Small Business VoIP

8x8 (News - Alert) Inc. has reportedly signed an agreement with SYNNEX Corporation, a business process services company, which gives SYNNEX the right to distribute 8x8’s Packet8 Virtual Office hosted iPBX phone service through its network of resellers.

The deal will help 8x8 bolster sales of its leading business VoIP service and will enable SYNNEX (News - Alert) and its partners to offer a highly reliable, all-IP-based phone system to small to medium sized businesses, thus bringing in new revenue streams.

Now in use by more than 9,000 U.S. companies, Packet8 Virtual Office is a hosted PBX solution offering a slew of features found in much more expensive, on-premise phone systems used by large enterprises. Going with a hosted telephony solution affords many advantages for smaller sized businesses. For one thing, there is very little up front cost, because you don’t need to purchase any on-premise equipment and have someone install it, plus there are no whopping one-time licensing fees for software. All you really need is a broadband connection and the phones. There is also much lower operating cost, as the system is maintained by 8x8, as opposed to staff in your IT department. Plus with its convenient “pay-as-you-go” pricing model, your telephony costs now take the form of a recurring line item in your monthly operating budget – so there are no “surprises” when equipment breaks or things go wrong. Perhaps best of all is the fact that you only pay for the amount of service you use – just like any other utility. Yet another huge advantage is the fact that the system is highly scalable: you can add lines whenever they are needed, plus, if your business expands out to multiple locations, the system can be readily expanded in such a way that all locations are treated as a whole PBX (News - Alert) system (with extension dialing and call transfer between all end points). Through its simple to use Web interface, the system can be managed centrally, plus you get flexible reporting on all telephony activity – who is calling who, and when, and where – all broken down for you in whatever “views” you wish. In this sense you will be able to manage your communications usage and hence lower your expenses in ways you simply can’t with traditional phone systems.

SYNNEX will be offering this powerful solution as part of its Technology-as-a-Service (TaaS) offering.

"We are pleased that SYNNEX, one of the leading business process services companies in North America, has selected Packet8 Virtual Office as a hosted VoIP TaaS offering it will recommend to its customers," said 8x8 Vice President of Sales & Marketing Huw Rees (News - Alert) in a press release. "Through our partnership with SYNNEX, we expect that market visibility for Virtual Office will increase significantly as thousands of resellers and VARs throughout North America begin to educate their clients about the merits of remote on-demand services such as VoIP."

The allure of going with a hosted VoIP system is becoming harder and harder for small business owners to resist. An IDC (News - Alert) study published in August predicts that the market for hosted VoIP services among U.S. businesses will reach about $456 million by the end of 2008.

"With the increased adoption of remote on-demand services by the small business community, SYNNEX resellers now have a tangible opportunity to expand their serviceable market with a hosted VoIP solution that offers a unique and very compelling value proposition," said Bob Stegner, senior vice president, marketing for North America, at SYNNEX Corporation. "The Packet8 Virtual Office system is an ideal remote on-demand VoIP solution for the SMB because it combines PBX functionality and dial tone in a no-maintenance service that is reliable, scalable and, most importantly, affordable."

8x8, Inc. is the second largest standalone VoIP service provider in the U.S. In addition to its Virtual Office offering it also offer its Packet8 VoIP service to residential users. The residential service offers an impressive range of calling features plus unlimited anytime calling to the U.S., Canada and eight additional countries.

8x8 also offers the Packet8 Tango Video Terminal Adapter which lets users make video conferencing calls to other users with that same capability.

A close relative of the Packet8 Virtual Office solution is the Packet8 Complete Contact Center solution, a hosted multimedia call center distribution and management platform that works with any broadband Internet service and provides enterprise class contact center functionality combined with Virtual Office hosted iPBX calling features and business calling plans.

For more information, visit www.8x8.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

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