Startel Corporation announced the availability of its new soft phone application, the Startel external softphone. Using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the Startel softphone enables users to manage communications easily and efficiently from a PC or laptop rather than a traditional telephone.

With this, Startel offer users two softphone options depending on one’s business environment. Startel’s Contact Management Center (CMC) embedded agent interface (AI) softphone is used for PCs that reside on the local network.

The new, external softphone application uses the resources of the local PC and can function as a standalone phone (emulating an IP phone) or by a local or remote agent. It is integrated with AI and can be controlled by its telephony keys. Benefits include dedicated audio resources, flexible deployment options, and a cost-effective solution.

“We are excited to leverage the benefits of SIP-based communication and provide the marketplace with a powerful voice solution that requires little hardware and no dedicated phone lines,” said Bill Lane, president and CEO of Startel.

“The Startel external softphone is a great complement to our unified communications services – and a very affordable alternative for both local and remote agents, and traveling business owners, who need to stay connected.”

Startel Corporation released the latest version of its flagship platform, the Startel Contact Management Center (CMC). The new release features several enhancements focused on improving overall security.

The Startel CMC is a windows-based, multichannel platform that combines queuing and routing processes, scripting and dispatching, and real-time monitoring for telephone answering services and contact centers. It also manages and blends all inbound and outbound media, including voice services, SMS, email, fax, paging, and instant messaging.

The Startel CMC now offers users the following new features, some of which are recommended by HIPAA: Enhanced Encryption, SSL/TLS Support, Private Transport Option, Secure Device Reporting, and TigerText Integration.

“The Startel CMC 12.1 demonstrates our dedication to helping organizations better understand the use of sensitive data and how to mitigate their risk,” said Bill Lane, president and CEO of Startel.

“Sensitive information is a major concern for any business that handles patient health information and credit card data. Electronically stored and transmitted data is essentially fluid, and as a result most organizations don’t know with certainty where their sensitive data is at all times.”

To upgrade to the latest version of the Startel CMC, contact Startel technical support. Users will have the opportunity to receive CMC 12.1 training on March 30 at the annual SNUG Conference.

Startel Corporation announced it has attained a Gold Application Development competency, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment.

To earn a Microsoft Gold competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity.

They must also submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects (along with implementing a yearly customer satisfaction study), meet a revenue commitment (for most gold competencies), and pass technology and/or sales assessments.

“We are very pleased to have achieved Gold Application Development Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network,” said Bill Lane, president and CEO of Startel. “The benefits provided through this competency will allow us to continue to deliver market leading solutions that help our customers accelerate revenue growth, improve customer satisfaction and lower overall cost of service.”

Startel Corporation has announced Chuck Tonne as their new western area sales manager. Chuck will report directly to Bill Lane, president and CEO. Chuck will be based in Arizona and in his new role will focus on formulating solutions for existing and potential new customers in the Western United States.

Chuck has extensive industry experience working for a variety of value-added resellers and his background aligns well with Startel’s portfolio and strategic direction. His sold PBX, ACD, IVR, VoIP, and voicemail products based on a variety of vendor platforms, which positions him well to bring value to Startel customers.

“I am extremely excited to be representing Startel,” Chuck stated. “I look forward to strategizing with our clients to optimize their business platforms by utilizing Startel’s robust suite of products.”

For more information, contact Chuck at chuck.tonne@startel.com or 480-775-6601.

William Lane, CEO and president of Startel Corporation, announced that Bill Robertshaw has sold the company, which will be an employee-owned entity backed by private investor, Brian W. Stewart. Bill Lane and the Startel team will remain in place and the day-to-day operations of the company will not be effected.

“It was in the best interest of Startel Corporation, its employees and especially its customers to sell the company at this time. Bill Lane has done a superb job of leading Startel out of its post Comverse years and I am confident that Startel, with the support of Mr. Stewart, will be able to progress to the next phase in its corporate evolution,” said Robertshaw.

“Mr. Robertshaw, a financial genius, was the perfect advisor for the season of Startel where he helped guide us in focusing on becoming an ever more profitable company. He has always had the best interest of Startel and its customers at heart and selling the company is no exception,” said Lane.

Brian Stewart is a serial entrepreneur and has founded and built over 18 start-up businesses during his career.

Startel Corporation, a provider of call center software, announced that they have been conducting successful beta tests of a new SMS aggregator service that will be launched on October 16, 2009.  Two versions of the service will be available; one fully integrated into the award-winning Startel CMC platform and the other for customers utilizing other call center solutions.

