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RingCentral (News - Alert), a provider of cloud computing-based business phone systems, has announced a new global communication service in partnership with Alibaba.com, a Chinese provider of e-commerce services for small business. The new service will enable the Chinese suppliers leveraging the services of Alibaba.com to instantly set up U.S. toll-free phone and fax numbers online, which will help them connect them with their offices in China.

Claiming 50 million registered users and offering more than 40 product categories ranging from agriculture to transportation, Alibaba.com helps buyers and suppliers worldwide in conducting their business online. The China-based suppliers connected with the website didn't have a way to maintain local U.S. points of contact until now, hindering their American prospects and preventing buyers from connecting to supplier offices in China.

With the new global communication service powered by RingCentral, suppliers of Alibaba.com will now be able to set up custom routing and answering rules that can be used to manage time zone differences. With the services offered by RingCentral, Alibaba's buyers, located anywhere in the world, can dial the U.S. phone or fax number listed on the website, and can directly contact the China based supplier to place their orders. Additionally, the service also helps the suppliers in receiving faxes and voicemail messages from their customers via e-mail.

The new service will enable the Alibaba.com suppliers to enhance their level of customer service, as the U.S. toll-free phone and fax numbers will automatically appear in the "Contact Us" section on their profile pages, so that buyers will be able to easily reach them.

In the words of Brandon Dupsky, director of the eCommerce Merchants Trade Association, international e-commerce is thriving and has become an important factor in the worldwide economy. With this new service, Alibaba.com brings one of the most direct and convenient business tools, the business phone system, to global internet commerce. Dupsky continued to say that buyers are seeking more interaction and a deeper level of engagement with suppliers, and RingCentral's cloud-based global business phone system raises the bar overall for global commerce.

According to Annie Jie Xu, general manager of Alibaba.com Americas, the company has always aimed at making business easier for people all over the world, and adding RingCentral's global cloud-based business phone system to Alibaba.com allows the company to provide unique communication services that help its Chinese suppliers conduct business more efficiently and profitably in the U.S.

In February 2010, RingCentral announced that it received the Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation's Customer Interaction Solutions magazine for a fourth consecutive year.