Jive Communications Brings Unified Communications to Telarus Partners

By Steve Anderson
Contributing TMCnet Writer

A powerful new match was recently made as Jive Communications partnered with Telarus (News - Alert) to offer a variety of unified communications (UC) and hosted voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) tools for the wide array of Telarus partners in the field. This makes an already good proposition even better, and should add some spark to Telarus' partners' sales efforts.

The addition of Jive to Telarus' lineup brings with it the Jive Cloud hosted service delivery platform, a platform that has at last report received high ratings from previous users. Since Jive Cloud was built on a set of open standards, it allows for easy integration with third-party software, particularly the GeoQuote line of real-time pricing software that Telarus itself uses. That's a selling point in and of itself, but Jive won't be leaving Telarus reps out in the cold with just that. Rather, Jive plans to offer an array of in-market resources tailored to local conditions in order to give partners a better idea of how to sell Jive products. Plus, partners will be able to get access to further supplementary materials through Telarus' back office site. This opens up a fresh array of options to the over 2,000 partners that Telarus counts to its credit.

Telarus' president, Adam Edwards, commented on the new move, saying “We strongly believe a partnership with Jive Communications is a great move for our base of partners. Especially those who focus on unified communication solutions. Jive’s ease of implementation and UC customization makes them a great choice as a Hosted VoIP provider, and our sub agents will greatly benefit from having Jive as an option. We know because we use Jive ourselves and have been thrilled with the service.”

It's that last line that's particularly telling. It's easy to see why Jive Communications—known in the field as a UC and hosted VoIP provider—would mesh with a business data and data center services firm like Telarus, especially given that Telarus also offers voice and cloud services. Many buyers of Telarus services would likely have an interest in buying Jive services as well, so being able to offer both sets of services off the same menu, so to speak, is good for business. What's more, those who already have Telarus services can be revisited with the new slate of Jive services, and that opens up the potential for not only new sales, but also the potential for upselling with other Telarus products. It's the foot in the door that allows all those sales partners a little extra leverage to try and make more of a sale. When Telarus is already using—and is already happy with—Jive services, potential buyers take notice.

The two companies have set the stage rather nicely for a fairly big win. Some decent sales methods, meanwhile, should allow for quite a payoff in the end as companies get access to an even fuller menu with plenty more choices, and just one bill to pay in the end.