| By Wireless News Desk |
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| April 10, 2007 02:45 PM EDT |
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The perfect storm is brewing in the business communications industry that will usher in a fundamental and dramatic shift in how business communications are provided. Smoothstone IP Communications is in the eye of this storm, changing the way enterprises across the country view communications services. The result is a profound impact on costs and efficiency and how communications providers offer their equipment and services.
Smoothstone, the leading provider of enterprise-class communication services nationwide, is capitalizing on two major enterprise trends. First, all communications services—voice, data and video—are transitioning away from separate networks into one converged network based on an Internet Protocol (IP) delivery platform, replacing traditional telecommunications equipment and their separate silos of legacy networks. Second, software is trending away from a packaged delivery model to a service delivery model. This software as a service (SaaS) model, which has made Salesforce.com and NetSuite successful, makes software accessed over a network connection from an externally hosted platform.
What if IP communication services could be delivered in much the same way software services are hosted today? What if an enterprise could collapse its multiple data, voice and video networks along with its equipment suppliers, installation and maintenance vendors and its multiple communication function, feature and application providers into one single provider? This business communications delivery model is known as “Converged Communications as a Service” (CCaaS), and it promises to have a dramatic impact in terms of both cost for the enterprise and how business communications suppliers do business.
“The coming triumph of CCaaS is inevitable,” predicts Paul E. Borgman, chief executive officer of Smoothstone. “It represents the ‘endgame’ of how all business communications will be delivered in the near future. Current vendors in the business communications ecosystem will be forced to change the way they do business.”
The CCaaS approach offers a host of advantages for enterprises that can have a powerful impact their bottom lines. CCaaS minimizes upfront investment and installation efforts and costs, while also lowering ongoing expenses. Businesses can buy only as much bandwidth and services as they need because a CCaaS provider will only charge by the user each month. Upgrades and service performance monitoring are also handled by the provider, allowing IT departments to focus on higher-value activities specific to their particular businesses.
Smoothstone is the industry’s first CCaaS provider. The company has developed an IP services delivery platform capable of providing clients with a single source for all of their communications needs, from basic dial-tone to sophisticated automated call distribution and contact center management. Smoothstone provides centrally managed communication services -- including VoIP -- over a private, nationwide network, with local dial tone available in more than 6,200 local calling areas.
The CCaaS approach drills down even further to transform the way companies do business by improving the way they collaborate and communicate with their customers, suppliers and business partners. Once a company’s users are supported by one converged, IP-based network and one software-based IP communications platform, they have access to a while new level of communication and service management possibilities. For instance, users in different company offices and even home users can all function as one “virtual” call center. Managers can dynamically monitor and manage employees, call flow patterns and queues along with overall staffing levels from secure Web portals.
CCaaS promises to have an equally significant impact on the business communication ecosystem. Smoothstone predicts the antiquated multi-vendor way of delivering communications-related products will die, ushering in a business communication industry consisting of three primary types of providers: IP network bandwidth providers to provide highly reliable and ubiquitous connectivity, end user device manufacturers to offer anywhere communications and the CCaaS provider to tie all of the features, functions and applications together.
“The current manufacturers of on premise PBX, gateway and other unnecessary communication infrastructure equipment and software will fight it all the way, but they will ultimately lose in the end,” said Borgman.
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