Milestones: CTI becomes UC(C)
With new products for use in networks, estos paves the way for further market successes at the turn of the millennium. The topic of the day is CTI (Computer Telephony Integration). The benefits of technologies at the office workplace are immediately apparent to the user ("I want to have it!"), but the background still needs to be explained. estos has developed into the technology leader in this niche and continues to grow...
What is CTI? What is UC? What is federation? Read what the technical terms mean here...
We were founded in 1997 – since then a lot has happened...
| 1997 | Euritel Pro – single-user CTI and adapter for the popular ASCOM ISDN telephones. |
| 2000 | ProCall for MS Outlook – the first real Outlook plug-in with Comfort CTI for single-user workplaces. |
| 2001 | TapiServer – TAPI goes network – the bestseller allows control and monitoring of multiple telephone lines via a central server – graphical representation of the assignment: line to users. |
| 2002 | ProCall Enterprise – ProCall combined with the TapiServer plus enhanced functions, sets standards in the industry when it comes to the operating concept and stability. The cornerstone of business success in the years ahead is set. |
| 2003 | ECSTA series – professional middleware for the implementation of CSTA on TAPI. |
| 2004 | MetaDirectory – LDAP server optimized for the needs of small and medium-sized companies. |
| 2005 | CallControlGateway – In October, Microsoft launches the Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 – a CTI interface (RCC via uaCSTA). In November, we present a product that instantly finds customers and becomes an international sensation. |
| 2006 | 64-bit – We upgrade our products for 64-bit and can offer a 64 bit-compliant software portfolio almost two years ahead of our competitors. |
| 2007 | ProCall 3.0 Enterprise – a completely new development that is based on user-centric architecture and includes Best of CTI, presence management and instant messaging. At CeBIT we were mocked. "Who needs unified communications (UC)?", the dealers ask, the customers "only" want CTI. |
| 2008 | CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes). We invest heavily in easy-to-implement integration with business process-supporting applications. Resellers and customers are thrilled and immediately recognize the benefits and potential of the new features. |
| 2010 | ECSTA for snom – Our first product for the cloud allows CTI in the IP Centrex environment – Our product wins the Innovation Award of the 'Initiative Mittelstand'. |
| 2010 | Federation – We begin to evangelize the market. We believe in the networking of companies and institutions on the basis of open standards and secure protocols. What works for e-mail should also be possible for instant messaging and presence information. In 2012, Frost and Sullivan award us a prize for this strategy! |
| 2011 | Certified for – We pass (almost) every test and toughen up our software in a number of partner programs (VMware, Citrix, Fiducia, etc.). |
| 2012 | ProCall Enterprise 4 – unified communications AND collaboration (UCC): we present desktop sharing. |
| 2012 | Native apps for iOS and Android – We choose the hard way and develop native applications. The good reviews compensate us quickly for our efforts. |
| 2013 | estos goes WebRTC – We are the German pioneer for WebRTC and focus in the coming years on audio/video and the internet. The estos vision emerges. |
| 2014 | ProCall 5 Enterprise, now with new audio/video, becomes "Product of the Year 2014" in a vote from the readers of the trade journal, 'Funkschau' – sensational because we have only just started! |
| 2015 | Live Chat – call.estos.de. The first milestone of our roadmap 2020 is reached. In the coming years, we will consistently gear ourselves and our products towards our vision. |
| 2016 | Fax, SMS, Voicemail and IVR – the unified messaging products of serVonic are integrated into our portfolio. |
| 2017 | In mid-November, WebRTC officially achieves 'Candidate Recommendation' status. We are proud to have been actively involved in the completion of the internet standard as a German software manufacturer. |
| 2018 | The first generation of estos developed SIP-softphone-features, combined with special comfort features for Jabra, Logitech, Plantronics and Sennheiser headsets is successfully introduced into the market with ProCall 6 Enterprise. |
| 2019 | With our platform UCConnect, we establish the technical foundation for our future cloud service offering. |
| 2020 | The new versions ProCall 7 Enterprise and ixi-UMS 7 Enterprise pass the unplanned acid test in the home office. |
2020 2021
2022
2023 | The beta of our cloud based audio-video conferencing service – ProCall Meetings – is launched! ProCall Meetings – our cloud-based solution for online meetings and online video conferences – is launched in spring! What's special about it is that it enables online meetings with just one click, is available regardless of location or device, and is secure because it complies with the German Data Protection Act (GDPR). This adds another important component to our product portfolio for corporate communication. ProCall Meetings is the logical continuation of our mission: estos enables easy communication. In October, our new product ProCall Business goes on the market! ProCall Business is a compact CTI and UC solution specially designed for companies with up to 50 users. Due to many "on-board" functionalities and the " next, next, finished principle" ProCall Business is particularly easy to put into operation and therefore interesting for small companies that do not have an extensive ITC infrastructure. The year starts with a real good news: the Microsoft Teams Integration in ProCall 7 Enterprise.With this integration, bidirectional presence matching between Microsoft Teams and estos ProCall 7 Enterprise is possible. In March, we announce that by using the estos MetaDirectory in combination with a Microsoft-certified Session Border Controller, additional call number resolution in Microsoft Teams is possible. From May, we are supplying Volkswagen Group car dealerships with our new cross replicator. CROSS is an enterprise resource planning system especially for car dealerships of the Volkswagen Group. When using ProCall Enterprise and the MetaDirectory with the new CROSS replicator, the identification of callers held in CROSS is possible. In June we release ProCall Data Center. ProCall DataCenter is the perfect solution for customers with a large number of employees, distributed locations and increased requirements in terms of failover. In October, we launch the 8th generation of our UC & CTI solution ProCall Enterprise. For more than 22 years, we have been constantly developing our unified communications software in line with the latest technologies and the needs of our customers. Hundreds of thousands of users now work with ProCall Enterprise every day and are very satisfied with it. That makes us very proud! 2022 was an incredibly exciting and eventful year for us! Many great events, promotions and product innovations. And we also have a lot planned for 2023! We are starting right away and will release our first own telephone system in the first quarter of 2023: ProCall Voice Services! ProCall Voice Services is a cloud telephone system that offers business telephony functions from the cloud as an extension to ProCall Enterprise. Of course, it is perfectly integrated and can be put into operation with just a few clicks. The telephony (sip trunk connection) comes from our sister company STARFACE. We benefit from this in particular, because they already have a lot of experience with it...
