Hosted VoIP Featured Article

International Data Corporation (IDC (News - Alert)) has recognized AT&T as the top company in the telephony-based hosted Unified Communications (UC) space. AT&T announced that this recognition was based on IDC’s latest analysis of the trends in this market.

Hosted UC providers that bring something interesting to the market were investigated by the report, “IDC MarketScape: U.S. Telephony-Based Hosted Unified Communications (News - Alert), 2010 Vendor Analysis.”

The report is available at http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=222897.

AT&T has extensive relationships with UC vendors like Cisco (News - Alert), Microsoft and Avaya. The unified experience is focused by AT&T through its own clients, which can be delivered via a number of AT&T telephony solutions.

AT&T (News - Alert) has further strategic advantages in the hosted UC arena, noted IDC. The advantages are control over quality of service and strong service-level agreements or SLAs with AT&T’s ownership of its network. Security and privacy services are also enabled due to AT&T’s ownership of its network. A more seamless AT&T experience to customers is delivered with the strong progress in the integration of AT&T’s wireline and wireless services. The last advantage is the availability of impressive PBX (News - Alert) functionality and AT&T solutions like OfficeReach.

In a release, Carrie MacGillivray, program manager in IDC's Mobility and IP Communications program said, "While the hosted UC space is still evolving, the solutions on the market today are strong indicators of just how powerful the hosted UC space will be going forward. What goes on in this corner of communications is going to change how we do business from here on out. As an industry, we need to pay close attention to ensure the roads being paved today will lead us to a better tomorrow."

According to Frank Zvi, vice president of AT&T Unified Communications a rich set of Unified Communications applications at the global enterprise level is delivered by AT&T global IP network. Zvi added that businesses are able to strengthen their efficiency and effectiveness in the dynamic global environment with AT&T’s array of innovative conferencing and messaging solutions.

Solutions such as AT&T Connect are included in AT&T's Unified Communications offering. Voice, web and videoconferencing are combined in AT&T Connect to enable unlimited conferencing and collaboration. Audio conferencing, video conferencing; and web conferencing are also enabled.