Recently in smb Category

SUTUS sells an Office-in-the-box solution for small business. For 25 and under employees, the Sutus Business Central 200 is a file server, email server, router, wireless access point, and phone system. The BC200 has gotten an upgrade. 

• New User Interface: enhanced Flex technology supports seamless installation, management and use of the Business Central 200, onsite and/or remotely.
• Enhanced Desktop Install Tools: enables the set-up of desktops, VPN clients and mail clients in a matter of minutes.
• Enhanced Network Interoperability: the appliance now can seamlessly co-exist within a customer's legacy local area networks; including active directory, hosted exchange, and existing internet routers.
• VoIP Interoperability: ITSP partners added to the VoIP interop menu now include Bandwidth.com, Airespring, Excel and XO Communications.

It's the telephony upgrade that caught my eye: Call park / retrieve and directed pick-up. Older key systems use call park and most Hosted PBX systems cannot emulate that feature. (Aastra has a PBX that can). Other features include:

• Overhead and handset paging
• Open / closed call flows
• Enhanced directory
• Ability to manage Polycom handsets through user interface

SUTUS is distributed by ScanSource and NETX.

This will be a strange post but Alex Balashov and I had a Twitter exchange today about the telecom industry and its relentless pursuit of arbitrage plays. From long distance to calling card to SIP trunking, it's all about changing the bucket of minutes for something cheaper so someone can make some short change coin. Kind of ridiculous.

I asked where the Purple Cows are. Where's the HD Voice in my Hosted PBX? Where's the mobile component that is stupid easy? 

Alex doesn't like Hosted PBX. "As for Broadsoft, it's an overpriced waste of time. Not because it sucks- it is a very feature complete multitenant engine...its cost simply doesn't scale to what people are willing to pay for hosted PBX and dial tone. Shot up by commoditization." 

I think that there are two camps: one that thinks Voice should be free - and I hear that more from folks IN telecom than from buyers. And these folks simply do not grasp the stranglehold that the ILEC's have on the PSTN, which for years to come will still be the network of the final mile to end user. Yes, cellular is large and cable voice is growing, but most of that traffic still resides on the ILEC operated PSTN. ENUM and Voice Peering domestically in the US has not  reached a level that will cripple the PSTN yet, luckily. (What will we do when that happens?)

The other camp will gladly pay to reliably and clearly communicate with family, friends and customers. 

Maybe I am in the minority but I can't hear folks well on Skype, Magic Jack or cell phones. I for one would like less computer features on my "smartphone" and better clarity, volume controls, and speaker. But that's just me.

Alex does make a good point that all ITSP's need to pay attention to: "No process, no standardisation, no infrastructure = no chance of making money, on something that is a red sea to begin with."  What's a Red Sea? A bloody marketplace built on price, not value. "Develop business processes that can be replicated at decreasing marginal cost, standardize." That at least helps when you live in a Red Ocean.

The Starbucks of Telecom. Who is it? Alex suggests that it is "Ifbyphone, Callfire, and various niche call center and dialer vendors (far from all)." And certainly these companies offer a value add on in a niche way. However, who is providing the dial-tone while delivering a communications experience? (I don't know). I have a laundry list of stuff I want from my Hosted PBX vendor:

• HD Voice
• Easy access on smartphone
• Easy transfer to/from mobile/desktop
• Presence
• Video capability
• IM/Chat
• Email-Voicemail Integrated mailbox
• Voicemail text 
• UM (unified messaging)
• User portal
• Click to call

Alex thinks that the Duopoly is getting better at delivering smaller transactions. I think that they still suck at it and it is costing them a fortune in acquisition cost. Then a fortune more in brand deterioration when people get frustrated with the experience. (Part of is it the B.S. marketing that they have been doing for years that raises the level of expectations to beyond the network to deliver. Can you say More Bars or No Dropped Calls or Best Network?)

Very few Purple Cows in our Industry. And if you think you are one, I suggest you talk to your customers. Why? Because while you may think you deliver a great service, your competitors are taking your customers.

Alex and I did agree that the way SIP Trunking is sold is yet another arbitrage play. "So, I think we agree - trunking in itself is a very mathematically exacting but mostly pointless waste of time.  As far as who captures the value in the non-enterprise VoIP space, you're absolutely right - the very few value-add vendors." 

It's food for thought from twitter.

Alex talks further about TDM - that it is still the winner in reliability, inter-operability, and call quality. 

"From a cost perspective that is a hard OPEX formula to meet. TDM is still the only reliable means of PSTN access. Stuff just doesn't work well. Eventually the smart ones widen up and get cheap TDM circuits, and ISDN gateway boxes. ... 90% of their technical overhead drops off, churn slows, but the margins take a dive unless they got a really good deal. "good deal" usually means meeting an IXC in a hotel and not paying loop on the circuit, just blended usage."

