Internet Fax Feature: RingCentral Exceeds Expectations in 2009; Looks to Bullish 2010

The idea of strong business performance in 2009 was not always a reality for a number of companies in the telecommunications industry. For RingCentral, business exceeded expectations. In an interview with TMCnet, Praful Shah, RingCentral’s (News - Alert) vice president of strategy, noted that as fixed line phones drastically decrease, cloud based business phone systems are rapidly dominating. In offering affordability and flexibility in such solutions as fax from the desktop, RingCentral continues to thrive.


Two new major announcements for RingCentral in 2009 included the RingCentral Office and RingCentral Mobile for smartphones. The former is the industry’s first complete, cloud computing based business phone system with one low, flat, fixed monthly fee. The latter extends its business phone services to smartphones for RingCentral customers. The company’s ability to eliminate the need for businesses to spend capital on expensive on-premise legacy phone systems continues to help drive its success.

Looking ahead to 2010, Shah and RingCentral are anticipating strong growth in the virtual office environment. With more people working remotely, mobile communications in everything from email to fax are important to drive productivity. With its cloud based business phone system, RingCentral offers a strong value proposition. The company has plans for some major new releases that are expected to bring huge productivity benefits to its customers.

The complete interview follows:
 

Praful Shah: Business has been strong for RingCentral in 2009 and continues to exceed expectations. The difficult economic time has meant that businesses do not want solutions that require thousands of dollars of capital expenses. Legacy on-premise business phone systems are not only extremely expensive, but are also designed for old-world centralized office environments that do not incorporate Internet and mobile phones. 

As fixed line phones drastically decrease, cloud based business phone systems are rapidly becoming the norm. Businesses need employees to connect regardless of their location. With multiple extensions, voice mail boxes, and the capability to have employees associated with various departments like sales, billing, or support, RingCentral can work with all types of existing fixed-line and mobile phones to create a more cohesive office environment. RingCentral eliminates the need for any new equipment. It delivers a cloud based business phone system that is designed for the modern mobile and distributed business world, at a fraction of the cost to that of traditional phone systems. Its affordability and flexibility has allowed for RingCentral to thrive in a weak economy.

 

PS: We announced two new major and exciting products in 2009: RingCentral Office and RingCentral Mobile for smartphones.

 

RingCentral Office is the industry's first complete, cloud computing based business phone system with one low, flat, fixed monthly fee, no contracts and zero setup costs. RingCentral Office combines a hosted multi-extension business phone system with advanced voice and fax functionality, always-on service, unlimited calling and full-featured phones that arrive pre-configured and ready for use. Small businesses can begin using the RingCentral Office phone system within minutes with the click of a mouse. Traditional business phone systems cost thousands of dollars to set up and maintain. By eliminating the need for complex hardware, lengthy installation and technical expertise, small businesses get the functionality and flexibility to easily connect with customers at a fraction of the cost of a traditional PBX (News - Alert) phone system.

PS: RingCentral Mobile extends its business phone system services to SmartPhones for RingCentral customers. Now RingCentral customers are able to receive and forward all business visual voice mails and faxes from their iPhone. They can make calls from their SmartPhone using their business identity rather than their personal mobile number and give the appearance that they are calling from the office.  This is important for a lot of customers.  In fact the recent RingCentral customer survey showed that a vast majority, nearly 80 percent, of businesses want to give the impression that their employees are in the office when receiving or making business phone calls outside of the office. This underscores the fact that professional communications are critical to business owners but traditional on-premise phone systems are not designed to meet the needs of a distributed work force.

 

PS: The difficult economic environment has been good for RingCentral’s business since we eliminate the need for businesses to spend capital on expensive on-premise legacy phone systems.  Some of the best innovations delivered are adopted by businesses during difficult economic times.  Businesses also reduce their fixed cost on office real estate space.  In fact, a recent RingCentral customer survey showed that nearly 50 percent of their employees spent more than three quarters of their time working outside of a physical centralized office environment.  Clearly the on-premise business phone system cannot solve the problems faced by this type of business environment. Cloud based business phone systems are the best choice and RingCentral is the leader in this space.

 

 

PS: Yes, that is important for everyone.  But we need to understand that the companies will be very careful in the way they expand and how much fixed cost they would be willing to commit.  We clearly are not going to go back to the boom times. In fact the same RingCentral survey showed that while two thirds of the companies plan to expand in 2010, nearly 60% of those companies expect to hire people in a virtual office environment.  This results in more people working remotely with mobile capabilities in order to eliminate the need for increased office real estate costs.

 

 

PS: RingCentral has a compelling value proposition with its cloud based business phone system.   Most market projections show rapid adoption of cloud based solutions over the next few years. Being a leader in our sector we expect to have a strong 2010.  We are planning to have major new releases of our service platform which will bring huge productivity benefits to our customers. That combined with a somewhat stronger economic environment make us bullish for 2010.