SMS is synonymous with “texting” or “text messaging.”  The popularity of SMS has grown dramatically over the last several years and it is estimated that 75% of cell phone users send text messages daily.  Utilized initially as a consumer application, the proliferation of SMS as an alternative business communication has increased dramatically over the last year and is becoming an essential part of the fully integrated business communications platform utilized by call centers worldwide.

“We are pleased to offer our customers a more robust, reliable, lower cost, more easily implemented and maintained, and more fully integrated service,” stated Bill Lane,CEO & President of Startel Corporation.   “Because Startel’s SMS Service is a pure software solution, the reliability is phenomenally high and the total cost of ownership is greatly reduced.”

Startel unveiled the capabilities of its next generation switch at the TeamSNUG annual convention in March.  Attendees viewed a demonstration of the Linux based switch running Asterisk software using SIP technology. 

The switch is the result of the Project Orion development team’s efforts to provide Startel users with a switch that will provide them with leading edge technology.  “The development of the switch has progressed to the point where all of Startel’s telephony needs are being transacted on the switch,” stated Bill Lane, President.

“Asterisk has many advantages over traditional switch solutions,” stated Dan Feis, Director of Sales and Marketing.  “Because most of the telephony processing is taking place on the transaction processor the hardware required to the system is greatly reduced.  Because there is less hardware, there are less failure points. 

This improves the reliability and makes redundancy less expensive and easier to manage in the event of a failure.  From a development standpoint since there is less firmware, it enables us to accelerate our development and deployment times.”

Startel will be demonstrating their new switch at the ATSI Convention in Pittsburgh.

Startel has several initiatives focused on deploying technology solutions to enable clients to weather this economy, putting them in a position to realize an accelerated return on investment when the economy turns around.  Towards this end, Startel has added staff to the Research and Development staff, updated product training and curriculum, and implemented continuous improvement methodologies.

An internal technology refresh is currently underway at Startel that includes deploying a new Microsoft Exchange Server utilizing blade servers and a new firewall.

CMC Release 9.0 includes:

• an updated switch communications link
• the release of IntelliScheduler and Web IntelliScheduler,
• Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging,
• Startel Information Systems (SIS), which provides immediate access to information that is relative to the user’s current situation, and
• enhancements to the system reports that will be ATSI compliant.

The research and development team continues working on Startel’s next generation products.  The major advantages will include a smaller footprint, less hardware to purchase and support, fewer failure points, increased scalability, and a more robust application set.  This system design and architecture will enable Startel to greatly reduce development time.

Startel Corporation announced that Ron Lee has joined Startel in the position of information developer.  Ron brings to Startel strong expertise in producing and delivering information in all formats, including online help, online documentation, Web-based documentation, and hard copy.  His work has garnered several awards from the Society of Technical Communication (STC).  Ron has worked in the highly technical industries of electronics, manufacturing, IT, and software programming.  His educational background is in electronics, computer science, and technical writing.

As Startel’s information developer, Ron will be keeping the current PDF documentation updated for each release.  Additionally, he will be developing other alternative information sources, such as online help, context-sensitive help, and Web-based documentation.  Ron will be responsible for building and managing the Startel Information System (SIS) for all Startel products and applications.

Ron says, “I love what I do, and I am extremely excited about the opportunity to work for Startel.  I sincerely look forward to providing our clients, as well as our technical support and field service personnel, with advanced information systems that display relevant-to-the-situation information that is useful and easy to access.”

Startel announced that they have formalized an agreement with CenturiSoft to provide the new Startel Messenger.  “The partnership with CenturiSoft provides us with the capability to deploy another best-of-breed application to our clients,” stated Bill Lane, president.  “Startel will continue to provide robust solutions which will enable our customers to better compete in the marketplace.”

Available in twelve, twenty-three, and forty-six port configurations, the Startel Messenger provides additional scalability and VoIP solutions to their customers’ voice services products.  One advantage of the Messenger is that it supports a distributed configuration with a single point of administration and maintenance.

The new Startel Messenger is an ISO 9001 certified appliance that will be supported by Startel’s customer support team.  Startel will provide 24/7 levels I and II support after the sale.  “The addition of the CenturiSoft application assimilates very well into our existing voice services support,” stated Sheryl Denny, vice president.

“The alliance between Startel and CenturiSoft further cements our relationship.  We are pleased that Startel will be selling, distributing, and supporting CenturiSoft,” stated John Pope, president, CenturiSoft.