Communications in the cloud trends

Industry experts anticipate cloud-based communications to reach beyond 50% adoption rate the over then seven years, says Dave Pauling, Regional Sales Director UK, Middle East and Africa, Interactive Intelligence.

The cloud trends from a recent study

Key communications in the cloud trends from a recent study by Interactive Intelligence and Ventana Innovation indicates a shift from a focus on cost to functionality, and new ways vendors are addressing security concerns.

The traditional drivers for end-users adopting cloud-based communications solutions come down to costs, resources, and risk. Nevertheless in talking to people more recently, the most commonly cited drivers are flexibility and technology.

The ability to flexibly scale up

The ability to flexibly scale up and down and quickly add new functionality is huge for end-users. Moreover important, they say, is research: in other words, using hosted communications to change the way their company runs its business and communicates with its clients.

The most important criteria when evaluating a cloud-based communications solution is functionality, functionality and functionality. More important than cost, end-users must find a supplier that has a track record for meeting their unparalleled functionality needs.

While the popularity of cloud-based computing has led to the increasing adoption of hosted communications solutions, clients remain somewhat cautious about security issues.

Customers, especially large enterprises, for all that have security concerns associated with migrating communications applications to the cloud, but, vendors are offering new ways for mitigating these concerns. To illustrate, we offer a hosted model that enables clients to keep their voice traffic and recordings inside their network. Should the contingency arise, our 24/7-monitored data centres are SAS 70-certified and include isolated virtualised servers for each customer.

The adoption of hosted communications to voice over IP

The adoption of hosted communications to voice over IP, which started in the single digits, has today become the de facto standard. The drivers for VOIP were largely the same as they are today for hosted solutions: reduced costs, fewer resources, and increased research. Because of this, I believe that in another seven years the adoption rate for cloud-based communications will reach the 50% to 60% range.

Interactive Intelligence is a global provider of unified business communications solutions for contact centre automation, enterprise IP telephony, and business process automation. The company was founded in 1994 and has more than 4 000 clients worldwide. Interactive Intelligence is among Software Magazine's 2010 Top 500 Global Software and Services Suppliers, and Forbes Magasine's 2010 Best Small Companies in America. The company is as well positioned in the leaders' quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Centre Infrastructure, Worldwide report. Interactive Intelligence employs more than 800 people and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It has 19 offices throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Interactive Intelligence can be reached at +1 317.872.3000 or info@inin.com; on the Net: www.inin.com.