Debra Schindler-Boultinghouse, President

The Cloud. We’ve all heard the word in relation to something other than just those frumpy white things that float through the sky.

The Cloud, in 2012, is indeed something much different – it’s freeing up space on hard drives, where once gigabytes of music, pictures, and movies resided; it’s giving us access to our media and data just about anywhere and any time we want it; and it’s doing those things free or really cheaply. If you’re confused, check out a great article Campus Technology wrote a while back that breaks down what the cloud is and how it works in pretty simple terms.

You might be thinking: The Cloud is great, I agree. But what does that have to do with the telecom industry? With Genesis BCS?

Two of our product lines, specifically, are being transformed by the Cloud. In this post, I’ll take a look at business phones systems – how the cloud is changing them, who’s affected, and whether you should consider taking the plunge (or, rather, the leap?) into the Cloud. In part 2, which will be up by Wednesday of next week, we’ll take a look at HD Video conferencing in the Cloud.

All that said, let’s dig in.

If you’re familiar with VoIP phone systems and how they work, spend a few minutes thinking about it, and moving the service to the Cloud actually starts to make a whole lot of sense. Your set-up still looks the same, with a desk phone if you want, as well as software that turns your computer into a phone. But the switches or servers, and the costs associated with them, are no longer your responsibility.

Don’t get me wrong. There are positives and negatives to giving up control of the nuts and bolts of your phone system. But for a lot of companies, especially small businesses, the benefits are starting to outweigh the costs. And that’s a trend that industry experts expect to continue, and even accelerate.

So what are the benefits?

• Because the system is hosted and managed by a third-party, you don’t have to have the back-end of your phone system in a closet on-site. Not only that, but most of that equipment isn’t even necessary, which can save a lot of money upfront.
• Simplified billing, and customer service.
• Truly unified communications

At the end of the day, what all that means is – having your phone system on the Cloud is just easier.

Now, I don’t want to turn this blog into a glorified sales pitch, so I’ll point out that there are negatives to moving your business phone system to the Cloud.

First, many small businesses either don’t have the network or internet provider powerful enough to support a Cloud-based phone system. When you think of what the system is actually doing every time anybody calls in or out, you’ll realize that a large bandwidth allotment, along with a robust network, are absolutely vital.

Another negative is, for now at least, a Cloud-based phone system generally costs you more in the long-term, even as the low up-front cost is very appealing, because you’re paying a monthly service fee.

Finally, for medium and large-sized businesses with the resources to have a dedicated IT staff, a Cloud phone system may not make a lot of sense. As you can imagine, when you don’t control the back-end hardware – you don’t control the back-end hardware. And I know that logic sounds a little circular, but many of our medium and larger sized customers know exactly how they want their VoIP system to be set up and run, and who they want to have access to it. And that’s something that can only be achieved outside the Cloud.

Check back on Wednesday for  part 2, when we’ll look at how the cloud is making video-confercing (in HD, none-the-less!) accessible for companies of all sizes…as well as some of the benefits and limitations.

-By Debra Schindler-Boultinghouse