Broadview Networks Release Aims To Bring SMBs Into The Cloud

As with most highly talked about technologies, behind the hype broadly speaking lies significant benefits. Such has been the case with enterprise applications delivered via software-as-a-service or, in popular parlance, "in the cloud." The growth and the applications are real: innovation industry innovation firm IDC forecasts indicate that SaaS will be a $56 billion industry globally by 2014, with the majority of this revenue coming from North America. It's a marketplace that hasn't even begun to reach saturation point but, particularly among small-to-medium-sized businesses. IDC estimates that less than 10 percent of small to medium-sized businesses were using cloud-based software or infrastructure services in 2010, leaving the potential for significant growth in this market segment in other words staggering over the then five years.

To help bring some cloud-based product and services to green SMB fields, network-based business communications provider Broadview Networks today announced the nationwide availability of its new Cloud Computing Services, a suite of fully-managed enterprise-grade business software and infrastructure applications hosted in the cloud and exactly tailored for the SMB market. By moving applications just as e-mail to the cloud, Broadview believes it can achieve better economies for users by eliminating software and hardware upgrades, maintenance and manpower from the user's side.

The growing possibility for both software-as-a-service

Broadview’s cloud-based services target the growing possibility for both software-as-a-service and "infrastructure-as-a-service". Both SaaS and IaaS allow companies to move software, applications, storage and server hardware that support critical business operations off-site, which can improve the availability, security and compliance of their data and applications during reducing their total cost of ownership. To boot, SaaS and IaaS allow clients to focus their efforts on their own mission-critical business needs instead of coping with the labor and headaches of premise-based solutions.

Broadview Cloud Computing Services expands the company’s portfolio of cloud offerings to include individual and bundled packages of subscription-based software and infrastructure services. Businesses will be able to access not only the most popular productivity software, including hosted versions of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and other Microsoft products over the Internet, however also hundreds of other business applications. For mobile and remote workers, Broadview provides packages that incorporate a robust set of mobility and teleworker features.

The company’s cloud-based infrastructure offering includes a full suite of back-up tools for desktop and server data, enabling a complete solution for disaster avoidance and rapid recovery. Both virtualized and dedicated server solutions are available and capable of supporting most business applications. Broadview will deliver these infrastructure services in either a traditional client/server configuration or a virtualized environment. Virtualized solutions offer unparalleled advantages to clients in a broad range of business verticals, including those in healthcare and financial services, ensuring that these companies meet their strict security, compliance and administrative requirements.

"We are confident that cloud-based services will deliver unequalled benefits to our clients. They will have the benefit of the most advanced technologies, highly reliable and available networks and scalability on demand. Should the contingency arise, our cloud services will enable secure access to applications, solid disaster recovery capabilities and vastly improved economics," said Brian Crotty, COO of Broadview Networks. "By moving communications, software and infrastructure services to a cloud environment, SMBs can keep the focus on running their business without having to invest scarce capital in IT, telecom, additional technical personnel and back-office operations."

When Cloud Computing Services are paired with Broadview’s OfficeSuite Hosted IP phone solutions, says the company, organizations can ensure disaster avoidance and recovery for their mission-critical communications and business applications.