Cloud-based solutions have become essential tools in vendors’ portfolios and a key pillar of new product offerings. Now, telecommunications are staking out a place in the cloud, Gartner Research Analyst Elia San Miguel told RCR Wireless News.
“The cloud is a driver of new communications trends as we start to have communications as a service,” Elia said.
For example, Siemens Enterprise Communications is accelerating its communication as a service offerings to include more telecommunications features. The latest version of Siemens’ OpenScape UC Suite, which launched earlier this year, supports up to 40,000 users per cluster and up to 500,000 users per system. This enhances the company’s stake in offering unified communications and collaboration as a service (UCCaaS).
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“Workflow integration is the next step of unified communications, but it is more complex because it enables users to share their presence availability and exchange instant messages with users of Google or any XMPP-capable solution, including UC, messaging, social media, and collaboration applications whether on a PC client, tablet, or smart phone,” Joseph Furst, VP of marketing and solutions of Siemens Enterprise Communications for Latin America, told RCR Wireless News.
Cloud
The next step is to move toward a cloud-based model. This has happened in Siemens’ Latin America subsidiary. In the region, Siemens Enterprise Communications has worked to moved from using a private cloud to a packaged public cloud offering and beyond by partnering with local cloud facilitators that host their data using the OpenScape UC Suite.
The company has provided a CaaS model for at least four years by offering cloud-based collaboration, but the release of the new OpenScape UC Server version brings scalability to 500,000 users on a single system, in addition to offering new integration resources. “Our open architecture allows the use of any mobile device and the integration with ERP and CRM systems and social networks,” explained Furst.
Siemens’ Brazilian unit has partnered with Go2neXt, which builds and integrates cloud computing environments, to offer a cloud-based collaboration solution. Its first case study will be with TESA Telecom, which has begun to integrate Siemens and Go2neXt’s technology into the TESA Cloud Building system.
The system consists of adding advanced telecom products and services during the construction phase of commercial buildings. Doing this, the construction companies can offer spaces that are ready to be occupied sooner. The telecom infrastructure is seen as a collaborative tool for the development of businesses occupying the building.
Go2neXt invested $523,230 (R$ 1 million) to use UCCaaS in its infrastructure. Go2neXt CEO and President Paulo Pichini said he expects to have 3,000 users this year and 10,000 by next year. The commercial launch is scheduled for June. When asked about his sales expectations, Pichini said he believes the adoption will begin slowly, but he has high expectations for the future.
