I’m a big fan of the 3CX phone system. I use it for my own business, and have a number of clients with the system implemented as their business phone system. There are pros and cons of any phone system, but let me outline some of the major benefits of this system:
- Very little extra hardware to buy. Of course, you have to have phone handsets, and it also makes sense to put the phone system on its own server (or virtual machine), but you don’t have proprietary hardware to buy. An off-the-shelf PC is all you need to have to run 3CX.
- Runs on Windows. I have used several other PC-based phone systems, most of which run on Linux. I do love Linux, and I use Linux for other purposes in my business, but I had a lot of trouble getting everything working right with some of those earlier Linux phone systems. 3CX solves a big problem for me in that it runs on Windows, so I can use my existing domain knowledge and not worry about the OS.
- Excellent tech support. The 3CX team does frequent updates, and a full new release almost every year. Tech support is fast and quite good. I haven’t yet had a question they could not answer. I might have to do a bit of investigating before the problem is solved, but it gets solved.
- Remote administration. Because 3CX administration is on a Windows machine, normal remote desktop works for administration. I can make changes, add new accounts and investigate problems all from afar.
- Sweet apps. The idea of running a company phone system extension on your iPhone or Android as an app is really cool. I use the app on my own smart phone, so that whether I’m at my own office or a client site, I can use the app as a phone extension.
As you can probably guess, I recommend this system to clients and I’m a reseller for 3CX. 3CX has really made my administration of phone systems easier than any other phone system product that I’ve used.