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| 1997 | Foundation of estos as a GbR. (private company). |
| 2000 | Company changes to a Limited Company GmbH (5 employees). |
| 2005 | Investments in portfolio and staff (11 employees). |
| 2008 | Management develops growth strategy (15 employees). |
| 2009 | Florian Bock (sales) and Christoph Lösch (product management) are appointed to the management (18 employees); expansion of the company with sales and marketing. |
| 2010 | Founding of the subsidiary in Udine (Italy) with Alessandro Parisi. |
| 2011 | Best year in the company history in terms of sales and earnings (35 employees). |
| 2012 | Investments in products and staff (40 employees). |
| 2012 | Opening of a development branch in Leonberg, near Stuttgart. |
| 2012 | Founding of a subsidiary in Doetinchem, Netherlands. |
| 2013 | Establishment of management team. |
| 2014 | We want to satisfy our team that has grown to 50 employees and get our strengths as well as our vision across. We revise our brand! |
| 2015 | After being rewarded the prize "UCC product 2014" at the Funkschau readers' voting, the CRN readers voted estos "2nd place" in the category "virtual pbx". |
| 2016 | estos and serVonic grow together. The unified communications and CTI software developer estos acquires the unified messaging specialist serVonic. |
| 2017 | The well-known competition "Innovationspreis-IT" chooses estos as a finalist for the category "Communication" with LiveChat 2 in March. In December the readers of the well known ICT magazine CRN vote estos among the best vendors of the year – again. |
| 2018 | estos sets up a management team for the next phase of company development: The estos founders Stefan Hobratschk and Stephan Eckbauer withdraw from their operative functions. They hand over their tasks to Florian Bock (Finance and Human Resources) and Christoph Lösch (Innovations and Technology). The managers Stefan Micko (Research and Development), Raphael Bossek (Products), Hille Vogel (Markets and Customers) each move up to management with divisional responsibility. |
| 2019 | Our marketing team receives the recognition it has long deserved: estos receives a German Brand Award. |
| 2020 | We invest in our top partner network with a new partner program: For more customer satisfaction and solution excellence |
2021 2021
2022
2023 | estos continues to grow and is pleased to welcome its 100th employee In parallel to our new partner program, we have also further developed our training program for partners! Our new training concept is modular and structured along the customer journey. This means that from now on, our partner training courses will take into account the different customer requirements across the various customer phases: from consulting and sales, through installation and operation, to maintenance and updates/upgrades. In this way, we make our partners fit for all-round optimal support of their customers. In September we announce: As of now, estos is located under the umbrella of SF Technologies together with our sister companies STARFACE GmbH from Karlsruhe and TeamFon GmbH from Munich. SF Technolgies GmbH is in the hands of the managing directors of the three sister companies, among others, as well as Maxburg Capital Partners, an investment company from Munich, which uses capital from the RAG Foundation to invest in successful German medium-sized companies in order to further develop them in a lasting and sustainable way that increases their value. The RAG Foundation was established in 2007 by the German federal government, the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, the IG BCE trade union and RAG AG in order to ensure the socially responsible structuring and financing of the "eternal tasks" arising from coal mining. estos is 25 years old, a quarter of a century in the world of ICT – we are celebrating extensively! Our partners and end customers will especially benefit from great promotions and new product innovations. Speaking of innovations: estos is honored as one of Germany's Top 100 Innovators 2022! We are incredibly proud of this award! After the long period of online meetings and online events, we are finally starting the popular "estos Brauhaus Tour" again in our anniversary year. At 11 different locations (i.e. in 11 different breweries... ) in Germany and Switzerland, estos colleagues and estos partners will finally meet in person again. More than 200 partners take part – a great roadshow, which is also on the agenda for the year after next! After 2022, we were again honored this year as Germany's Top 100 Innovator 2023 We are proud to have received this award once again! estos gets a new management. Christoph Lösch and Florian Bock leave estos and hand over the management to Florian Buzin for the time being. A new managing director is being sought and should be on board by the end of 2023. Until then, Hans Szymanski will support the estos management team as interim manager with his many years of experience.
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