A useful, interesting, outrageous, and remarkable phone?

Some people have been asking me how "in these difficult times are
businesses still buying new phone systems?" My answer is simple, they shouldn't.

A phone system is the life blood of any business. The traditional PBX
works fine and is nearly 100% reliable. So why would a business spend
money to fix something that is not broken? Why take a risk on new
technology when it's risky enough just to stay in business?

Yes, SimpleSignal sells phones. But not the phones you may be used to
using. Our phones are as disruptive as a leaf blower in a feather
factory. Before we sell a phone we look at the enterprise and ask
"what points of pain can we resolve and what innovative features can
we apply to create a communications solution?" If we can't deliver
dramatic leaps in productivity and profitability and save a business
money then maybe they shouldn't change. That may sound like marketing
dribble but our customers tell us that we create a product and a
service so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that we can
call it a "solution" not a "phone". We take a boring thing like
telephones and develop a strategy that revolutionizes their business
processes. I don't believe I'm over stating it when I say that what
we've done for the SMB (small-medium business) is remarkable. It's
worth talking about. Allow me to briefly list some of the advantages
that hosted IP communications give the small business that previously
were only afforded to the largest businesses.

*"My other phone is a datacenter".
All of the technology that it takes to run our communication solution
resides in a secure data center rather than a box that sits in a
closet in your office. With "hosted" communications there is nothing
to steal, maintain, upgrade or pay somebody to service. I love to tell
people, "there are armed guards protecting our "phone box"...how about
yours?"

*Cloud based communications makes a communications change more
affordable and achievable.
Moving to the cloud changes the DNA of a business into a web-enabled
business and increases the velocity of that business. The risks of
going hosted are small compared to the gains of efficiency and
profitability. Once a business has tasted the cloud experience it is
unlikely to go back.

*Cost shift from cap ex to op ex equals lower upfront costs and lower
cost going forward.
Who needs all that equipment in a closet in your office? You pay only
for what you need and consume. Upfront capital outlay is minimal.
Cloud based services are cheaper and better than owning your own
equipment. It avoids the risks, costs and implementation time that can
keep a business agile. Consider this.
$0 for infrastructure
$0 for cost of adoption
1 network with infinite capacity and scalability.

*Create solutions without boundaries.
One thing our customers appreciate is elasticity. That means they can
scale quickly and affordably. They can buy only what they need when
they need it.

* Businesses are buying cloud based software services.
Software is moving off the desktop and servers in the office and into
the cloud. The giants like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are telling
the world that the future is in the cloud. Now a business can use
Amazon's S3 data storage, Google's google docs, and Microsoft's
exchange and access them from the cloud. That's where SimpleSignal
lives too. That's why we can so easily integrate directly into these
apps. For example, our integration allows a user to mouse over a
number in the app and click to call. The phone one their desk or their
cell begins to ring and when that call is answered the call is
connected. Magic!

Since I started with a question let me end with a question. Even
though it costs less at first to pay for a monthly service in the
cloud will it cost more in the long run?
Maybe over many years, but it's easy to overlook the real cost of
maintaining, upgrading and replacing an old telephone system or
"shrink wrap" software. Another added benefit is the ever expanding
feature set and ease of scaling. The ROI questions rapidly fall away
once a business starts using the service, gains confidence in using
the features and the benefits become apparent. Microsoft reports that
businesses that use hosted exchange rarely change. Their retention
rate is 94%. Our experience with our hosted IP-PBX customers is even
higher.