One of the biggest decisions that a company must make in today's market is whether to continue to rely on their on-premise IT equipment or to embrace a hosted or cloud-based solution.
This topic will be discussed in detail later this afternoon at ITEXPO East 2012, where executives from Fonality, Integra Telecom, Siemens Enterprise Communication and Cbeyond (News 
- Alert) will dig into the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
The session, titled Triumphs and Pitfalls: Hosted, Cloud or On-Premise?, kicks off at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 1 at the Miami Convention Center, and is expected to be one of the more well-attended presentations at ITEXPO East 2012.
Before heading down south, TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Terhani had the opportunity to catch up with one of the speakers at the session, Richard Shimizu, Director of Product Management and Development at Integra Telecom, to talk about some recent market trends and all things cloud.
Integra launched its initial suite of cloud solutions in 2011, and just last week introduced its second cloud-based product line, Integra Collaboration & Messaging Services, which enables customers to access the latest versions of Microsoft's business productivity applications from the cloud.
Shimizu says that the new Microsoft-based software suite will be a big differentiator because it will allow mobile users to tap into their Exchange email, calendar and company directory from on-the-go.
Check out the complete interview below to hear Shimizu's thoughts on a number of topics, including common challenges facing today's customers, the future of the premises-based PBX (News - Alert) market and the role of social media in the Web 2.0 world. Attendees can also head to his ITEXPO session to hear from Shimizu directly.
What was the most significant technological advancement in the past 12 months and why?
Wireless data transfer – the move to 4G. With a faster data rate, 4G will offer better wireless connection to web-based content.
What has been the biggest trend in your market segment and how is it impacting your customers?
Consolidation in the telecom space as the largest players gave up trying to build cloud offerings and acquired data center providers. Integration and channel issues risk causing customer confusion in 2012 and beyond.
What is the biggest challenge facing your customers today and how is your company helping address that challenge?
The increasing complexity of managing telecom and IT environments and the move toward cloud adoption are creating new challenges for customers. Integra is helping its customers by providing a one-stop shop with the launch of new hosted/cloud services in security and collaboration and messaging.
How has the cloud impacted your business? How has it impacted your customers?
A few decades ago, the telecom industry was all about the voice call; now voice is an application that uses only a small amount of bandwidth that was deployed to handle data. Voice is in the process of integrating with many other IT applications that are destined for the cloud; this includes email, presence, collaboration, security and more.
Will cloud-based communications expedite the end of the premises-based PBX market?
Yes! With cloud-based communications, the capabilities of an IP PBX are shifted to computers and the primary cost/benefit driver for a PBX, which was least cost routing, gets a major boost because VoIP calls are routed over existing data networks and off landlines. Additionally, cloud based self-service capabilities provide cloud communications customers with a degree of control never possible in a legacy voice environment.
What approach has your business taken to social media?
Integra views social media as an opportunity to listen and engage directly with our customers and partners in a real-time dialogue about what’s important to them. We’ve engaged in a number of positive conversations by sharing resources and providing support to our customer base. While we’ve seen some early successes, last year was spent laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive social media strategy being rolled out in 2012.
If you have implemented a social media program, have you been able to evaluate your program’s success?
We are still in the early stages of rolling out our social media program but there are measures in place to evaluate the success. We’ve developed a number of quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. We’ve also invested in Radian6, which is one of the best social media monitoring tools available to help with the evaluation and tuning of our strategies.
Does every business need a social media presence? Why or why not?
Absolutely. Whether or not you as a business choose to use social media, your customers and potential customers are using these channels to seek advice about your products and services. More importantly, your competition is using them to find business. Every business needs a social media presence if it wants to stay competitive today.
With Microsoft touting tight integration between its mobile and desktop OS, can it become a major competitor in the enterprise mobile market?
The integration should actually create new opportunities for Integra’s Hosted Unified Communications (News - Alert) efforts to be a piece of the solution across IT, mobility and telecom
What can attendees expect from your company at ITEXPO?
We launched our cloud computing suite of solutions last fall with the Cloud Firewall Service, based on the next generation of firewall security technology that goes beyond the traditional port blocking protection of existing firewalls, and incorporates the latest advances in application threat detection and management.
This week, we launched a second product in the suite, Integra Collaboration & Messaging Services. Our customers can now utilize the latest versions of Microsoft business productivity tools -- Exchange, Outlook, Lync, SharePoint -- hosted on secure servers or an affordable monthly fee. This enables them to support an increasingly mobile workforce by synchronizing their smart phones with their Exchange email, calendar and company directory.
Integra will continue to expand in the cloud computing market in 2012 with a full array of cloud management, voice, collaboration, security and email systems that enable businesses to improve the quality and security of their services while reducing capital expenses.
Make one technology prediction for 2012 and consider its impact.
In 2012, don’t expect to see the megamerger feeding frenzy that we saw in 2011. Instead, look for smaller, more strategic buy-outs that will ratchet up carriers’ abilities to compete with specialized apps in the cloud-managed services space.
Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend the Cloud Communications Expo, collocated with TMC’s ITEXPO East 2012, happening NOW, in Miami, FL. The Cloud Communications Expo will address the growing need of businesses to integrate and leverage cloud based communications applications, process enhancement techniques, and network based communications interfaces and architectures. For more information on registering for the Cloud Communications Expo click here.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
