A Mobile Cloud Exchange (MCX) hosted exchange product designed for telecom operators has been introduced by OnRelay. According to the announcement made by OnRelay (News - Alert), 10 top operators across four continents have already deployed its MCX product. This list of operators also includes Swisscom.

In a release, Ivar Plahte (News - Alert), CEO of OnRelay, said, "Our software has continuously evolved and gradually centered on enabling the enormous Cloud Telephony opportunity for operators. We no longer feel existing PBX (News - Alert) or Centrex terminology accurately represent a cloud based mobile office phone system, and it is time to introduce a new term - Mobile Cloud Exchange - for this distinct and disruptive communications system architecture."

"Over the Top" Mobile VoIP services from Skype and Google (News - Alert) are threatening the mobile operators by taking a foothold in the business communication market. This threat, however, will not met by the fixed-mobile convergence products of the operators. There is also no time to wait for service delivery platforms as the market is evolving very fast.

OnRelay enables the mobile operator to immediately fight back with its Mobile Cloud Exchange software. A far more feature rich bundled Communications as a Service hosted exchange offering is provided by MCX as compared to consumer oriented Mobile VoIP services. The appropriate 3G/GSM quality of service required by business customers is also delivered by MCX. By bundling OnRelay's software with smartphones, mobile apps, cloud services and 3G/GSM/femto-cell connectivity, their unique position can be leveraged by mobile operators.

Operators are faced with a new, harsher economic reality as they come out of the financial recession. Expensive and high-risk 'white elephant' service platform projects are not being considered by CIOs and end-customers for funding. Plahte refers to a report from Forrester (News - Alert) Consulting out this year. The report states that a more cost efficient, hosted telephony model from the operators is the need of the majority of business customers.

OnRelay offers operators a pre-validated, commercially available and cost efficient solution with its MCX product. OnRelay is offering proof of concept trials based on Amazon EC2 after benefitting from the efficiency of cloud computing. These trials are being offered to top global mobile operators.