I'll admit this is a shameless plug for a very cool product RIM has recently made available. It's called BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS). With all the hype around data applications, one of the topics that often gets lost is mobile voice. The fact remains that voice is still the number one revenue generator for carriers. There's also a lot that can be done to improve the efficiency of interaction between corporate telephony networks and mobile phones. BlackBerry MVS 5.0 is a product aimed squarely at the enterprise customer and is designed to lower costs and improve productivity while leveraging existing telephony investments.
In short, BlackBerry MVS brings desk phone features to BlackBerry smartphones. You can work with one business number at the office or while travelling. You can enjoy one caller ID, unified voice mail and advanced security features. Depending on your role in the enterprise, the business drivers vary. For the employee, the business drivers are single number reachability, a single place to check voicemails, easy access to corporate directory and improved collaboration with colleagues. For the IT executive, BlackBerry MVS helps improve productivity, increase customer satisfaction, control & manage mobile costs and leverage existing investments (e.g., keeping their current IP-PBX and IP desk phone systems). For the IT admin, BlackBerry MVS allows them to gain control & management of mobile devices, users and voice service. Tying all of this together is BlackBerry security through secure call setup & authentication.
I'll give an example of a very cool BlackBerry MVS feature I use all the time. I'm often on a call while commuting into the office. Once in the office, however, I used to have to end the call and re-dial into the conference call number again. With MVS, I simply select "move call" and within a second or two my desk phone rings. Voila! I'm now on the conference call from my desk phone and no one on the call is the wiser.
Another huge selling point of BlackBerry MVS 5.0 is the ability to make and receive calls over Wi-Fi networks whether at the office, home or any hotspot. For companies with a global sales force, cellular network roaming costs can be huge. BlackBerry MVS lets you avoid those costs by making calls over a Wi-Fi network using your business phone extension. There are also a variety of on-device options such as controling incoming business calls based on time or day or restricting calls from specific numbers.
From the architecture diagram shown above, you can see that the BlackBerry MVS server sits completely outside the traditional call path. Each call from a BlackBerry smartphone is automatically authenticated by the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to help prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing the company’s PBX system. Calls made through BlackBerry MVS are
routed and anchored through the enterprise PBX to help ensure that company policies are met. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server has achieved multiple security accreditations and through its integration into the BlackBerry Enterprise Server environment, BlackBerry MVS adopts these security capabilities.
I hope you find BlackBerry MVS as exciting as I have. For more details on the product, visit the BlackBerry website here.
routed and anchored through the enterprise PBX to help ensure that company policies are met. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server has achieved multiple security accreditations and through its integration into the BlackBerry Enterprise Server environment, BlackBerry MVS adopts these security capabilities.
I hope you find BlackBerry MVS as exciting as I have. For more details on the product, visit the BlackBerry website here.
