Acredo

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Erin Bolton, marketing manager of Acredo Technologies Inc, about IP communications, the company’s customer base and the upcoming ITEXPO.
 
Acredo Technologies delivers hosted IP phone service to the small business market and the company’s mission is to "Build and manage a recognized brand in the hosted IP-Centrex space for small business in North America.”
 
This past February TMC chose Acredo Technologies as one of the winners of its prestigious “Best of Show” at its Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. Please read more about it here.
 
Please outline your new corporate initiatives.
 
Acredo Technologies will provide a hosted IP phone service that small businesses can afford and manage. Acredo’s offering is a bundled solution integrating technology from our best of breed partners including Avaya, AT&T, HP, Cisco and Oracle. The partners we have chosen will allow us to create the most reliable and highest quality calling experience with VoIP technology. Acredo is making IP telephony simpler, more convenient and time saving with service to the extreme for small business.
 
How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
 
IP communications allows integration with other applications and leverages all of a company’s technology investments. It adds productivity to everyone by simplifying and reducing the time to do many of the tasks before IP. Virtual workers are now common and mobility now has a more important part in servicing the customer.
 
How has SIP changed communications?
 
SIP has created a standard set of rules for telephony developers and manufacturers to adhere to, making more things possible through the integration of many products. Without SIP standards the IP network would not be able to support Telecom as we know it.
 
What is the biggest request coming from your customer base?
 
The basic business telephone needs to provide small business the same capabilities that medium and large companies have with their advanced PBX systems without the complexity that requires on premises staff to maintain the system.
 
How are you answering their demands?
 
Acredo is providing the closest thing to a "plug and play" solution for small business by turning VoIP into a service and bundling everything needed into one price. This approach will give small business all of the rewards and none of the risks with a "pay as you go, pay as you grow" strategy.
 
What do you think the future of the market is?
 
Small businesses will do for IP telephony what they did for personal computing. Once there is a quality and affordable solution, it will become ubiquitous very quickly.
 
How does the growth rate in the U.S. compare to the rest of the world?
 
The U.S. may be slightly ahead in concepts and in deployment of on premise systems at the present time. At the moment there isn’t a real market leader for small businesses to follow in the hosted arena and without this it is anybody’s guess how the future will play out.
 
What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
 
Non-telecom companies are somewhat inhibited by their legacy. It takes more than bright people with money to succeed in telecom. These companies will be able to come up with some interesting products, but the true winners are likely to be from the established telecom companies or new players like Acredo.
 
How about Microsoft?
 
Integration with Microsoft’s enterprise applications is a must, but Microsoft has misfired before in telecom with Tapi and Tapi II. Their partnerships with Avaya and Nortel along with others speak to their strategy of being a strategic component in the telephony paradigm shift to IP and the importance integration to applications will play.
 
How will wireless technologies change our market?
 
Mobility is still the "Killer App" of the decade. Google has nailed the issue as access to all information from any place. One example of this is the mobile phone. The access point of presence will be the mobile phone/device.
 
How will communications evolve over the next five years?
 
Instant communications with almost 100 percent call completion rates will drive applications and technologies to deliver increased productivity from the virtual worker and improvements in customer service.
 
What sorts of things will we be hearing about during your presentation at ITEXPO?
 
They will hear why the hosted environment can provide so much efficiency and value to small and medium contact centers and how to capitalize on the strengths of other hosted applications like Sales Force and Sugar CRM.
 
Why is your presentation a "Can’t Miss?"
 
I will present a case study that shows how the hosted PBX is changing the future of contact centers. I will show that the hosted PBX when combined with a hosted CRM is the easiest, most flexible and least expensive way for a contact center to deploy and grow. Today, the Hosted PBX can add value to companies of all sizes.
 
What do you want the industry to know about your company?
 
Acredo Technologies is part of global partnership of companies that has developed our own softswitch architecture designed specifically for small business. With deployments in Japan, Acredo’s strategy is to establish the standard for quality, value and service in the hosted market for small business in North America.
 
Please make one surprising prediction we will see in 5 year.
 
(The Cubs will win the World Series. hehehe)  All PC’s will come VoIP enabled with soft phones.

  • Noureen
    August 23, 2009 at 11:49 am

    The IP Market is becoming very tight market. I have seen many companies from big or small walked away from this sector because of competition and not much profit in it.

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