Plantronics Releases Spokes

Plantronics is releasing Spokes, its flagship control software, for users of its headsets who use Unified Communications platforms. With Spokes, users can find their colleagues and connect with them easily, no matter what UC software platform and Plantronics audio device combination they use.

Spokes software contains call control capabilities to make the most out of one's existing unified communications investment, from answering and ending calls to volume controls. IT managers can deploy and manage it with Plantronics Enterprise Manager, allowing them to edit Spokes to create a customized package. Furthermore, developers can use the Spokes software developer kit to create applications that use contextual information such as presence and user ID however they may need.

Spokes is available for Windows, Mac, and IBM Sametime. The Windows version works with softphones from Microsoft, Cisco, and Avaya, as well as with Skype. On Spokes for Mac, Skype and IBM Sametime are supported, while Spokes for Sametime provides a range of call control capabilities for an even more efficient communication experience.

While Spokes works with a variety of Plantronics headsets, the devices suggested by Plantronics are the Voyager PRO UC, Savi 700 Series, Savi 440 or Office, Calisto 240 or 800 Series, CS50/60-USB, Blackwire 200-600 series, and the DA45 USB Adapter.

Blair Pleasant of UCStrategies notes, "I recently saw some demos of Plantronics Spokes at Dreamforce, and was impressed with the new capabilities the software provides to the headsets, and the capabilities it provides to the headset users based on the contextual information Spokes provides." She adds, "The demo of the ThreeWill application for Salesforce.com called Popcorn showed the power of the Spokes software. Users see a screenpop of the caller and information based on their Salesforce CRM data when a call comes in to the headset. The user gets a universal screen pop, regardless if someone calls on them on their mobile phone or soft phone. Popcorn delivers a screen pop with information on the caller, and the user can simply click on this to get into person's history in Salesforce. It also logs the call detail info into Salesforce automatically."

For more information, visit www.plantronics.com.