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Freshtel Gives JB Hi-Fi An Australian Exclusive |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 29 November 2007 |
Looking to expand its footprint at home, VoIP service provider Freshtel
has signed an exclusive supply agreement with JB Hi-Fi giving the
retailer the rights to sell Freshtel branded Internet phone products in
more than 50 Australian stores. In return JB Hi-Fi has committed to
advertising and point of sale promotion of the product.
Rhonda O'Donnell, CEO of Freshtel says she sees the agreement as a
"joint venture partnership to market and sell the Freshtel branded
Internet phone solution".
"The beauty of this arrangement is that it allows Freshtel to focus on
its core business of developing Internet telephony solutions and
capitalise on the brand and retail presence and marketing expertise of
our partners to distribute the product. Our partners benefit from
Freshtel's technical expertise, having access to our superior range of
easy-to-use internet telephony products and learning from our
experience with global retailers," she said.
As part of the agreement, Freshtel will establish a reseller portal to
allow JB Hi-Fi to sell call plans and credit in-store, and provide
customers with information relating to their Freshtel Internet Phone
account.
Scott Browning, Marketing Director of JB Hi-Fi, said: "We regard
Internet telephony as an exciting opportunity which fits perfectly with
our philosophy to provide the best brands and specialist products at
the lowest prices. Partnering with Freshtel will enable us to maximise
this opportunity. Freshtel's high quality range of products and the
success of the Tesco Internet Phone in the UK, which Freshtel brought
to market, demonstrated that they have the ability and approach to help
us make this agreement a great success."
The Freshtel Internet Phone will be available in some JB Hi-Fi stores
before Christmas, with a full roll out to take place towards the end of
the first quarter of 2008.
In August Freshtel announced its appointment as the preferred
supplier of VoIP products to the Narta Group, one of the largest electrical
buying groups in Australia. At the time Freshtel agreed to supply Internet telephony hardware pre-configured with Freshtel as the service
provider. Freshtel has an agreement with the Hong Kong-based Binatone Telecom Group to co-develop hardware.
Freshtel has also recently released version 3.0 of its softphone
desktop client which features integration with Microsoft Outlook and
advanced echo cancellation. It also has a new look which the company
says adds drop and drag facility for contacts and a pop up window for
each call.
"The first thing
that users will notice is the clean new look and feel of the softphone.
We've found that difficulty in adapting to the software is a barrier to
VoIP adoption so we've designed Freshtel's softphone to be much
easier to navigate, access contact details, manage calls and view call
history," said Scott Conley, National Reseller Manager at Freshtel.
The new Microsoft
Outlook integration allows contacts to be automatically
added to the Firefly contact list and adds a Firefly toolbar to Outlook.
Firefly 3.0 is also compatible with Windows Vista and can be
downloaded for free from the company's website.
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