Noting a report in TechCrunch, industry observer Jim Duffy says Cisco (News - Alert) has “upped its investment” in a provider of cloud-based VoIP.
RingCentral raised $10 million in new funding from Cisco and new investor Scale Venture Partners, Duffy noted, adding that “Cisco helped fund a previous $45 million round for RingCentral, along with Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, DAG Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.”
As he explains, RingCentral provides cloud-based business phone systems “designed for mobile and distributed businesses,” and was looking to eliminate the need for on-premise legacy phone systems by “combining a hosted, multi-extension phone and fax system -- essentially a virtual business phone system.”
In June TMC’s (News - Alert) Mandira Srivastava wrote that to modernize telecommunications infrastructures and add interactive communications to business processes, Rogers Communications (News - Alert) selected RingCentral to provide a cloud business phone system for Rogers' small business customers in Canada.
Rogers Hosted IP Voice, powered by RingCentral, provides customers the functionality of a business phone system without the high cost or complexity of a traditional on-premise hardware PBX (News - Alert).
“We understand that for small businesses, seamless connections with customers are crucial to maintaining a professional image,” said John Boynton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Rogers.
RingCentral capabilities include auto-receptionist, multiple voicemail boxes, call routing, business answering rules, extension dialing, call transfers, and integration with smartphones, and in addition to IP phones, Duffy wrote, RingCentral supports analog phones through an Analog Telephone Adapter using an IP link, or it can forward calls to any phone whether or not it is connected to an ATA.
Rogers Hosted IP Voice offers a complete hosted phone and fax system, unlimited local and long distance calling and faxing (anywhere within the US and Canada), pre-configured IP phones (delivered ready with plug-n-ring capability); rich Smartphone applications for Apple (News - Alert), Android, and BlackBerry platforms; multiple extensions; multiple voice mail boxes; call management and call routing for real-time call control; Internet fax; and more.
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 Jennifer Russell