REDMOND, Wash., and GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Oct. 14, 2009 — BroadSoft, Inc., the worldwide leader in VoIP applications for the telecommunications industry, and Microsoft Corp. today announced further customer adoption, a more robust partner ecosystem and additional capabilities to their joint Hosted Unified Communications (UC) solution. The advancement of their vision will be shown at BroadSoft Connections 2009: Voice & Vision, Oct. 25–28 in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Microsoft is the event-level sponsor. This is Microsoft’s second year sponsoring BroadSoft’s annual users’ conference, signifying the company’s continued commitment to its partnership with BroadSoft® and their joint Hosted UC solution.
The BroadSoft and Microsoft offering, which was launched in October 2008, combines the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) Version 4.5 with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks® VoIP application platform. The solution provides integrated voice, presence, instant messaging, videoconferencing and webconferencing, allowing employees to work virtually anywhere and collaborate in real time. In April 2009, Technology Marketing Corp.’s (TMC) Unified Communications magazine named the joint solution the magazine’s 2008 Product of the Year. Gartner Inc. named Microsoft a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (September 2009).*
The BroadSoft and Microsoft Hosted UC solution has changed the telecommunications landscape by enabling service providers to deliver UC in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or hosted model. Businesses gain the productivity benefits of UC without the cost of acquiring, deploying and maintaining premises-based equipment.
“To maintain a competitive advantage, service providers must bring together carrier-grade communications with desktop and CRM applications under one integrated solution,” said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft. “BroadSoft and Microsoft’s combined efforts are moving the UC market forward by allowing service providers to deliver UC as a service and enabling companies of all sizes, especially small and medium-sized businesses, to gain access to powerful communications solutions in a cost-effective manner.”
Global Service Provider Adoption
Global interest and service provider adoption has been significant among all types and sizes of carriers with live deployments in North America and Europe. BroadSoft and Microsoft are moving forward with testing with 12 of the top 25 carriers in the world. Two new adopters of the solution since Connections 2008, both with domestic and global reach, are Outsourcery Ltd. and Alteva LLC.
Outsourcery is a leading provider of mobile-centric UC and hosted IT solutions to SMBs and the No.1 provider of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 in the U.K.
“Microsoft Office Communications Server together with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks platform allows Outsourcery to offer our SME customers the next generation of telecommunication services with unified communications at the core,” said Mark Seemann, product strategy and development director at Outsourcery. “This high-quality UC solution is provided as a cloud service to our customers and is available for a small monthly fee without any capital purchase required. This UC solution confirms Outsourcery’s commitment to its U.K. customers to supply the best-in-breed communication solutions and is reinforced by Outsourcery becoming an award-winning Microsoft Communication Services launch partner in 2009.”
Based in Philadelphia, Alteva provides hosted business communications services in all 50 U.S. states and 14 countries. Alteva is rolling out its pilot UC program in late October, with a full production offering to its customers by year-end, and a nationwide offering by the first quarter of 2010.
“Alteva is well positioned to take advantage of the Microsoft and BroadSoft collaboration as we create a fully integrated solution for businesses in days rather than months,” said William Bumbernick, CEO of hosted provider Alteva. “Excitement has been mounting in the Alteva customer base for innovative applications that truly integrate voice with all of their other communication mediums. The joint Microsoft and BroadSoft solution is the perfect catalyst to launch this transformation.”
Expanding Partner Ecosystem
“The BroadSoft and Microsoft hosted partner ecosystem has become a valuable resource,” said Alex Danyluk, industry marketing director for the Communications Sector at Microsoft. “This partner ecosystem can help service providers get to market faster with Hosted UC services that can reach companies of different sizes.”
BroadSoft and Microsoft have worked closely with preferred systems integrators, including Accenture, HP and implement.com, to analyze the specific needs of service providers to ensure a smooth integration and cost-effective deployment.
Provisioning solution partners such as Ensim Corp. now offer a robust interface into both Microsoft HMC and BroadWorks, enabling service providers and end users to seamlessly and cost-effectively provision new users. Ensim Unify Service Provider Edition also enables hosters to enter the UC market with minimal investment by seamlessly connecting their HMC deployment to a remote BroadSoft server and to deliver a complete UC experience to end-users. Evidence of the partner ecosystem can be seen through joint RFP support and solution proposals to worldwide service providers.
New Enhancements
BroadSoft and Microsoft are collaborating closely to continue to enhance the offering with new features and functionality. New product enhancements include the following:
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BroadWorks Integration with Dynamics CRM 4.0. implement.com built a middleware application to enable the integration of BroadWorks’ Web screen pop-up capability with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. This allows users to view customer contact information immediately based on the caller ID or other call parameters.
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BroadWorks SIP Trunking to Office Communications Server. BroadWorks-based SIP trunking has been pre-certified against the Office Communications Server SIP trunking interconnection. Service provider networks deploying SIP trunking connectivity via BroadWorks today have the capability to interwork with Microsoft Office Communications Server enterprise deployments to leverage the productivity and power of Microsoft UC via Office Communications Server.
About BroadSoft Connections 2009: Voice & Vision
BroadSoft’s seventh annual executive users’ conference will showcase new technologies that enable service providers to design customized communications services to continually meet the needs of a demanding marketplace. BroadSoft is bringing together industry leading technology companies and 400 leading telecommunication service providers from around the world. World-renowned author and technology expert, Nicholas Carr, is the keynote speaker and will explore how companies who continually adapt and innovate will not only survive but surpass their competition by capitalizing on the evolution of technology. More information is at http://www.broadsoft.com/connections/2009/.
About BroadSoft
BroadSoft®, the world-wide leader of VoIP application software, enables the delivery of hosted telephony and multimedia services. BroadSoft’s family of carrier-class products, including its award-winning flagship BroadWorks® technology, empowers wireless, wireline and cable carriers to deliver next-generation voice and multimedia applications and advanced features that enable them to increase revenue, enhance competitive differentiation and increase customer satisfaction. BroadSoft products deliver the scale, open architecture and reliability that the world’s leading telecommunications companies demand to serve mission-critical enterprise and residential broadband customers. BroadSoft provides VoIP applications to nine of the top 10 and 15 of the top 25 largest carriers worldwide, as measured by recent annual revenue, including KPN, Korea Telecom, Qwest, SingTel, Sprint, Swisscom, Telefonica de Espana, Telstra, T-Systems, and Verizon. For additional information, go to www.broadsoft.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
* Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications” by Bern Elliott and Steve Blood, Sept. 1, 2009
BroadSoft and BroadWorks are registered trademarks of BroadSoft Inc. All other names are trademarks of their respective owners.
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