Unified Communications, Hosted Services and SMBs

It is widely accepted that this class of organization forms the bulk of the business universe. But, like dark matter in the universe, the SMB market is hard for vendors and service providers to see. Small businesses are isolated and often are not sophisticated about communications tools. They are more costly and difficult to sell to. In short, it's far easier for a vendor or service provider to land one 10,000-employee account than beat the bushes for 10 that each employ 1,000 people.

Enter unified communications and enter hosting.

Unified communications is particularly attractive to SMBs because, when used correctly, it can make them seem like their more substantial cousins to partners, vendors and, most importantly, current and prospective customers. It also can increase efficiency, a huge advantage for the SMB sector, in which companies fight tooth and nail for every small advantage.

The hosted angle is a potent way to approach this market. Hosted offerings give SMBs the ability to offload ownership of gear and the need to hire folks with specialized IT and telecom talents. Being able to pay a monthly fee to avoid headaches and, at the same time, receive what at the end of the day likely will be better service than on-premise platforms is a bit of a no-brainer. Vendors and service providers benefit by finding a way to meaningfully address this fragmented but important sector.

All of this common sense makes it unsurprising that there is news in the hosted UC space for SMBs. Today, InterCall – which bills itself as “the world’s largest conferencing and collaboration service provider” -- launched InterCall Hosted Unified Communications. The platform includes Microsoft Exchange, Office Communicator, SharePoint, Active Directory and the Cisco UC Manager. The release says that those tools are bundled with InterCall’s audio conferencing and custom options.

Last week, Microsoft, BroadSoft and Alteva announced that they are partnering on a hosted UC platform. The deal, according to Alteva, will focus on the interconnection of its hosted voice and messaging offerings with Microsoft Communications Services, which include Exchange, SharePoint and Office Communications Server.

Earlier this year, Intermedia unveiled a hosted UC service for SMBs based on proprietary products of the software development firm Unison. The company says that the service, called hosted Unison, consolidates telephony, e-mail, chat, presence, contacts, calendar, IM and other services in an Internet-delivered platform. The services, the release says, are hosted by Intermedia, which offers migration tools and 24x7 support from four data centers.

If UC is going to make a dent in the lucrative SMB market, it seems certain that hosted approaches – such as these three -- will be key.