Virtual Office Resource

Australian communications service provider Optus (News - Alert) today launched a new cloud-based business communications solution aimed at small and medium businesses. Small and medium businesses have been strategic focuses for Optus since the company’s brand relaunch a year ago this month.

Called Loop, this new service includes an automated attendant, call usage management, desktop and file sharing, instant messaging, presence, a soft client, videoconferencing, voice communications, and voicemail-to-email capabilities. It also enables small and medium businesses to combine mobile and wireline communications so calls can be answered on a desk phone or a cellular device, or can be transferred seamlessly from one to the other.

Loop is powered by BroadCloud. That is BroadSoft’s (News - Alert) managed service that can fast track the deployment of cloud services.

Optus offers base, plus, and premium versions of Loop. And it is priced in either pay-as-you-go or monthly plans.

“We are turning the PABX on its head, by helping reduce the costly infrastructure so SMBs can do away with clunky and expensive telephony systems to now run their business seamlessly and easily on a fixed and mobile integrated service,” said Matthew Ball, the head of small and medium business at Optus.

A 2015 BroadSoft survey indicates unified communications’ cloud market share will increase six fold by 2020, when it’s expected to reach 41 percent. The company says that cloud-based UC is poised to grow by more than seven times in the mid-market arena.

Global Market Insights says the overall UC market is poised to reach $96 billion by 2023. And it notes the expected proliferation of hosted products in this category.

And more than 70 percent of respondents to a recent survey conducted by IntelliCom and TMC (News - Alert) indicated they are now actively using public cloud-based UC services to some degree. Meanwhile, 26 percent said they are using them broadly across their organization.