Midland Communications Delivers Powerful Technology to SMBs


DAVENPORT, IA- November 7, 2012 - In today's market, large enterprises have come to rely heavily on technology in order to help accelerate their businesses. HD video conferncing has long been thought to be a powerful technology reserved exclusively for use by large-scale enterprises. However, recent developments in technology have lowered the total cost of ownership and now smaller organizations can benefit from this impactful technology. In an increasingly global economy, many organizations are looking to reduce travel expenses, collaborate with remote workers and foster real-time collaboration across all areas of a business. HD video conferencing allows organizations to accomplish this and gain competitive advantage in their industry.
Simply explained, HD video conferencing allows users to conduct face-to-face meetings without leaving the office. Multiple parties can collaborate with one another on various projects regardless of location, instantly increasing office productivity. Essentially, this dynamic technology elevates our expectations of basic web and audio conferencing tools. Users can now broadcast important meetings to other locations, reducing travel expenses and saving lost time. Another factor behind video conferencing's recent success is due to its ability to show non-verbal communication and increase the "human feel" of meetings.
"Our customers have always expressed a very strong interest in the capacities that videconferencing solutions deliver but we didn't to bring this technology to our customers because the cost for this technology was simply too high," stated Jason Smith, Vice President at Midland Communications. "We have built our reputation over the years by truly partnering with our customers, concerning ourselves with their needs and obligating ourselves to only provide them with technology that significantly boosts employee productivity and increases their bottom line. We assert that at the end of the day, technology needs to increase a business' profitability and give them a competitive advantage or it should not be implemented. HD video conferencing has finally matured to the point where our customers can enjoy the benefits of this technology while simultaneously increasing their overall profitabilty. We've been excited to see how different industries have been applying video conferencing to their businesses and have learned quite a bit throughout our experiences. We look forward to helping our customers get the most out of their technology."

ABOUT MIDLAND COMMUNICATIONS
Midland Communications began more than 60 years ago in 1946 as the Worldwide Marketing Arm of Victor-Animagraph Projectors. In 1977 a communications division was formed due to a partnership with NEC America. Today, As a distributor of NEC America, for 33 years, Midland Communications has a customer base of more than 3,000 satisfied customers that include general businesses, government agencies, Universities, colleges, hospitals, and hotels.
Midland provides a wide range of communication services including VOIP, PBX and key systems, Wide Area and Local Area networking, computers, Computer integration, voice mail, CCIS, and video conferencing and paging systems. Our philosophy is simple, provide quality products at a fair price, backed by an average emergency response time of twenty minutes, and the best service in the industry. For more information on Midland Communications, call (563) 326-1237 or visit www.midlandcom.com.

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Numerous Benefits of New Communications Technology Driving Demand

DAVENPORT, IA - April 18, 2012 - Midland Communications, an industry leader in business communications, announced today that the company is seeing a rapid increase in the popularity for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking among the region's small to mid-sized businesses.  Numerous benefits of this relatively new communications technology such as cost, flexibility, and advanced business applications are driving the demand for SIP technology.
SIP Trunking typically allows businesses that have Internet Protocol-Private Branch Exchanges (IP-PBXs) to combine their voice and data services onto a SIP-based Trunk rather than use primary rate interface (PRI), T-1 or other types of Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) links. Some service providers are offering IP Trunking to connect TDM-based PBXs or key systems to a SIP backbone, using an on-premises device to convert TDM voice to IP.  In more simple terms, SIP supports any form of real-time communication regardless of whether the content is voice, video, instant messaging, or a collaboration application.  Additionally, SIP enables users to inform others of their status, their availability, and how they can be contacted before a communication is even initiated.
Many SMBs have made the transition to VoIP; however, most are only using it for communication on the LAN.  In this scenario VoIP is only being used as a one-to-one replacement for traditional telephony.  These businesses realize a sound return on investment by lowering administrative costs as well as costs associated with calls made within the company.  SIP Trunking, on the other hand, provides a greater return because it takes VoIP a step further.  For instance, full potential for IP communications can be realized only when communication is taken outside of an organization's LAN.  SIP trunks thus eliminate the need for local PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) gateways, costly BRIs (Basic Rate Interfaces) or PRIs (Primary Rate Interfaces).  Furthermore, it directly operates with existing IP-PBXs so there is no need for additional hardware.
"The SMB marketplace has started to really embrace SIP Trunking because it will dramatically increase their profitability and give them a competitive advantage," said Jason Smith, Vice President of Midland Communications.  "Until now most companies would have purchased a PRI or multiple access lines and a data connection.  SIP lets them converge their traffic onto a single line.  Outdated technology, inefficient networks, and a down economy are driving SMBs in this direction - customers have excess bandwidth on their data networks and they want to see how they can best utilize or reduce it."
"SIP's flexibility supports our position as our customers trusted communications advisor.  After we understand their strategic business objectives we can use the breadth and depth of SIP technology to support all of their needs," added Mr. Smith.  "Soon SIP will become a more popular and meaningful acronym than VoIP."

