Service to be demonstrated on stand 418,
London Olympia’s UC 2009,
11-12 March 2009.

Gradwell, the leading and award-winning one-stop internet business provider for the UK’s SME sector, announced today it will be demonstrating its leading-edge update of Microsoft’s Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007.

“We will show how OCS provides UM, Voice Communications and tight integration of telephony with existing Exchange, Outlook and Microsoft CRM environments, as a bolt-on product,” said Peter Gradwell, MD of Gradwell.

“Our version can increase the efficiency of businesses communications.”

“The demo will comprise a fully-working Microsoft OCS platform integrated with Gradwell SIP Trunking and Hosted PBX products,” he added.

The service will be demonstrated on Gradwell’s stand 148 at London Olympia’s UC 2009, 11 and 12 March.

“The release in 2007 by Microsoft was a huge step forward. But now, with further progress elsewhere, in my view it requires updating - it has become a cumbersome beast,” commented Peter.

“Until now, it has not talked easily to a standard VoIP platform.”

Unlike other IP-PBX systems, OCS is not self-contained. So customers can use it either as a Voicemail service (eg: linked using a SIP trunk to the normal Gradwell PBX) or used with telephones (both software “Microsoft communicator” and Polycom hardware phones) directly attached to OCS, as a simple PBX.

SIP trunks can be used to link it with a full PBX, to gain fully-featured control over call routing.

Gradwell has built a Hosted PBX solution used by thousands of UK SME customers: they benefit from not having to negotiate a costly onsite PBX, and benefit from zero-cost calls between sites.

Plus they have access to extensions in multiple locations, inbound numbers with different area codes and powerful voicemail, voice menu, hunt groups, call queuing.

“So in a nutshell we have built a hosted OCS gateway, which can be deployed for any customer to permit interconnection with a normal SIP network: we can demonstrate phone calls, voicemail and the presence functionality of the OCS system,” said Peter.

Gradwell dot com Limited is a rapidly growing Internet Services Provider who focuses on VoIP (www.gradwell.com/voip/), email and web service solutions. We are a pioneer in the exciting new world of Internet telephony and this section of our business is growing rapidly.

We are the current holders of the ITSPA Best UK Business Telephony award.  We also won a number of awards in 2004 and 2005 in various DTI schemes including “Best use of Broadband” for our VoIP product and “Best Teleworking Company” and “Best Online Customer Service” for both of which we were highly commended.

Three 12 month industrial placements for 2009/10

We have three vacancies for 12 month industrial placements, starting June 2009.

The industrial placement will focus on development projects using PHP (mainly the Symfony framework) and MySQL through working on projects to develop our products, internal customer service systems and become familar with debugging and diagnosing customer problems through working with the support team.

You will need to have a good familiarity with computer networks, broadband, linux based systems and be a confident programmer using PHP and MySQL. Experience with Asterisk and other VoIP services will be a plus.

You will be enthusiastic about new technology, eager to learn and currently studying towards a Computer Science degree (or equivalent).

Prior experience of the Internet, IT and Telecoms Sectors will be highly beneficial as our core business is selling outsourced telecoms, email and web hosting services to IT consultants, designers, media agencies and other small and medium sized technology based businesses.

Salary is likely to be circa 12,000 pa, including benefits (free broadband and a VoIP phone/line until the completion of your degree) for a 5 day week.

This is a full time position (37.5 hours, flexible), reporting to our Head of Engineering, based at our offices at 26 Cheltenham St, Bath, BA2 3EX.

We are a team of approximately 30 staff (6 developers), mostly between 20 and 30 years of age.

Application Details

For more information, please view our website at http://www.gradwell.com or contact Stuart Herbert (stuart.herbert@gradwell.net, 01225 800 897).

Please apply via email to Stuart Herbert, or post to: gradwell dot com Limited, 26 Cheltenham St, Bath, BA2 2EX.

Closing Date 30th April 2009.

These positions are now closed.

At this years UC09 expo at Olympia, we will be showcasing the future of unified communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS). At the same time we’ll be showing you how to ‘read’ your voicemail on your mobile or from your inbox with our newest product, Voice-2-Text.

We invite you to come see these great services in action. While you’re there, feel free to discuss any of our products from our award-winning Hosted VoIP to our fast and reliable Business Broadband with our staff.

Unified Communications 2009
National Hall, Olympia, London
Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th March

For more information about UC09, please visit www.ucexpo.co.uk.

Hope to see you there.

Kind regards,

Peter Gradwell

Client description:

Needing to deliver important health services, Berkshire-based charity Ostomy Lifestyle’s advice to stoma surgery patients offered on its 0800 telephone lines must be dispensed with 100% efficiency.

The medical conditions that lead to stoma surgery affect people of any age, gender, profession or race. The charity was established in 2007, in response to the lack of accessible information about ostomy issues.

The charity seeks to empower people, enabling them to make informed choices and to communicate frankly about all aspects of the surgery. “We are working to raise awareness of ostomy topics among the medical profession and the general public,” explains the charity’s Neil Basil. “Having a stoma should not be a barrier to leading a full life.”

He and his 16 colleagues offer impartial advice, and aim to inspire callers that barriers can be overcome.

The charity produces a regular newsletter, information sheets, and a website.

Advice given on the telephone complements existing healthcare services, to reduce the challenges that patients have to confront head-on.

“Our support services must be accessible to people of all backgrounds – so using our telephone system is perfect for this,” says Neil Basil. Someone can call needing basic stoma care advice and have their problems solved quickly, without needing to visit a hospital or local GP.”

Analysis and history of Gradwell’s VoIP service:

“We were still establishing Ostomy Lifestyle in 2007, and moving into new premises - so were looking for a solution that would adapt and grow with us,” explains Neil Basil. Gradwell’s advice and ability to provide what the charity required was well-documented and explained.

“Most of our staff work at our office in Reading – but some of our volunteers and Trustees benefit from the flexibility that working from home offers. We are now more likely to conduct meetings over the telephone, taking advantage of teleconferencing facilities.”

Helpline staff spend their time responding to queries from callers, as well as researching bowel and bladder topics and conducting training courses for nurses, support groups, and medical industry companies.

“VoIP worked very well from the start for us, once basic glitches were resolved,” comments Neil Basil.

Calls to Gradwell’s support team have been entirely satisfactory, he added.

“VoIP has given us the flexibility we need; it allows us capacity and functionality that we would otherwise not achieve.

“VoIP is a very technical service - so it needs a fair bit of involvement from our own staff; but we are learning all the time and Gradwell’s support staff resolve any problems quickly.”

Please see www.ostomylifestyle.org