At the recently-concluded ITEXPO East 2011 in Miami, TMC CEO Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) had a chance to interview Epygi’s director of Product Management and Marketing, Warren Sonnen (News - Alert).

The company came to the show with “several new products” to showcase, according to TMC’s Janice McDuffee. Epygi CEO Mario Cuello (News - Alert) told McDuffee that the show is “a great place to gather vendors, channels and hopefully end customers to some extent,” and its Miami location adds a “Latin American flavor.”

Sonnen told Tehrani that the company was using the show to feature a couple new products replacing legacy systems. “The reason for that is kind of the main feature we’ve weaved into all our products -- video conferencing,” said Sonnen.

Epygi (News - Alert) is known for its IP PBXs aimed at the SMB space. As Sonnen explained, such products have an expected basic feature set -- call recording, audio conferencing, etc. -- and have added video conferencing.

This isn’t unusual to see in the SMB space. There are a lot of interesting things happening in the space, and there is an uptake of interest among SMBs, Sonnen said. It’s an expensive technology that can cost thousands of dollars, but Epygi has found a way to offer video conferencing for about $100 a port, bringing it down to make it affordable to many SMBs who couldn’t otherwise consider video conferencing.

There’s true value in being able to communicate via voice and video. Few deny this, but the issue for SMBs has always been “is it affordable for me? I like it, but will I see the ROI?” That’s the market Epygi sees as its sweet spot.

The company is also looking to become more of a player in the small enterprise space. As Sonnen explained, it’s been offering up to 200 extensions. But at the Miami show, Epygi featured a product that can reach up to a thousand ports supporting about 300 concurrent calls. Sonnen said the inspiration for that wasn’t simply big for big’s sake, but the company noticed customers were stacking their previous 200-extension offerings together and decided to make something with all that capability out of the box.

Sonnen detailed the extraordinary lengths the company goes to ensure that a wide range of products are compatible with its PBX (News - Alert) offerings, gateways, the core of the company, keeping libraries of software, and testing repeatedly to make sure “all the buttons work.” Because hey, it’s their focus: “We have no plans to make a phone, or a camera. This is our focus.”