Many of the IT organizations I work with are increasingly interested in managed and hosted services, particularly when it comes to certain areas of unified communications, such as Web and audio conferencing.
But the UC area that’s garnering some of the greatest interest these days? Hosted VoIP.
There are several good reasons for this. First off, hosted services make sense for companies that don’t have the IT staff or budget to deploy and manage the service internally.
Some clarification: In a hosted scenario, the IP PBXs are physically located on the provider’s data center. The provider owns, monitors and manages the PBXs, and provides access to management portals to customers. Typically, all the organization has to buy is the phones, and sometimes even those can be leased. In a managed service, the user maintains ownership and control of the managed hardware and software (which typically resides on the user’s premises).
Cost savings from hosted solutions generally comes from economies of scale — organizations that may not have the staffers or skillsets to deploy and support VoIP find it faster and cheaper to take advantage of the providers services.
A particular reason to consider hosted VoIP is the potential for reducing and stabilizing management costs. About 18 months into a VoIP deployment, most organizations discover they lack the tools and training to effectively manage their VoIP — and worse, may not have budgeted for management. Moreover, the recession is forcing organizations to trim budgets and staffs — so even if a company did manage to budget for management tools, that line item may have been redlined.
Finally, for small-to-midsized businesses, hosted VoIP can be a very compelling proposition. Many SMBs spend upwards of 20 hours per month managing telephony — and moving to a hosted service has advantages, such as 24X7 support and troubleshooting (without supporting a dedicated $100,000-per-year staffer).
That said, there are some downsides to hosting as well. First is the lack of control. There’s often less flexibility and options in configuring the system, and upgrades usually wait until the provider is prepared to offer them.
Another downside is coverage. Essentially no provider offers truly ubiquitous hosted services, so companies that require global support probably can’t meet their needs through hosting. (Watch for that to change, though, as carriers and other global service providers begin ramping up their service offerings.) That’s a big reason we still see primarily small and midsize companies (fewer than 1,000 seats) buying these services.
There’s also the fact that many organizations have already gotten started on their VoIP deployments, meaning they’ve already made the capital investments (or at least a significant chunk of them). Those folks will be much more likely to consider managed, rather than hosted, solutions.
Finally, it’s possible to be too small to take advantage of hosted VoIP. Very small business may be better off with one of the many “plug-and-play” solutions if all that’s required are minimal features and little support. And they have plenty to choose from, since almost all VoIP vendors have SMB-specific product lines.
