In the small Canadian companies that make a big impact category, Ottawa-based firm Parliant just won the coveted Editor's Choice Award (Eddy) from MacWorld Magazine for its PhoneValet product:

Parliant's PhoneValet Message Center 4.0 (July 2006) does one simple thing--but does it so well, it's hard to believe that no one else has done it before. Previous editions of the program have established PhoneValet as the premier telephone message-recording system for the Mac; version 4 has cemented that leadership position. The app now does a lot more than answer calls. It can also dial, record, log, and search through your calls; it'll also automatically forward them to your cell phone when you're on the road. Despite all those new skills, PhoneValet Message Center 4.0 is still one of those apps you can set up and never think about again.--JIM DALRYMPLE

Now in Version 5, PhoneValet is an inexpensive phone messaging management system that provides services you never knew you needed until they change the way you work. Does your business need to record entire calls? Before PhoneValet came along this was a pain to accomplish. Now it's simple. Want to leave a custom message for a specific client? Easily done. How about forwarding certain calls to another number? PhoneValet manages that and more.

Consultants will find the product especially useful as it can log calls and their duration to specific projects then export that data to a spreadsheet.

"Parliant products service the needs of small office, home and home office users," says Parliant's Founder and CEO Kevin Ford. "This award proves that today's small businesses can be as global as the imaginations of entrepreneurs. Before Parliant started building product, we started building systems that automated e-commerce, customer service, and support. Beyond that, Parliant outsources manufacturing, marketing, and order fulfillment. Today's Eddy award proves that small is beautiful."

Past Eddy award winners include the iPod nano, Flickr and Skype. The award for PhoneValet - a telephony tool popular with small businesses - signals the Mac's growing market share with small businesses attracted to Apple's "it just works" promise.

Here are some of the specs:

Voice Mail

• Voice mail can present menus of choices arranged into a call tree.


• Unlimited voice mailboxes accessed with touch-tones (allows for multi-digit mailboxes). Mailboxes can be individually enabled and disabled


• Multiple lines supported with simultaneous answering and recording


• Patent-pending Call Completion Technology™ enables you to build an automated attendant system without using an expensive office phone switch.


• Overrides let you change call trees at different times of day or on different lines (for lunch time, nights, etc..)


• Main greeting and greetings for each mailbox — importable from audio files, recordable from system microphone (if present) or generated using Apple speech synthesis


• Audio playback controls integrated with call logging feature, audio files available in filesystem for advanced users


• Functions no matter what user is logged in and even works when no users are logged in


• New-calls interface allows easy access to new and flagged messages


• Check messages by calling in (protected by secret codes). Listen to new, flagged or all messages. Replay, save and erase messages quickly


• Messages can be emailed to others using standard email attachments. PhoneValet not required by email recipients to listen to messages