And welcome to 2009.
Even with the tough economic times, it's hard not to greet a new year with some optimism and enthusiasm. I think that is especially true for those of us prophesying the benefits of Communications as a Service or CaaS.
In 2008 we finally saw, in my humble opinion (it's a blog - can I use IMHO?) Unified Communications start to come of age. Applications and users found each other. Real benefits were accruing to those enterprises that deployed UC applications - and Microsoft's OCS became the grail many set their sights on achieving.
And so IT departments set about their UC plans - driven by demand from the user community. Plans were made, platforms evaluated and budgets submitted. And then the bottom fell out!
So most of us enter 2009 with little or no budget for new projects, many with even less than we had last year; and some with a just-keep-the-lights-on business plan.
And if your UC plans were put on the shelf then your user wants won't be met. Productivity and efficiency goals will be challenging, if not impossible. And that chance to leap ahead of the competition? Squandered.
Or not? I don't want to sound like I am wallowing in the troubles of others, but this perfect storm of demand without the wherewithal to meet it may be the silver lining the hosted industry has been looking for. Maybe now some folks that would never before entertain the model will be willing to give it a look. Certainly that is what I'm seeing. CaaS can deliver the UC solutions you've been planning for; without a capital expenditure and savings to your bottom line. And hosted UC provider, Cypress Communications, will even put cash back into your 2009 budget!
Collectives have been around forever. The concept of smaller and midsized companies, pooling together and buying in volume to obtain discounts otherwise unavailable to them as individuals. When you get down to it that is what the CaaS (or perhaps I should switch to UCaaS for unified communications as a service) model is all about. Instead of each of you buying a PBX and an OCS deployment for your individual companies, a hosted provider, such as Cypress Communications, buys one very large switching platform, one multi-tenant OCS deployment, manages it with their staff, and then shares the volume-based cost savings and efficiency among all of the users (with a small share for ourselves).
It's just too logical a business model to ignore. And if these hard times are what drive some folks to give it a second look - then so be it. We'll all be better off for it.
Even with the tough economic times, it's hard not to greet a new year with some optimism and enthusiasm. I think that is especially true for those of us prophesying the benefits of Communications as a Service or CaaS.
In 2008 we finally saw, in my humble opinion (it's a blog - can I use IMHO?) Unified Communications start to come of age. Applications and users found each other. Real benefits were accruing to those enterprises that deployed UC applications - and Microsoft's OCS became the grail many set their sights on achieving.
And so IT departments set about their UC plans - driven by demand from the user community. Plans were made, platforms evaluated and budgets submitted. And then the bottom fell out!
So most of us enter 2009 with little or no budget for new projects, many with even less than we had last year; and some with a just-keep-the-lights-on business plan.
And if your UC plans were put on the shelf then your user wants won't be met. Productivity and efficiency goals will be challenging, if not impossible. And that chance to leap ahead of the competition? Squandered.
Or not? I don't want to sound like I am wallowing in the troubles of others, but this perfect storm of demand without the wherewithal to meet it may be the silver lining the hosted industry has been looking for. Maybe now some folks that would never before entertain the model will be willing to give it a look. Certainly that is what I'm seeing. CaaS can deliver the UC solutions you've been planning for; without a capital expenditure and savings to your bottom line. And hosted UC provider, Cypress Communications, will even put cash back into your 2009 budget!
Collectives have been around forever. The concept of smaller and midsized companies, pooling together and buying in volume to obtain discounts otherwise unavailable to them as individuals. When you get down to it that is what the CaaS (or perhaps I should switch to UCaaS for unified communications as a service) model is all about. Instead of each of you buying a PBX and an OCS deployment for your individual companies, a hosted provider, such as Cypress Communications, buys one very large switching platform, one multi-tenant OCS deployment, manages it with their staff, and then shares the volume-based cost savings and efficiency among all of the users (with a small share for ourselves).
It's just too logical a business model to ignore. And if these hard times are what drive some folks to give it a second look - then so be it. We'll all be better off for it.
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