Technologies “one of our best suppliers both in terms of customer service and technical support.  Whenever we have looked to offer new services, Szeto Technologies has always been there to support us.” Lynda Kennedy, general manager of On Call Message Centre, adds that the Szeto system “saves us money and offers our clients faster and cleaner sounding lines.  We trust Szeto for all our communications needs. They listen, consult, and deliver.”

VMS4000’s first involvement in the cellular business was in 1991 with Bell Mobility, a division of BCE Inc., which also owns Nortel.  Bell Mobility engineers referred to VMS4000 as “the box on wheels that keeps on working.”  They loved “The Szeto Box” and it was instrumental in the success of their CT2 Plus technology.  This experience solidified Szeto’s ambition to maintain all Szeto products as the best engineered equipment in the teleservice industry. 

“Reliability and flexibility is Charles’ obsession,” said Sherry Gouel, Szeto Technologies’ marketing coordinator.  “Charles and the Szeto engineering team do not sit on their laurels, and our newest product is good proof.” 

Customization: Szeto also aims to have Szeto Technologies’ relationship with its customers evolve from supplier to partner, helping them make their businesses grow and providing them with the best tools to outperform their competitors. 

Dana Lloyd, marketing manager of Answer Plus Inc. in Toronto, said, “Szeto Technologies is a vital business partner to the PasWord Group.  Charles Szeto has developed solutions for our customers that no other IT provider could.”

“Commserv is the only company in town that is willing and able to customize a service exclusively.  The competitors can’t match up,” said Tom Scholl, president of Commserv in Houston, another Szeto customer.

Recognizing that he is “just a technical guy” who does not operate any teleservice centres, Szeto chooses to have all his products customized to fit his customers’ needs.  “While any teleservice center operator can project what most other teleservice centers need in general, only the individual teleservice center itself can fully understand what it really needs,” he said.

Written testimonials from Szeto customers demonstrate Szeto’s success in achieving his customization goals:

“I chose the Szeto Switch for its known reliability and customization flexibility.  Only Szeto was willing to customize its software to my specifications,” said Eugene Constant, president of AnsaVoice in Monterey, Calif.

“Szeto makes it easy to accommodate my customers, because I can say yes to them when they have certain needs that are not standard features in our industry.  We all need to diversify and Szeto Technologies will allow you to do just that,” said Brad Farber, president of AB Communications Inc. in Lafayette, Calif.

“We bought our Szeto voice mail four years ago and have had no problems with the equipment or support.  Our staff and customers have found it very easy to use,” said Robin Bailey, president of DCAS in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“When a national fiber optic installation company came to us with a specific and challenging new call center application, we turned to Szeto Technologies.  Charles not only delivered exactly what the client and I designed, but he also delivered on time and on budget, and his easygoing style made the design process that much easier and stress free,” said David Cairney, director of the technology programs division at Answer Plus Inc. in Toronto.

Beyond voice messaging: VMS4000 performs functions beyond those of most voice messaging equipment.  It’s a paperless and operator-less automatic telephone answering machine. 

The VMS4000 digital switch goes from interfacing with DID (Direct-Inward-Dial) to with T1 CAS/PRI.  It distributes calls to subscribers, messaging agents, and order entry agents, according to setups programmable on a per subscriber basis.  It screens calls, puts calls on hold, patches calls, transfers calls, pages subscribers, reminds or alerts subscribers, and initiates automatic dial-outs. 

The VMS4000 messaging engine takes messages, relays messages, forwards messages, does music on-hold with or without announcements, and logs all transactions.  It can be connected to data systems for report generations and, for human connections, it has an “operator revert” feature.  The remote monitoring feature allows operators to be monitored.  All these are in addition to its voice mail capabilities. 

SP500 was introduced in 1994.  It is a multi-channel and multi-format high-capacity paging terminal that comes with full voice messaging capabilities.  This marks Szeto’s first diversification from VMS4000. 

Call Linx and Linux: Szeto’s newest endeavor is a TAS system, the Linux-based Call Linx.  Call Linx was announced at the CAM-X convention in December 2001.  Like VMS4000, its design aims to lighten the jobs of teleservice center management and to increase the efficiency of operators. 

“Quite a few years ago, I was approached by my customers to develop a TAS system.  It was not until 2001 that I decided the Linux operating system could carry a stable and cost-effective TAS system,” Szeto said. 

Linux, of course, is the rising star in the computer world.  IBM and Hewlett Packard use it in their specialized PC systems.  Hollywood graphics studios use it for their special effects efforts.  Oracle is in on it too.  A few months ago, Sun Microsystems announced that it was developing access to Linux based servers for call center applications through a Java-based tool.

Meanwhile, on a customer’s request, Szeto is in the process of expanding the Internet capabilities of Call Linx to enhance inbound messaging.  Inbound Internet security in Call Linx is of the utmost importance.  Szeto insists on the reliability and flexibility of the security aspect of the design. 

The next move: Next up for Szeto Technologies is a move into a new company-owned facility.  Construction on its new 15,000 square foot offices is scheduled to begin next month. 

With customers’ needs its top priority, the Szeto team is constantly generating new ideas and innovations.  And the team looks forward to continuing this tradition in its new home. 

Szeto Technologies Inc. can be contacted at 888-421-3737 or info@szeto.ca.

* VoiceTek was merged with Aspect Communications in 1998.