It’s not just large enterprises that are enjoying all the benefits associated with cloud services anymore, as small- and medium-businesses (SMBs) are taking to the new technology at a rapid fire pace this year. Whether it’s because of the CAPEX and OPEX (News - Alert) benefits cloud affords, the compliance requirements it can meet or the scalability it can boast, the cloud offers a plethora of benefits and, accordingly, the US market is expected to reach $15.1 billion in cloud service sales this year, according to a report released today.
The study determined that as SMBs look to expand upon their use of cloud services, service providers will have significant opportunities to meet their needs. And since each SMB will have different needs for cloud services that it needs addressed, service providers will have multiple opportunities to innovate.
“By becoming familiar with each of these SMB audiences and targeting them with the services they need, service providers will be able to profit from this impressive ongoing growth in the U.S. cloud services market,” the report, titled Parallels SMB Cloud Insights, stated.
As the cloud market takes off in the SMB, spending in that market will be itemized into hosted communication and collaboration, including business e-mail and hosted PBX, at $2.2 billion; hosted infrastructure at $5.9 billion; Web presence services, with $2.7 billion; and business, or SaaS (News - Alert) applications, at $4.3 billion, the report said. Small businesses without employees will spend another $1.6 billion.
Although most SMBs plan to double their purchase of cloud applications over the next three years, medium businesses are more interested in purchasing hosted PBX (News - Alert) and phone conferencing services while small and micro companies are more interested in exploring backup, file sharing and accounting and e-mail achieving services.
Whether small or medium in size, however, all SMBs stand to benefit a great deal from cloud services, particularly hosted PBX offerings. PBX, or in other words a business phone system, is an integral part of establishing a reputable communications system as it allows SMBs to handle incoming calls in a professional manner, save time and money, and boast convenient internal communications. One company paving the way for SMBs to adopt PBXs is Sonetel, the only company worldwide offering a free, scalable PBX service.
“The value of PBX depends on how you define PBX,” Henrik Thomé, CEO and founder of Sonetel, told TMCnet. “Our perspective is that this is the single most way to get a professional front end and then you get a free internal communications standard. If you have employees spread around you know you can always reach them easily and you can communicate for free as long as people have IP-telephony device within reach. So reachability is 100 percent, and when people answer with an IP phone – the cost is zero.”
Hosted PBX services, like the one offered by Sonetel, offer a multitude of advantages for companies with offices in multiple locations. With a hosted PBX, companies can access the full features of the phone system from any location, enjoy slashed support costs as well as costs for interoffice calls, and improved support for traveling employees.
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Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Rich Steeves