RingCentral, provider of an on-demand, hosted phone system for small businesses, announced Monday a new partnership with San Jose, California-based Concentric. The partnership represents an expansion of RingCentral’s (News - Alert) reach into the market by making its virtual phone and fax system available to Concentric’s customers.
Concentric (News - Alert) provides a variety of hosted solutions, including business e-mail, corporate domain management, Web site hosting, and Microsoft Hosted Exchange. By partnering with RingCentral, the company’s portfolio is being expanded to include phone and Internet fax service as well. Synergy (News - Alert) between the two companies is natural, given that they both focus on serving companies with distributed workforces who can benefit from systems that streamline communicates between colleagues and with clients.
Given current struggles in the U.S. economy, it’s natural that companies—especially smaller ones—are seeking communications solutions that are affordable both in terms of up-front investment and ongoing maintenance. Hosted solutions like those offered by RingCentral and Concentric are poised to become more popular since they can hit the sweet spot between cost and features.
“The RingCentral hosted business phone system compliments a small business's voice services by providing a centralized phone and Internet fax solution for mobile and distributed employees,” said Barbara Branaman, executive vice president of product and marketing for Concentric, in a statement. “With RingCentral, we now offer a comprehensive suite of affordable small business services including everything a small business needs to create a big business presence on the web and on the phone.”
Concentric’s focus, said Vlad Shmunis, president and CEO of RingCentral, is to help growing businesses project an established, professional image. It does this by offering Web hosting and messaging services—and now hosted phone and fax, through RingCentral.
“The RingCentral hosted business phone system is a perfect fit with these services enabling businesses to extend their professional image and brand through the most critical communication channel, their phone,” Shmunis said in a statement.
RingCentral’s hosted phone system includes toll-free or local number with call management features, PBX (News - Alert), Internet fax and voicemail. Users can set up multiple extensions using the voicemail feature, so that calls can be automatically screened and forwarded based on customized preferences. Plus, users can view call logs for sales leads, and send and receive faxes, using the online interface. The system also enables businesses to offer their customers a click-to-call option from the company Web site.
To pique the interest of customers who can benefit from RingCentral’s offering, Concentric is offering existing clients a free 30-day trial of the hosted phone and fax system. New customers can also try it out free for 30 days after signing up for a Concentric hosting and e-mail account, or by purchasing a RingCentral plan.
Availability of RingCentral’s service was soft-launched by Concentric on August 4, and already it is receiving rave reviews from clients who appreciate benefits of the offering.
“RingCentral streamlines our messaging platform for global communications,” said Ron Heradian, chief systems architect for Global System Services Corp., a Concentric customer. “By deploying this solution we have consolidated our phone services, resulting in better service for our customers at a lower total cost. Now, we have a solid messaging platform that enhances our highly mobile business model.”
RingCentral is a privately-held company based in Redwood City, California. It has financial backing from Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and DAG Ventures.
Concentric was founded in 1997, and is now a business unit of XO Communications (which itself was founded in 2000 when Nextlink and Concentric merged into one company).
To learn more about RingCentral’s hosted business phone and fax system, please visit the
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Mae Kowalke is senior editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Mae' �s articles, please visit her columnist page. She also blogs for TMCnet here.