One of the hottest topics being discussed these days by carriers and VoIP service providers is SaaS (News - Alert), or “software as a service.” More and more applications are now being delivered over broadband Internet connections as on-demand services, rather than locally installed software.

 

The benefits of SaaS increasingly are being leveraged not just by consumers and small to medium sized businesses (SMBs), but by enterprises as well. This fact is not lost on companies like Google (News - Alert), which recently upgraded its Apps programs (e-mail, word processor, spreadsheet) to appeal to business users. Salesforce.com (News - Alert) has also been in the news often with its portfolio of on-demand business applications.

 

At the same time that SaaS is becoming increasingly relevant in the business world, another trend is underway: the reinvention of the business communications industry. This is characterized by what’s generally referred to as “communications convergence,” an industry term that refers to voice, data and video being transmitted over a single Internet Protocol (IP) network, instead of using three separate networks as in the past.

 

SaaS and communications convergence both offer economic benefits along with new features. These new trends also are changing the way companies do business, and the way service providers design and deploy their offerings.

 

In a recently published white paper, IP communications company Smoothstone looks at these two trends and predicts that they are coming together in a new delivery model, converged communications as a service (CCaaS).

 

Just what is CCaaS? It’s what will happen when the SaaS delivery model is applied to the concept of communications convergence. CCaaS “It is the inevitable sum of these two paradigm shifts that produces the 1+1=3 impact on the communications industry that will be its endgame,” Smoothstone says in its upcoming white paper.

 

Smoothstone defines SaaS as “software delivered as an on-demand service, accessed over a network connection, from an externally hosted platform.” There are many advantages to this delivery model; a few are:

 

The advantages of the SaaS model can be applied to any type of software, including applications used for such disparate functions as human resource management, ERP/supply chain management, marketing resource management, finance and accounting, desktop software.

 

The real power of SaaS, though, is realized when it meets up with converged communications, which offers the advantages of lower network construction and maintenance costs, new features, and communications supplier consolidation. When SaaS joins with converged communications, the advantages listed for SaaS above are realized for the communications functions of businesses.

 

Smoothstone predicts that CCaaS “will have a profound affect on all types of business communication suppliers, from equipment manufacturers to carriers and circuit providers to applications and software developers -- as well as to those involved in the marketing, sales, distribution and servicing all of these.”

 

CCaaS will not only bring advantages to the existing communications infrastructure of companies, but “CCaaS providers can deliver a whole new, second level of communication management optimization applications,” Smoothstone says.

 

Three examples of such applications are:

 

These types of applications will transform the way companies do business. The full advantages of CCaaS cannot be realized, however, until the old, multi-vendor model of delivering communications-related products is discarded.

 

As this change occurs, opportunities will arise for CCaaS providers—companies with both the technical expertise to build and fully manage a converged communications network and IP-based platform, and the professional services approach needed to deliver converged communications as a service.

 

If they play their cards right, many of the VoIP service providers today will become CCaaS providers. Smoothstone predicts that these providers will partner with end-user device manufacturers and IP network bandwidth providers, to serve the communications needs of the business world.

 

To succeed in the emerging CCaaS market, Smoothstone says that VoIP service providers will need to provide overall communication service quality covering both uptime and transmission. They will also need to have the ability to innovate with new features, functions and applications.

 

“An entirely new kind of communications services provider -- the CCaaS provider – and will ultimately dominate the delivery of business communications of all sizes,” Smoothstone predicts.

 

To learn more about how VoIP service providers can become CCaaS providers, please visit Smoothstone’s TMCnet.com channel, VoIP Service Providers.