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Vodacom (News - Alert) Business Services, the enterprise division of Vodacom Group, recently launched a new cloud solution that will provide businesses in South Africa with an option outside of an on-premises private branch exchange (PBX (News - Alert)).

Indeed, the company has launched an IP PBX solution hosted in the Vodacom Data Center that offers all the features of a traditional PBX.

As such, the new solution allows users to exchange internal calls within a company while still sharing external lines through a switchboard, while being highly secure and scalable to the needs of growing businesses. The technology the IP PBX solution is based upon allows multiple customers and sites to be serviced as part of the same virtual PBX, resulting in increased efficiency and lower costs.

"The benefits for enterprises of all sizes are quickly realized," said Gary Hart, executive head of Network Services & Unified Communications (News - Alert) at Vodacom Business Services, in a statement. "One of the primary benefits is the cost savings in licenses and VoIP calls. Having no PBX on site is a distinct advantage as support is all done by Vodacom's expert support staff. Our online Customer Portal allows access by your authorized staff 24/7 and features may be added or reduced depending on our customers' needs."

The solution is offered through an operating expenditure (OPEX (News - Alert)) service, with IP handsets and licenses supplied to the customer by Vodacom Business Services.

In November, Vodacom launched new M2M services in Nigeria meant to boost the financial and retail sectors of the country. These services enable seamless network fail-over to a secondary network in the event of a failure in the primary network.

Back in July, the company entered into an exclusive syndication partnership with Microsoft (News - Alert) South Africa, allowing South African businesses to gain access to Office 365. As such, Vodacom began selling Office 365 alongside its own existing connectivity products in the region.