Siemens HOOME

You can use home phones as remote extensions too, telling the switchboard to phone you at home and then connect you to another extension or another external number. This makes two outgoing calls from the HOOME appliance but saves users working from home having to go through their phone bills to claim the cost of calls on expenses.

A basic HOOME box comes with licences for 20 users (15 basic "Comfort" licences and 5 "Comfort Plus"). Fax, conferencing and mobility facilities require the Comfort Plus licence. Once you get to 50 users, you have to buy another box. You also need to buy licences for the integration with Outlook and for the Attendant console. All this is on top of the costs of the base system hardware and the gateway modules, so even a small system will cost several thousand pounds.

Some less-than-perfect integration aside, HOOME is a very comprehensive product with much to offer small and medium enterprises looking to streamline their communications.

Author: Simon Jones