David Meintjes, MD of Connection Telecom, was recently quoted in IT News Africa saying in recent years, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) “has proved itself a stable, quality successor to ‘dumb’ telephone systems, a technology that not only saves costs but also improves efficiency and enhances business processes.”
The reason VoIP hosting is viable in the cloud these days, one reason anyway, as Meintjes points out, is low-cost uncapped ADSL. Now you can have a managed telephony service, with all the benefits, “and none of the problems of owning and running it.”
Not a bad deal, we must say. Meintjes highlights some of the other advantages of cloud VoIP:
Business efficiencies. “Multiple communications and collaboration applications can coexist cost-effectively – such as multimedia conferencing, call centers, instant messaging, e-mail, instant office productivity and more.” Plus presence technology cuts down on business travel immensely, saving time and money all around.
Managed services. This, of course, is one of the blinding another central benefit to hosting your PBX (News - Alert) in the cloud -- all you do is write one check and everything is taken care of. Management, security, updates, you don’t need to worry about any of it. Upgrades are installed automatically, and the good cloud PBX providers don’t even charge for the automatic upgrades. You get a nice, predictable monthly fee.
Lower charges. This one can be deceptive. “VoIP phone charges are on the whole lower than cellular or fixed rates,” Meintjes says, and on the whole he’s right, but you still need to figure up the cost yourself for your situation, as they can vary widely. Simply put, financially the move makes sense for some and not for others.
Open standards. As Meintjes notes most VoIP providers, “including cloud PBX suppliers,” do in fact use Asterisk (News - Alert), which makes flexibility and savings much more easily obtainable.
This February TMC’s Laura Stotler wrote that cloud computing, virtualization and VoIP are going to realize major growth in 2011, according to a recent survey from Gartner (News - Alert). The company predicts 43 percent of organizations will embrace cloud computing and virtualization in some form this year, up from just three percent now.
The driving forces behind the push to the cloud will be limited growth opportunities, pressure to bear a low level of risk and rising costs. IT infrastructure will face increased levels of scrutiny from stakeholders as well as internal management. Gartner believes this increasing scrutiny will impact outcomes, operations, users and reporting.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.Edited by Juliana Kenny