DAILYHOSTNEWS, November 8, 2011 – Neutral Tandem, a leading provider of global interconnection services, yesterday announced its plans to introduce the first cloud-based collaboration service in the United States specifically developed to be resold by Cisco’s Value-Added Reseller (VAR) community and System Integrators (SIs).
The new cloud-based service is based on Cisco’s next-generation Unified Communications infrastructure and will leverage Neutral Tandem’s extensive expertise in operating and managing IP networks. Neutral Tandem has entered into HCS Trial agreements with select Cisco authorized VARs and is trialing the service with them.
The service, based on Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS), will enable VARs/SIs to deliver a full suite of unified communication and collaboration applications, including Single Number Reach, Integrated Messaging and Presence, Video Calling and WebEx integration. HCS provides support for single site, multi-site and hybrid premise-based implementations that allow significant flexibility to business customers.
This solution will enable VARs/SIs to sell a monthly subscription based solution under their own brand. Additionally, VARs/SIs can provide customized solutions to their client base by overlaying HCS with their own managed services. This will offer VARs/SIs the unique opportunity to differentiate themselves while growing their revenue predictably and without heavy front-end CAPEX costs for themselves or their customers.
This new service is designed to integrate with a VAR’s/SI’s existing unified communications and collaboration services provisioning and management processes. Furthermore, Neutral Tandem’s focus on providing solutions to the wholesale market will preserve the end-user customer relationships with the VAR/SI.
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Cisco’s research shows that the market for hosted unified communications and collaboration solutions is growing significantly. By 2013, hosted collaboration is projected to grow to $8 billion, comprising 31 percent of the Unified Communications market. Reselling Neutral Tandem’s wholesale HCS offering will allow VARs/SIs to meet the growing demand for cloud solutions.
Nexus IS, Inc., a Cisco Gold Certified Partner focused on offering collaboration, data center, borderless networks, business video and managed services, is the first Cisco channel partner to try Neutral Tandem’s new HCS offer. “We are pleased to be involved in the proof-of-concept phase for Cisco Systems and Neutral Tandem’s new collaborative HCS solution. We are particularly impressed by Neutral Tandem’s detailed understanding of the market and network neutrality.
Our customers have been asking for a solution like this and Neutral Tandem’s network neutrality is what drew us to their offer,” said Mike Heiman, VP of Engineering of Nexus IS.
About Neutral Tandem
Headquartered in Chicago, Neutral Tandem, provides voice, IP Transit and Ethernet solutions to carriers, service providers, and content management firms worldwide. With over 100 Ethernet sites, the company is now the largest global Ethernet interconnection provider, a top 10 global IPv4 backbone provider and has a leading IPv6 network.
Website: http://www.neutraltandem.com
