VoIP & Citrix - vendor apps

BTW - here's the info on the Wyse 1200LE winterm

Rookie..can u explain me what Citrix is and how it works

Hi Phil,

You may already be aware of the Tek-Tips Citrix Solutions Forum:

Mr. Tripp Purvis tripp.purvis *at* citrix.com Telephone: 954-267-3000

or

Mr. David Coleman david.coleman *at* citrix.com Telephone: 408-678-3357

or

Mr. Barry Phillips barry.phillips *at* citrix.com Telephone: 408-678-3309

Sincerely,

Brad Reese Cisco IOS Software - Compatible Partner Matrix by Technology

It depends what you mean by VoIP? Do you mean something like Skype or are you looking for an office PBX solution that's VoIP based?

If things like Skype, then yes - there are real barriers in a Citrix environment esp. with thin clients like Wyse terminals. The basic problem is you can't plug USB headsets/handsets into a Wyse terminal and get it to work over Citrix communicating with the softphone client (i.e. Skype) on the server.

However, if you're looking for a office PBX system that happens to be VoIP based then there are options. Softphones are still out for the same reason as above. But if you're thinking about hard phones (i.e. a physical telephone) then you most of the top vendor's system will work in the Citrix environment. By "work" I mean that you can install the phone manager software on terminal server and it will communicate very effectively with the telephone on your desk. For example, you could dial from the phone manager or from Outlook. Conversely when a call comes into your phone, screen popups are also available.

Things like voicemail's delivered to email will also still work as long as you accept the limitations of audio playback over Citrix. But then again, in a office environment, your work mates will get very annoyed at you playing back voicemail over speakers so you'd have to equip everyone with headsets. Audio playback to some Wyse terminals is not very good.

And as you're using hardphones, you can still use VoIP to a telephone next to a remote Wyse terminal.

But having been through the above very recently, the costs of VoIP as a replacement for office PBX systems just isn't there. We moved office recently and looked at Cisco, Avaya and Swyx. Swyx is very Citrix friendly and is a great system but the cost was just too much for us so we ended up with an analogue Avaya systems. Couldn't justify the extra features for the cost - cabling was cheap.

Cheers, Rob.