Nortel BCM: Big Presence in the SMB Market

Nortel's Business Communications Manager UC portfolio (including the just announced BCM 450) has been rated #1 by Dell'Oro.

Let me look under the UC covers as to how unified communications plays in the small medium business (SMB) market?

It certainly plays in companies that are communications intensive (e.g. real estate offices), have a high proportion of information or knowledge workers (professional offices), or are highly mobile (real estate agencies). In fact, Goldsmith-Agio-Helms, a global private investment banking firm, was the first company to implement UC across its entire employee base- with just over 100 employees, clearly an SMB.

But it doesn't stop there. For example, one of our customers is a family owned business out of the northeast US, Hancock Lumber.

Unlike enterprises, SMBs typically don't ask for UC per se, but rather are looking for integrated communications solutions that solve a business problem or significantly enhance business operation. They obviously see real value in unified office-in-a-box solutions, which deliver UM, message forwarding, meet me conferencing, CTI, intelligent contact center and more.

Simplicity and demonstrated business value are table stakes.