NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

CallTower Delivers Promised Cisco-Microsoft Future Applications Today in Secure, Scaleable, Hosted Communications and Collaboration Suite

CallTower's Live Communications Management Suite Breaks Down the Silos of Communications, Enables Real-Time, Effective Business Collaboration

CallTower, Inc., the leading provider of hosted intelligent communications and collaboration services for dynamic businesses, today introduced the new CallTower Live Communications Management Suite(TM), the industry's first and only voice and data solution that includes the Microsoft® Live Communications Server with the Cisco® CallManager into one convenient, secure, hosted suite for growing businesses.

CallTower's new suite extends the rich capabilities of presence and people-centric communications to encompass voice, and applies the power of desktop software and software platforms to improve and advance communications. The CallTower Live Communications Management Suite is the first hosted service and solution to combine "Presence Management" with the phone system. The new CallTower suite displays on-the-phone/off-the-phone status for any PC and telephony device, and includes: control and recognition of callers; the ability to click-to-call or click-to-email/IM; and the ability, via a PC, for users to make phone calls, place calls on hold, transfer calls, place calls into conference.

The CallTower Live Communications Management Suite(TM) is part of a complete, secure, scalable, end-to-end voice and data suite that provides connectivity ranging from the Cisco® CallManager to the Microsoft Exchange Server to the mobile device and the desktop or call center phone. The CallTower Call Center suite is delivered as a part of CallTower's hosted services, resulting in seamlessly integrated inbound/outbound voice, with collaboration, productivity and Internet applications.

Delivering the Promise of Cisco CallManager and Microsoft Live Communications Today

In early March, Cisco Systems and Microsoft Corp. announced they are working together to provide collaborative real-time capabilities for businesses through the integration of Microsoft® Office Communicator 2005 and the open Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with the new SIP-based Cisco Unified Communications system. To enable this solution, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator will interoperate with the new Cisco Unified CallManager.

CallTower has beaten Cisco and Microsoft to the market and currently delivers the full integrated functionality, including hosted, provisioned Cisco CallManager, with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and the Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server 2005, in one convenient package. CallTower now provides sophisticated communication and collaboration capabilities to growth enterprise businesses at the flip of a switch by combining and integrating the Cisco CallManager, the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Live Communication Server into its hosted voice/data suite.

Mid-sized and growing businesses can now seamlessly add collaboration operations and capabilities to their portfolio, and leverage their existing PCs, phones and infrastructure across multiple offices, without having to purchase new hardware. These growing companies can better support, service and sell to their customers and prospects with the functionality and capabilities of much larger organizations -- all with no capital expense -- via the CallTower Live Communications Management Suite.

"Growing businesses can immediately obtain all the features and functionality that Cisco and Microsoft have stated will be delivered later this year. Our new CallTower Live Communications Management Suite allows businesses to communicate better and faster, conference in people from IM, and to click-to-dial. By providing ubiquitous, seamless, standard protocol interoperability in our communications solutions, customers can experience greater value in their real-time collaboration investments," said Mark Harris, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for CallTower. "CallTower is committed to developing secure, Always-On applications that improve the productivity of knowledge workers. With CallTower, growing businesses can eliminate their capital expense for telephony and data, add collaboration and communication applications, and immediately deploy and benefit from all the features and functionality."

CallTower's Live Communications Management Suite Features

CallTower intends to break down the silos of communications that exist today and provide rich, software-based communication capabilities that allow people, teams and organizations to communicate simply and effectively while integrating seamlessly across networks, applications and devices. The new CallTower Live Communications Management Suite includes:

--  Telephony Presence - Visually monitor whether contact is using the PC
    and/or telephone is on/off-hook
--  Click-To-Dial - Click to dial any person in a user’s Outlook contact
    list or corporate directory
--  Escalate an IM to a Phone Call - IM session can be instantly escalated
    to a phone call with click on phone icon or contact name
--  Call Control - Place a desktop phone call, put a call on hold,
    transfer a call, add third parties to the call (ad-hoc conference calling)
--  Click-to-Conference - Click to add people, and leverage CallTower’s
    conferencing bridge
--  Caller Pop-Up Notification - User is notified (caller/number) via a
    pop-up window
--  Missed Call Notification via E-Mail – e-mail message with phone
    number, name of the caller
--  Setup and Status on Forwarded Calls - Forward calls to remote offices,
    mobile phones, or VM
--  Call Deflection - Monitor calls and transfer them to home phone,
    mobile phone, hotel DID phone
--  Set Do Not Disturb (DND) - Automatically set based on an individual’s
    activities, integrated with the telephone and PC
--  Automatic notification - When a contact becomes available, user is
    automatically notified
    

"CallTower provides an advanced solution set that has had a profound effect on our business processes and positive growth," said Gannon Tidwell, President off GT Financial, a San Francisco-based financial services company. "Just months after installing our CallTower system, we realized that CallTower produced a positive change in the way we do business. Our customers receive improved service and our employees work more efficiently. We are awaiting the new CallTower Live Communications Management Suite so that we can communicate internally and externally more efficiently, effectively and in turn, service and support our customers better."

Pricing and Availability

The new CallTower Live Communications Management Suite is available now as an immediate upgrade to existing CallTower customers on a per-seat basis. New business customers who purchase CallTower's secure, hosted communications and collaborations solutions with the new integrated Live Communications Management Suite can be up and running in just 45 days or less.

About CallTower

CallTower, Inc. is the leading provider of hosted enterprise-class communications and collaboration applications and services for growing businesses nationwide. CallTower's solutions enable companies to conduct process transformation and to leverage their voice and data communications into a strategic competitive advantage in today's market.

CallTower's secure, Always-On voice and data services provide growing companies with enterprise-class reliability, a single point of support, productivity-enhancing features, a comprehensive scalable suite of vertical market applications, all communications hardware (including a T-1 line, routers, switches, and phone handsets), and 24/7 service for a fixed monthly fee. By using CallTower's solutions, growing businesses -- companies with multiple offices and from 20-10,000 users -- can now receive the same class of communications reliability and service traditionally reserved for Global 100 corporations.

Headquartered in San Francisco, CallTower has operations in Salt Lake City and Oklahoma City, and sales offices throughout the United States. More information on CallTower can be found on the Internet at www.calltower.com.

CallTower is a trademark of CallTower, Inc. All other product and firm names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.

Distributed by Market Wire