Comms vendor Zultys has announced version 3.0 of its IP PBX software, adding many new features to tempt firms thinking of rolling out voice over IP (VoIP) over their networks.

Version 3.0 can be deployed on Zultys’ MX30 and MX250 IP PBXs and can provide a scalable VoIP system for between 10 and 10,000 users. Zultys president Iain Milnes said the upgrade had been under development for over a year at 80 trial sites worldwide.

A major feature is an instant messaging (IM) bridge between Zultys’ PBX and public IM services from AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. “We can record and keep the IMs using an external Jabber server and allow queries to be run against the stored IMs,” said Milnes. Zultys said IT administrators would have complete control to determine who has access to public IM services. “We’ve been shipping SIP and presence-enabled PBXs for over three years and had SIP trunking for 18 months,” added Milnes.

Automated attendant capabilities have also been upgraded, allowing the tools to act as an extensive interactive voice response (IVR) system. Voice input can be collected from callers, and this information can then be queried in a database and used for routing decisions.

The system now integrates with Microsoft Exchange for unified messaging, giving the ability to synchronise the Exchange mailbox in Outlook with the voice mailbox on the PBXs, so if a voicemail is saved in Outlook then the voicemail is saved on the Zultys MX PBXs.

Version 3.0 is due from 10 July as a free upgrade for customers with an existing subscription.