Toktumi Releases First Instant Small Business Phone Service with Big Business Features

PALM DESERT, Calif., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- at DEMO -- Toktumi Inc., the new venture from veteran telephony serial entrepreneur Peter Sisson, today announces its new small business phone service of the same name. Toktumi (pronounced Talk-To-Me) is the first company to marry free, downloadable PC software to an enterprise-grade hosted PBX, creating an easy yet powerful office phone system that can be set up in five minutes.

Toktumi requires no special hardware, although the company offers an adapter that allows customers to connect regular telephones to their PCs. The Company allows customers to start with a free version, which gives them a phone number, voicemail, and free calling and conferencing with other Toktumi users worldwide. Once they are satisfied, they can upgrade to the paid version for $12.95 per month, enabling calls to most regular phones worldwide for only two cents per minute. The paid service also allows customers to select their phone numbers and area codes or port their current number to Toktumi.

"There are 40M people working in small businesses with one to nine employees, half of whom work out of their homes," said Peter Sisson, CEO and founder of Toktumi Inc. "This segment has been ignored by most providers because they were considered too small, yet together they are a huge and important part of our economy. Toktumi is the first fully-featured office phone solution that businesses can set up in five minutes and use for free before they commit to anything, whether they need one line or 10."

Complete Office Phone Solution

Each Toktumi line offers a complete solution, including a phone number, inbound and outbound calling, and a full-range of business-grade features including call transfer, an auto-attendant that can forward to internal or external numbers, conferencing for up to 20 people, visual voicemail, call waiting, and more. Toktumi also offers a first-of-its-kind feature called Search Dialing, which taps address books and online search engines to allow users to call any number by entering a name or keyword describing the person, company, product or service for which they are looking.

Full PC Integration

Toktumi integrates directly with the PC. Customers can connect any corded, cordless, or speaker phone directly to their PC using Toktumi's adapter - no special PBX or VoIP phone is required. Toktumi can also work as a "softphone" with a PC headset and microphone. Combining Toktumi's software and a phone results in a powerful and flexible interface for access to advanced functionality.

Hosted Infrastructure

To ensure reliable service, all of Toktumi's core features and functionality are hosted on company-owned infrastructure in enterprise-grade data centers. Customers' calls are always answered, even when their PC is off or their Internet down. Calls can be sent to an auto-attendant, to voicemail, or forwarded to other phones such as cell phones. This provides enterprise- grade continuity of service to even the smallest of businesses.

"Companies like Toktumi are bound to change the landscape because they've found a way to make office phone service easy without dumbing-down the features to get there," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO 08. "A lot of people struggle to set up a conference on their office phones, so setting up an auto attendant is out of the question. Toktumi's feature set is surprisingly powerful and amazingly simple to setup and use."

Toktumi service is based on technology from Global IP Solutions (GIPS), assuring high quality sound throughout the communication. This is the first product available to be built on GIPS new REX SDK softphone platform, which delivers high quality voice processing, NAT and Firewall traversal, and PBX features to Toktumi users. The company's patented and award-winning solutions are deployed and used by leading IP communication providers worldwide.

"To successfully win the hearts of small business owners, companies like Toktumi will make their services easy to install and low cost," said Patrick Monaghan, Senior Analyst at Yankee Group. "The ability to simply and inexpensively set up phone service for an entire office could translate to wide adoption for a new entrant in an important and growing market."

About DEMO

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit www.demo.com.

About Toktumi

Founded in 2007, San Francisco, California-based Toktumi is dedicated to making reliable, affordable communications services available to small offices and home-based businesses by dramatically simplifying the way customers acquire, setup, and use their phone service. Toktumi's launch product will initially be available as a beta by invitation only, effective immediately, with broad availability in spring of 2008. For more information on Toktumi, or to request an activation code, visit www.toktumi.com.

SOURCE Toktumi Inc.