If you are a small-business owner sporting an Apple iPad, then Toktumi is providing the software to turn the tablet computer into a speakerphone with lots of business features.
For about two years, the San Francisco-based company has offered its flagship Line2 product for iPhone and Android devices, making it possible for people to use the Web to reduce the number of minutes they use on carriers' cellular networks. Toktumi founder and chief executive Peter Sisson says the company has 50,000 paying customers and 40 employees, and is nearly profitable. "Last month we only burned $18,000," he says.
About half of Toktumi customers are small businesses, and mostt of the rest are business professionals.
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The latest version of Line2 takes the same telephone features it provides on the iPhone and carries them over to the iPad. The software includes a contact list and voicemail, and can send and receive text messages from any mobile phone.
Toktumi differentiates its product from the largest Internet telephony provider, Skype, by providing the business features needed to turn the iPad into a fully functional desktop phone.
Features include call screening, call waiting, and the ability to send voicemail messages as email. Customers can set up telephone conferencing for up to 20 people and create "automated attendants," which is the ability to give callers the option of pressing one for sales, two for customer service, and so on. Line2 also supports call forwarding up to six numbers.
Line2 works on a Wi-Fi network and on AT&T's Verizon's data networks. The software automatically switches to a hotspot when one is available to deliver better audio quality.
Freelance writers, consultants, or other professionals who are indoor much of the day with access to reliable Wi-Fi could use Line2 as a replacement for a landline. Patrick Raymond, founder of the consultancy the Inventors Association of Manhattan, uses only Line2 on his iPhone to talk to clients. Raymond's business is to help would-be inventors determine whether they are ready to take their invention to market.
Raymond cancelled his AT&T service, which even the carrier has acknowledged could be better in New York, and replaced it with Line2. The consultant claims to avoid missing calls by rarely being more than 60 feet away from a hotspot in a café, a restaurant, or his gym. "Line2 has made me very Wi-Fi aware," Raymond says.
Line2 does not provide video calling. "Skype has really moved with a heavy emphasis on video, and we are focused 100 percent on making voice and text communications a better experience," Sisson says. Line2 provides international calling at rates similar to Skype.
Toktumi provides live customer support during the day Monday through Friday, and email support during the day on weekends. The company offers a seven-day free trial. The basic plan, which doesn't include the automated attendant feature, call screening and other business features, costs $9.95 a month or $99.50 a year. The pro plan costs $14.95 a month or $149.50 a year.
