InPhonex targets businesses with between four and 20 employees for Televate. Bramson says the company hopes to increase that profile size in the next year or so, but that the current sales cycle -- and the purchase decision between hosted and on-premises phone systems -- slows down considerably beyond 20 seats. Televate is offered in packages of four, 10, and 20 seats; individual seats can be added a la carte. Pricing ranges between $30 and $40 per seat, per month. Bramson acknowledges that's a higher price point than some other cloud telephony providers, but said that the CRM application and mobile apps justify the cost.
Though InPhonex will sell Televate directly to businesses, Bramson said that's mainly to stay in touch with the market -- the company's dominant distribution method is through channel partners. Bramson believes that model best serves SMBs considering a hosted phone system: "We think that the majority of businesses view their communications application as something that's critical, that's serious, and that demands a face-to-face conversation," he said, adding that he doesn't believe the direct sales route will drive the industry's growth. "That model is not going to be the one that conquers the big, fat part of the adoption curve."
Competition among cloud telephony vendors appears to be intensifying of late, particularly among those targeting SMBs. A recent study conducted by Parallels projected that hosted PBX for smaller companies will become a $3.9 billion business. Bramson thinks that hyper-growth has already begun -- and is sustainable long term.
"I think it's a boom with a potentially really long tail," Bramson said. He added that while hosted PBX might be the strategic "beachhead" for service providers, the more significant long-term opportunity lies in application integration -- extending even to seemingly unrelated functions such as payroll or human resources. "The smart [providers] are going to use that beachhead to layer additional applications on top, so that eventually the hosted phone system becomes the foundation upon which a whole bunch of application Legos are stacked."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
