By Dan Baldwin
I've been helping Southern Californai based small and medium sized multi-location business customers choose business phone equipment and business phone services for over twenty years and I've never once had a customer or prospect with a office phone system problem call and ask me for a quote for "unified communications". What they do ask for is some sort of "magic telecom bullet" to make what they've already paid for work "better, longer and cheaper" - especially in today's economy.
Business customers that have heard of unified communications are the ones that have previously had some telephone experience with an "enterprise business" (a business with 1,000 or more employees) where an employee's office desk phone interfaces with their mobile smart phone which interfaces with their office computer. In other words, small business customers equate unified communications or "UC" as a pretty fancy phone system with a very high price tag that only very large companies can afford.
Does "UC" for SMB Exist - and What Does it Look Like?
Unified communications does exist for the small business that needs between 15 and 100 phones, and thanks to Steve Jobs, small business owners already kind of understand UC and are ready to buy it - from UC vendors that can properly explain it - like the four that follow.
Steve Jobs has been indispensable to the UC sales process because all a UC/hosted VoIP/cloud phone system salesperson now has to say is, "You know how your iPhone does phone calls, text messages, video and all kinds of cool apps, right? UC connects all that to your office phone and computer! Is that what you want?"
For every small business owner that owns a smart phone or an iPad the answer is always, "Yes!"
Unfortunately, wanting UC for small business and being able to buy UC for small business (that actually works) can be a daunting task for small business owners, their independent telecom consultants and IT equipment VARs because it does not always work perfectly when operating on top of the public Internet.
How Do You "Buy Right" When Buying UC for Offices Under 100 Phones?
Fortunately, "buying UC right" in the "under 100 phones" sector is a fairly low risk endevour because most smaller businesses will want to have the UC phone solution operate off of their existing Internet connection and computer network.
Unfortunately, without the proper precautions, haphazardly trying different UC phone solutions without an experienced UC "sherpa" showing the way (an independent telecom partner experienced with UC for SMB) can be quite painful due to disruptions in the customer's computer network and phone calls that simply don't work.
Four "UC 4 SMB" Solution Vendors to Start With
Telecom Association members report positive customer experiences in the UC 4 SMB realm when using MegaPath, Broadview Networks, SimpleSignal and 8x8. Following is a brief overview of each of these four vendors. To learn more or to get started on a demonstration please contact your local independent telecom agent or channel sales partner.
MegaPath
MegaPath had primarily been seen as one the the nation's largest data network providers after they merged with Covad that dabbled in "hosted VoIP" but that changed in a big way when they merged with Speakeasy. Speakeasy was one of the most successful hosted VoIP business phone service providers in the US for businesses with under 100 phones.
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