Comcast, Microsoft to Deliver Hosted Services to SMBs

Addressing a market segment cablecos believe their telco rivals have neglected, Comcast Corp. said Wednesday it has teamed with Microsoft Corp. to use its unified communications server platform to provide hosted services to SMBs.

Under the name "Microsoft Communication Services from Comcast," the cable giant will provide SMBs with e-mail and scheduling and document-sharing services backed by 24/7 customer support. It also will have productivity applications including Office Outlook and SharePoint Services, along with its other services such as voice, broadband and cable.

Cablecos contend that in their zeal to deploy and expand multiservice bundles to residential users, they’ve largely left a rising number of SMBs to themselves, opening doors and opportunities for aggressive cablecos.

To that end, the five largest cablecos all have created standalone units, strategies, packages, and service and support to address the SMB market, offering services that already go far beyond private lines, voice services and some-speed Internet.

A case in point is Cablevision’s Optimum LightPath business unit, which gained attention this year for rolling out a voice-over-metro Ethernet service targeted squarely at business customers, scaling up to large corporations.

Comcast, like Cablevision, Charter, Time Warner, and other smaller operators such as RCN, are filling out their service portfolios, hoping that current customers will buy more and spread positive word-of-mouth and that they can add – and retain – new SMBs to their customer list.

While several RBOCs and high-tier telcos have focused on deploying video-driven bundles to residential customers in fierce competition with cablecos and satellite operators, veteran cablecos like Comcast quickly have built a huge base of VoIP customers – all while paying greater attention to higher-margin SMB accounts.

“How successful [cablecos] will be depends as much on how responsive they are to more urgent business customer needs,” said Jeff Kagan, a longtime telecom and wireless analyst.

Comcast Corp. www.comcast.com
Microsoft Corp. www.microsoft.com

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