NXTcomm: Verizon Business Targets Multinationals with Unified Communications

Verizon Business has moved to aggressively go after multinational companies with its unified communications portfolio — a market it says is ripe for UC adoption.

According to Verizon Business product marketing guru Roberta Mackintosh, multinationals are a perfect fit for Verizon’s fully hosted managed UC service, given several crucial attributes. “These are companies that need to be served in a variety of locations around the world,” she noted, adding that doing that with an on-premise solution is a complex process for the best of IT departments. Also, with the rising cost of air travel and everything else, these are the first companies looking to take out operational overhead and bolster productivity, she said — sweet spots for the UC business case. And, let’s face it: collaboration across continents has never been a streamlined process — if Verizon can give them a method to do that in a simple way, it could be a winning strategy.

Accordingly, at NXTcomm ’08, Verizon announced its network-based VoIP service now will be available in additional European countries — Ireland, Italy, Spain and Sweden — bringing the total to 10. Along with that, the company’s Integrated Communications Package, part of the UC platform, has been extended to those 10 countries. The service also will be available in local languages. “If we want people to communicate, it would be nice to let them do that in their own local language,” Mackintosh pointed out.

The operator announced functionality enhancements, too. For one, UC customers now gain the integration with Verizon conferencing services. And, it lets people choose to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting platform for Verizon Net Conferencing, including a redesigned interface and support for live video. Enhanced Web-based tools to better manage conference calls round out the package.

Verizon expects a snowball effect once companies start taking up the service. “The time is really ripe for UC to really take off,” Mackintosh said. “We know that CIOs talk to other CIOs, and once we’ve shown that we have a great solution for these companies, word will spread.”

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