Fonality, the leader in affordable IP-PBX systems for small businesses and the world's largest distributed deployment of Asterisk™, today announced that telecom industry veteran Bob Nugent has joined the company as vice president of sales. Nugent will be responsible for Fonality's overall sales and channel strategy and tactical implementation.

"Bob is a telecom star and a great addition to Fonality's management team," said Chris Lyman, Fonality's founder and CEO. "We exist in hybrid waters between public and packet switching protocols. Bob is here to help build bridges."

Nugent brings extensive telecom industry experience, deep knowledge of the interconnect and CLEC markets, and more than 20 years experience building sales teams and new channels for voice and data communications companies. As senior vice president of sales, marketing and customer support at Centigram Communications, Nugent successfully led the turnaround of this voice messaging company, growing it in six years from $8 million to $100 million in sales and an IPO. He served as director of sales and marketing from 1976 to 1984 at ROLM Corporation, where he successfully recruited new channels that led to growth from $8 million to $1 billion in revenues. Nugent has consulted with top telecommunications companies, such as AT&T, Pacific Bell and Executone, to improve sales planning, channel analysis, channel recruiting and distribution. He has also consulted with emerging voice and data communications companies as acting vice president of sales and to recruit sales and marketing teams; provide sales, marketing and product launch strategies; and negotiate partner agreements with CLECs and other large partners.

"Open source, server-based technologies are driving one of the greatest telephony market transformations ever," Nugent said. "Fonality has all of the required components - people, strategy, technology and price - to be a huge success in this emerging market."

Fonality's PBXtra product line provides today's small businesses with an enterprise-class phone system for 40 percent to 80 percent less than the cost of traditional PBX systems. PBXtra's enterprise-class features include telecommuting, branch office support, voicemail-to-email, click-to-call, VoIP, softphones, support for IP and analog phones, and advanced call center functionality. Fonality has streamlined and simplified the complex tasks of PBX setup, administration and management to make PBXtra the world's first enterprise-class phone system that can be installed and administered remotely using a Web browser, without specialized training. The PBXtra software runs on standard PC hardware, and uses layers of Open Source Linux and Asterisk software to provide the least expensive option for small businesses deploying new IP-PBX phone systems.

PBXtra is available from Fonality or through a Fonality reseller. For more information about PBXtra or becoming a Fonality reseller, visit www.fonality.com.

About Fonality
Fonality is the leading provider of affordable IP-PBX systems for small businesses. PBXtra Standard Edition delivers all the advanced features of an enterprise-class phone system at an affordable price, and is so easy to use that it eliminates expensive phone support and configuration costs. PBXtra Call Center Edition provides businesses with call center functionality in addition to the PBX capabilities found in Standard Edition. PBXtra is deployed to thousands of business users in the U.S. and other countries. Fonality's products are available direct and through a network of more than 900 resellers.