• Alexander Feiszli, ’14, majoring in Economics
• Ben Bade, majoring in Brain and Cognitive Science with a minor in business
• Ningxue Jiang, majoring in Economics and Mathematics
• Rikesh Thapa, ’15, majoring in Computer Science and Financial Economics
• Rohini Rege, ’14, double majoring in Business & Psychology, and minoring in music

They are all very eager to see what a “real world company” does when performing market research.  In return, Bitnetix gets some help developing our new markets and assistance with answering questions that arise from our preliminary assumptions regarding how our markets think.

We are very grateful to the University of Rochester for providing the students, and for High Tech Rochester for providing the opportunity to engage these bright students.  Someday, we might even hire some of them full-time!

Intent is irrelevant. It’s having the right impact that means the difference between a client for life and a potential client that never returns your phone calls.

The complete interview was published January 7, 2013.

First, Bitnetix is pleased to announce that we have hired a new full-time account manager, and their first day was yesterday, January 7, 2013.

Second, we are formally announcing that our VOIP platform now has a name: SmartVox℠. We haven’t dusted off the smartvox.com web site yet, but we will be soon. We’ll announce that when it happens.

Third, Bitnetix Incorporated was born on January 8th, 2009. Today is our fourth birthday as a corporation. For those of you keeping count, we actually started in 2006, and we formally celebrate the birth of Bitnetix in July, but this is still a momentous occasion, since restructuring Bitnetix as a corporation was a real milestone in our business development. We are happy to still be here, serving our customers, with innovative new services to help them communicate better.

Lastly, 2012 was the last year that we offered what was a fairly complex billing and pricing strategy for our customers. With 2013 comes a simplified billing structure, additional bundled services at no extra cost, and a reduction in the number of fees we charge our customers. The best part is that we are analyzing each of our customer’s current usage to see whether the old style or new style billing will be more advantageous to them, and we will automatically switch our customers to the least costly alternative.

So we hope your holidays were happy and your New Year is prosperous, and we hope to see you at all the networking events, press conferences, and open houses of the future. Here’s to the continued growth and success of Bitnetix, our partners, and all of our customers!

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @Bitnetix!

Though time was limited and his visit short, Mr. Loyd did get the opportunity to speak with Mr. Duffy and give a quick overview of how Bitnetix helps small businesses look bigger and provides them the right communication at the right time.  With the chance to tell the New York State government’s number two man what would be most useful and helpful to Bitnetix directly, Mr. Loyd said,

One of the barriers to working with New York State as a small startup is that state contracts are typically only given to companies with previous government contracting experience.  This Catch-22 makes it hard for entrepreneurs to reach State agencies and offer their new, unique, and often cost-saving products and services.  I think a great way to encourage entrepreneurial engagement with the State would be to have a list of small companies that are part of incubators like High Tech Rochester’s that State agencies have to go to first to look for goods and services.  Only after exploring what the small business startups can provide would they then move on to the current procurement process.  This would help ensure that New York is a great place to be an entrepreneur.

Mr. Duffy only stayed for about an hour and a half, but Mr. Loyd was very happy to have been chosen to represent entrepreneurs throughout the greater Rochester region, and hopes to be able to connect with Mr. Duffy’s office in the future to follow up on how startups and early-stage companies can do more for New York state.

Bitnetix is pleased to say thank you to all of our Nation’s veterans and active duty soldiers.  Thank you for serving our country, defending our lives, and protecting our freedoms.  Your sacrifices, honor, and duty are part of what make this country so great.

Thank you.

Festivus Pole

Bitnetix is pleased to be celebrating Fetivus this year by providing a prize for the 2012 Digital Rochester Festivus celebration!  The prize consists of the following, with a value of $525.00:

• 3 Cisco SPA-303 IP (VOIP) Desktop Phones
• 1 new US telephone number OR one new toll-free number (subject to availability)
• 3 Months free service including:
  • All incoming calls are free
  • All calls to US and Canada numbers are free
  • Voicemail included on all phones
  • Voice menu (press 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc) included for free
  • Voicemails sent as email attachments included for free
  • Many features such as time-of-day routing, ring groups, and more

Some of the details regarding the service:

• Phones will be the property of the prize winner
• Three months of free service will start at a mutually agreeable time, with service to be started prior December 31, 2013
• There is no obligation to continue service with Bitnetix after the three free months
• At the end of the three free months, winner may discontinue service at no charge, or
• Winner may continue service for the remainder of one year with a 10% discount over our prevailing rates
• What is not included:
  • Custom programming is not included with this package
  • A $25 fee will be charged to use an existing telephone number with this prize.  No fee will be charged to turn up a new telephone number.
  • Optional E911 service charge will be $5.00 per month per physical location.  If the phones are the only physical phones in each location, this service is required and mandated by the FCC.
  • Prize winner is responsible for paying any taxes for any additional services

To win this prize, you have to come to Festivus, buy some raffle tickets, and put them in the bucket in front of the Bitnetix prize.  At the end of the evening, the ticket drawn from the bucket wins the prize!!

When:  Dec-04-2012, 5:30-8:00pm
Where:  Rochester Museum and Science Center (657 East Ave, Rochester, NY 14606)
Admission:  Free for DR supporting members, $5.00 for non-members
Raffle tickets:  20 for $20 or 50 for $40!
Parking available in the RMSC parking lot, and street parking on East Ave or the Church of the Incarnate Word Lutheran Church (597 East Ave)