Concordia University’s staff, faculty, and students were outgrowing their older voice mail system. The system had reached some capacity issues and did not support newer applications such as Unified Messaging. They also have plans to migrate to a VoIP PBX in the future so integration was very important. A requirement of their new system was to not only support their current Fujitsu PBX Communications System, but also to integrate with other manufacturers of Voice Over IP and PBX technologies, such as Mitel.

When looking for the right solution for the University’s voice messaging needs, Matt Higgins, Coordinator of Telecommunication and PC Support Services, met with Randy Lindstedt, Marco Account Manager. Concordia had worked with Marco on the data networking side, so they were already familiar with Marco. Matt visited Marco’s corporate office to review the capabilities of the Mitel system and learn more about Marco. Matt explained, “We really liked the Mitel product, and Marco provided us with a competitively priced solution that not only meets our needs now, but gave us a plan for future applications such as VoIP. We also looked at Marco’s history and liked that they are employee owned. We like the fact that the employees take pride in their company.”

In August 2004, Marco implemented a Mitel 6510 Messaging solution for the University which addressed their migration and integration needs as well as offered a foundation for other applications such as speech technology, wireless, messaging, and faxing. The system gives approximately 800 users features such as voice mail, multi-lingual auto-attendant, email, text-to-speech, fax mail, and wireless device support. The 6510 Messaging Server Platform offers a myriad of options for their faculty, staff, and student users to retrieve and manage messages. The system fully supports both IP and PBX environments, so when they are ready to migrate their communications system to Voice over IP, they have a messaging solution in place to support this technology.

The new messaging system will allow student members to utilize Mitel Unified Messaging—a software package that gives them quick access to all of their messages—voice, email, and faxes—from one central place on their laptops. Being a laptop university, Concordia’s students will soon be benefiting from the latest voice communications technologies.

Upon implementation,  Marco’s project team worked with Matt to integrate the Mitel Voice Messaging system with their current Fujitsu communications system. “We liked the professionalism of everyone involved from Marco including Randy, Chad Vukich (Data Networking Representative), Gail Felix (Project Manager and Trainer), and Justin Davis (Technical Engineer). Matt commented, “I was really impressed with Justin during the implementation. We were able to work together as a team and do the cutover to the new system even before our deadline. And when it comes to follow-up, Justin is out the same day. He is very flexible and comes out at all hours—even at 1:00 a.m. I think service is just as important as the product. Marco’s follow up has been great!

Matt added, “I appreciated Marco’s honesty throughout the whole process. We really felt valued with Marco.”

Concordia University was founded in 1893 to provide a Christian learning environment for high school students preparing to enter the professional ministries of The Lutheran Church. The first two years of college were added shortly after the turn of the century and in 1950 Concordia became coeducational.

Since that time, Concordia has added a variety of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree programs in elementary education, pre-seminary studies, early childhood education, business administration, finance, and many more.