This leads me to wonder what ever happened to Voice Peering and ENUM? Well, one thing is that everyone wanted to start one. There wasn't just one. The rules and connection costs get in the way. Why didn't COMPTEL force its membership into a Voice Peering arrangement in 2005? Add in the Cable Industry, VoIP players, and Sprint's network of cellular minutes and you take a lot of the minutes out of the ILEC's PSTN. Costs drop. Or would they? Seems that the CLEC's would still want Inter-Carrier Compensation since some have this built into their financial model (as it were). Because Bell-heads (traditional telecom execs) don't think the same way that Net-Heads (IP execs) think. The settlement model would have to be forced on them. Even the FCC has balked at that for 10 years. 

Alex doesn't get my Peering point so let me spell it out further. Take Sprint as the manager of the Voice Peering Points in Dallas, NYC, LAX, CHI and maybe VA. CLEC's, cablecos, ITSP's could drop traffic either as TDM or IP on the switch and not pay for termination. A flat rate if you will. But Alex is correct that the settlement issues just won't float. Too many Bell-heads left in charge. 

To mean VoIP was able to take off for 3 reasons: broadband deployment, expensive TDM, and cellular acceptance of crappy call quality. We haven't come much further than that.

The financial activity in the ITSP sector that I am seeing leads me to believe that the ITSP sector is taking off.

• Cypress buying up Reignmaker assets.
• Telesphere got $15M for expansion.
• XCast collecting a $2.7M investment.
• Forbes publishes an article titled The Value of VoIP.

Although there have been analysts who think that IP Lines will slow down, I have to think that in the economic reality we are facing, the distributed workforce, the tele-worker, and the mobility of employees, more and more lines will move to VoIP. For cost savings as well as productivity reasons. 

If lines do slow down it will be due to the following reasons:

• layoffs - less employees = less lines needed
• mobility means less landlines needed
• email, social networks, IM/chat, texting is replacing phone calls.
• over all trend for less phone calls.

There are so many reasons for small and medium businesses (and self-employed persons) to migrate to VoIP that I don't see it being stagnant for long. 

Who to go with?
The one issue is the share number of VoIP Providers (with little differentiation) makes the decision difficult for the business owner. 

Premise versus Hosted
The premise hardware guys are selling their gear as if it was hosted at your site. Many business owners aren't familiar with having such a significant communication service outsourced (off property). It's a strange concept to wrap your head around. Plus there may be changes like cabling and handsets that go with the move that represents too much change for the business owner in today's hectic marketplace.

Blinking Light Syndrome
For productivity to be affected positively at the office by VoIP, the way workers answer and use the phone might have to change. Call park being the biggest one. (But some providers have this solved). Still change is tough.

VoIP Providers Themselves
Many of the people selling VoIP pitch the cost savings. Wrong! There will be changes, so it needs to start with a conversation about how the business operates and uses the current phone system. It takes longer but it is the best approach. Looking at the bill and shaving points off it hasn't been highly successful for CLEC's, who have spent billions to make millions. 

The other side of the ITSP coin is the unclear marketing message. So many companies in the VOIP space do not have an elevator pitch, a positioning statement, or a dumbed-down way of explaining what they do/provide. It makes it hard to market.

And lastly the confusion over what an ITSP is. Here in Tampa I have listened as one ITSP knocks another. That doesn't help at all, especially when the sales person doing it has clue none anyway. The ocean has to be raised witha discussion about why buying Voice over FiOS is not as advantageous for the business owner as Hosted PBX. 

Case studies like Forbes' article will certainly help sell more lines.

When selling VoIP, the conversation should be about productivity, reliability, and security not cost savings. In a poll, VZB "was the surprise top finisher in Infonetics Research's first North America Business VoIP Services Leadership Matrix in both IP Centrex (hosted IP services) and IP connectivity, Infonetics said today."  Main factor: reliability and financial security of VZ. NGT, 8x8, and Cbeyond were next in the poll. "Comcast is moving up fast on hosted VoIP (IP Centrex) services." ITSP need to get a move on.

SUTUS, the maker's of the Business Central 200 office-in-a-box, have announced inter-operability with Excel SIP Trunking.  The real news for the marketplace is that Excel and SUTUS (along with Polycom) are bundling a system for small business.

The Business Central 200 is developed specifically for businesses of up to 25 employees, Sutus Business Central™ comprises a wide array of advanced telephony, data and networking functions. It includes a business-class phone system, file server, email server, router, firewall, wireless access point, VPN remote access server, and automated backups. It has the ability to simultaneously support both standard phone line and VoIP connections and comes with an array of business productivity features. Now VARs can get the office-in-a-box at almost no cost with a SIP bundle from Excel.

The interoperability allows resellers to provide their small business customers with a guaranteed low cost, reliable and full-featured IT and telephony bundle that is unmatched in the market.  It also allows the channel to better service small businesses due to the Business Central's advanced built-in remote support features. Tech support that would previously have required a truck roll can now be handled remotely by basic support staff.

