Page 24 - Telecom Reseller Janaury February 2014

January/February 2014
24
Telecom Reseller

place and no service provider is assured of
INCUMBENT
success. However incumbents may have a
strong opportunity to take as much as half Inc.
Connect and Communicate
Continued from page 23
the market. It could depend on how they
of the PBX market. That’s not an unrealis- place their bets.
We connect you to the best NETWORKING SOLUTIONS
tic target considering there has always been Eastern Management Group published
a large and ready market for cloud PBX.
a 2014 White Paper for Service Providers
Cloud PBX is a current generation of who are conducting a strategic review of
Centrex – CO and CU – first rolled-out in their cloud PBX business or doing a first time business case to enter the cloud mar-
1961 by incumbent service providers. For decades Centrex served a large customer ket. It’s entitled ”Conducting a Cloud PBX
base and delivered stable and recurring Strategy Review” and is available FREE A1 Teletronics is an authorized distributor
revenues to the carriers. Principally it was on request.
of Netgear® equipment. We’re the new
a flagship offer for their largest customers. The Eastern Management Group is a source of powerful networking solutions
Government agencies, state universities, technology consulting and research com- for businesses and service providers.
hospitals, extremely large enterprises – the pany established in 1979. The firm pro-
majority with private networks – were vides marketing consulting services to
served a turnkey solution, billed month- more than 400 technology companies and A1 Teletronics carries your favorite telecom and networking brands including Cisco®, Avaya®,
ly, from the carrier. Notably their equip- service provider clients worldwide. Eastern Digital Watchdog®, ADTRAN®, Netgear®, Aastra®, Polycom®, Plantronics®, LifeSize®, Matrix®.
ment, service and reliability were peerless. Management has a recognized cloud con- 800.797.2983
Centrex for small businesses came later. sulting practice. %
ISO 9001
www.a1teletronics.com
What these customers enjoyed was also a AscdiNatd
reasonable set of features at a fair price and Contact jmalone@easternmanagement.com or visit us at www.easternmanagement.com
The global alliance of the it channel
As an Independent Distributor, A1 Teletronics, Inc. is not affiliated with the manufacturers of the products it sells except as expressly noted otherwise. Any and all trademark rights associated with the manufacturers’ names and products are owned by the respective manufacturers.
the opportunity to trade off phone system
capex for opex. All of the above is essen- IntelliSIPTM
tially what cloud PBX offers today.
In time the demand for Centrex signifi-
cantly relaxed. It was overtaken by several
forces, but two stand out. One is the value
proposition of PBX equipment companies
who could not afford to give ground to the
carriers. The second is the carriers them- The
selves who shifted their own priorities. Up to this point, in the United States at least,
incumbent service providers held close to a
20 percent market share of the overall PBX
market just by selling Centrex. Customers Intelligent
never rejected the core attributes of a flex-
ible, reliable, reasonably well featured opex
solution for PBX needs. Essentially it was
just better marketing by competitors that Way to Grow
collapsed the Centrex business. As such the
Cloud PBX industry has emerged.
Most cloud PBX service providers
we’ve studied target business customers Your Telecom
of all sizes, all industries and with scant
restriction on geography. Since the speedi-
est buyers are price driven small business,
most competitors find themselves gravitat- Business
ing here. While being a safe harbor for all
competitors including incumbent service
providers, it is possibly not the market seg-
ment they are best suited for.
Few competitors can match what incum-
bent service providers already bring to Make Industry Leading Commissions
enterprise cloud PBX
To an enterprise customer the incum-
bent service provider represents the mature, Add a New Recurring Revenue Stream
large, time-tested, network company with
world class facilities, proven in deploying Cut Every Customers Phone Bill by up to 70%
communications systems larger and more
complex than those of its largest custom- It’s a Win-Win Proposition
ers. These service providers are frequently
the best financed competitor. Many have They Get New Features and a Lower Phone Bill
offered Centrex services for decades. They
have processes, NOCs, data centers, BSS You Get a New Recurring Revenue Stream
and OSSs. They scale quickly. In other
words the incumbent may represent a rock-
solid choice for the enterprise. These Up to 40 Million Lines will Convert to VoIP by 2015
attributes would also allow incumbents to
distinguish themselves from many though Don’t Miss the Boat!
not all cloud PBX competitors. The incum-
bent service providers may be in one of the
stronger positions to meet the cloud PBX Dealers Contact Us:
needs of the large enterprise customers.
Small business customers receive pretty
much the same benefits as enterprises, 888.324.2334
but what drives their buying decisions is
frequently different. Small businesses may be inclined to trade certain features and
services for low prices. Our benchmark Certified Interoperability with:
research shows that some service provider
competitors to the incumbents are position-
ing themselves to capture and retain the Avaya, Toshiba, Panasonic, BUSINESS PHONE SERVICE & SYSTEMS
majority of the small business market. Yet
the SMB cloud PBX market is relevant to Microsoft Lync Express by Sangoma
all service providers since it accounts for
half of the hosted PBX industry. What the
incumbent must decide is where this SMB
market fits into the carrier’s priorities.
The cloud PBX is a competitive market-
www.voicecarrier.com