ABOUT MIDLAND COMMUNICATIONS

Midland Communications began more than 60 years ago in 1946 as the Worldwide Marketing Arm of Victor-Animagraph Projectors. In 1977 a communications division was formed due to a partnership with NEC America. Today, As a distributor of NEC America, for 33 years, Midland Communications has a customer base of more than 3,000 satisfied customers that include general businesses, government agencies, Universities, colleges, hospitals, and hotels.
Midland provides a wide range of communication services including VOIP, PBX and key systems, Wide Area and Local Area networking, computers, Computer integration, voice mail, CCIS, and video conferencing and paging systems. Our philosophy is simple, provide quality products at a fair price, backed by an average emergency response time of twenty minutes, and the best service in the industry. For more information on Midland Communications, call (563) 326-1237 or visit www.midlandcom.com.



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Midland Communications Educates Customers on Powerful Stimulus Plan

DAVENPORT, IA - November 30, 2011 - Midland Communications, a leading provider in unified communications, announced today that the company is helping customers take advantage of a large tax-break for small to mid-sized businesses with Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 179. The tax benefit targets businesses who are contemplating large equipment purchases, such as technology, and significantly reduces the cost of purchasing such equipment. Section 179 allows business owners to write-off the entire cost, up to $500,000, on new equipment purchases made by December 31st, 2011.

Many Americans were left wondering how the Stimulus Package would have an impact on their lives and Section 179 has answered that question for many business owners. Creating significant savings on major purchases of equipment, software or phone systems, the federal government has enacted this bill in an effort to spur business-to-business spending. Right now businesses can expense the entire purchase price of qualifying equipment/software/phone systems in the first year up to $500,000 (to be reduced to $125,000 at the end of the 2011 tax year). Also slated to expire at the end of the 2011 tax year is the 100% Bonus Depreciation, which will drop down to 50 percent. For example, assuming you're in a 35% tax bracket, a $45,000 purchase would drop dramatically, and would cost approximately $29,250 after Section 179 has been applied to the transaction. In a transaction like this, Section 179 would yield a total savings of $15,750. While every transaction is different and tax professionals should be consulted on specific situations, the potential rewards of this government program has persuaded many business owners to seriously consider investing in new equipment before year-end.

The one caveat associated with this powerful program is that the new equipment must be in use by December 31, 2011 in order to qualify for the massive savings. This year, Section 179 also extends to cover software purchases in addition to traditional equipment. Many business owners have installed new business phone systems as a result of this addition to the tax code, because recent breakthroughs in telecommunications are enabling businesses to collaborate better, faster and more efficiently with one another.

"We were stunned to find out that so many of our customers had not yet heard of Section 179," commented Jason Smith, Vice President of Midland Communications. "We may specialize in delivering technology solutions to our customers, but we treat our customers like partners. If we find something as powerful as this we have always considered it to be our duty to communicate this information to our customers. Our goal is to introduce our customers to technology that increases their productivity, but more importantly increases their profitability . When an opportunity like this comes along, we're thrilled to skip discussions regarding technology, and go straight to the part where our customers get to enjoy increased profitability. That's why we're different and we plan on continuing to treat our customers like gold."