Steve Weltner, Director Product Development at Excel, is excited about Excel's new SIPpbx Equipment Upgrade Program. He comments, "affordability is a non-factor as the device ends up being virtually free."

"With economic tough times facing everyone there has never been a time where pricing and simplicity have been more important," said Shawn Chute Executive Vice President of Sutus, "Excel and Sutus have come together to deliver on both these fronts, providing the small business customer and the channel that services them with an affordable, comprehensive and straight forward communications and IT bundle. One price, one solution, one contact point, we have made it as simple as it can be to subscribe to a fully integrated solution."

For resellers interested in this Sutus Excel program please contact Sutus at www.sutus.com or 778-371-5286. You may also contact Steve Weltner Director of Marketing at Excel at 972-910-1763.

"SMB Nation is a community of over 35,000 small and medium business (SMB) technology consultants, channel partners, sponsors and resellers. With an impressive 10-year history serving as a trusted advisor and mentor to the SMB consulting and  reseller channel, SMB Nation has been able to consistently reinvent itself based upon changing market conditions." SMB Nation did a VoIP survey with NGT. 260 responded (results here).

These are the services they currently provide:

• Networking infrastructure (91.1%)
• Mobility sales, services, support (52.7%)
• VoIP-specific sales, services, support (44.2%)
• Telephony sales, services, and support (35.3%)
• Line of business applications (35.7%)
• Database development/programming/development (32.6%)
• Web hosting (27.5%)
• Host e-mail (26.7%)

These are the services they will add:

• VoIP sales, service, support (56.2%)
• Security (36.6%)
• Telephony sales, services, and support (28.1%)
• Web hosting, hosted services (25.5%)

It's interesting that Telecom Agents sell circuits and very few want to sell non-telecom services, but VAR's and MSP's are marching in to take over the Agent Arena.

Jazinga launched its entry into the SMB PBX space after winning the Best of Show Award at Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO.  Jazinga's box is about the size of a D-Link router, but is more that a wireless access point and QOS router. It is a full fledged, SIP-capable  IP-PBX that can use IP Phones or Plain old RJ11 phones. (You know those ugly ones on your desk now).

One big selling point is the easy configuration, which comes from a consumer focus that means you don't need an IT gal or a PBX guy to set it up or manage it. Jazinga claims that the DIY set-up time is about 10 minutes after you plug your IP or PSTN phones in.

It's a space-saver too. Router and wireless access point rolled into the PBX. (The router even prioritizes voice traffic).  Other features include an auto-attendant, voice mail, conferencing, call forwarding, on-hold music - all for 20 or less users. The Jazinga system is available directly from the company and its channel partners for a $1,095.

Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and CableVision showed up for a panel at the Channel Partners Expo in Boston today. As you can imagine the agents let them have it. The question the panel asked is Why Cable? Why, indeed. It sounded like the program is temporary or "in trial". MSO's don't really know the SMB market. Cablecos don't know the channel either.

Currently, they are selling basic voice and data packages with security, hosted email, and backup/storage. So What Wins?

Quality of Service. Fair compensation (20% plus spiffs). NNI and inter-connection of the 5 top networks, which hit 92% of the US land mass. The cable execs handled some of it well until Macario had to halt the conversation as it neared collusion and anti-trust.

All of them have a Business Broadband product. Twelve phone lines and less. Hosted PBX in the pipeline. Managed Services with Response Point and Cisco CallManager. TWC is launching PRI. Cox is rolling out SIP Trunk. Some programs are referral only.

It was an interesting talk. I appreciate them for showing up and being forthcoming. ILEC's better look out.

Microsoft is now ready to jump into VoIP for the SMB space with VoIP trunking and the Response Point phone system. Microsft joins Cisco, Linksys, a multitude of Hosted PBX players, Mitel, ShoreTel, and the rest of the hardware clans in competing in the SMB space.

My question is what space do they mean? Medium business of 500 to 1000 users? Small business of 250-500 employees or 100 to 250 workers? Or the under 100 employee segment that itself is segmented into under 25, 25-50, 50-100, and under 10. That's a huge sector that is heavily divided. Not just in size either. Every segment thinks about voice differently; has different needs; and must be sold to differently. I'll be curious to see what the marketing plan is. (So far I have not seen a plan to get to the SB space. Just the Medium size).

I had drinks with a VP of telecom for an IT distributor and we ended up discussing how the Hosted VoIP players will sell to the small business. There's not enough incentive for the headache. It will require the companies to throw money and manpower at it. Something they have been reluctant to do.

This space has been termed (by Seth Godin I think) the Fortune 5 Million because there are at least 5M small businesses with payroll in the US.

If you are playing in this space, drop me a note at peter at rad-info dot net.