Software as a Service – a Phone.com opinion

Check out this blog link to read Ari Rabban’s guest opinion feature on IPConvergencetc.com, Edited by Jon Arnold. We wrote about SaaS and telephony in the past as well and expect this trend to grow much more in the years to come. For your viewing pleasure, the review is also posted below: or all the acronyms we are used to in the VoIP industry, the term SaaS, or Software as a Service is not one I heard much over the years. This term was used much more for other data and software products: From Wikipedia : “… where an application

By: Ari Last night I participated in a great event for small business owners in NYC. Ramon ray hosted this event at the “Samsung Experience”, Samsung’s great showcase store at the Time Warner Building in Manhattan. The event was moderated by Robert Levin, the Publisher of the New York Report and addressed some fundamental questions all small business owners have: how do I get some (good) PR? The panel of experts provided good suggestions of what a small business can do without spending the big bucks on a public relations firm. Ramon summarized it nicely, see below (with my edits): 1.

For so many small businesses who use their cell phone or home phone number as their business phone number, put it on their business cards, website or other marketing collateral there is that constant blur between work and home. Yes, so many of us probably got used to this and just assume what else can I do? Right? Well. Wrong! There really is NO need for a business, any size business, to have the same number as its owner’s private phone number(s), home or cell. This is what Phone.com Virtual Office is really about. Helping the SOHOs (Small Office /

By: Alon Cohen NEW Phone.Com online forum lets customers and office managers collaborate, ask questions about product features and share ideas. PHONE.COM LABS is home to new technologies and “ideas-in-progress” developed by Phone.Com programmers and engineers. Brian Scott, our COO explains how “Phone.Com Labs” works to form a link from traditional product development cycles to a more user-centric innovation. What does Phone.Com Labs do? Phone.Com Labs was launched as a forum for sharing new technologies, concepts and ideas with potential users and customers. Our purpose is to offer previews so our developers, engineers and users can have a discussion about

By: Ari We all know how frustrating it is to wait for our PCs to boot / reboot and sometimes reboot again and again…  Well, according to a New York Times article published today this might be changing really soon. The article actually describes what we all suffer from: how we entertain ourselves in the 2-3-4-5-6 minutes it takes to boot-up our computers. They even have a (non) medical term for it: “PBA” or, Pre Boot-up anxiety. I certainly suffer from PBA. Well, the computer industry is said to be coming out soon with new shorter boot up times that will

By: Ari I came across an interesting ViewPoint in Business Week yesterday: titled “The Crisis May Be a Boon for Some Small Businesses”. The author Gene Marks has some straight forward comments and tips such as: 1) In bad financial times your bank will suddenly be more interested in you (the small business) so try and take advantage. 2) Instead of investing some profits in the stock market take it and invest in your business! 3) Worried about your own financials? We all are. Taking a close look at our balance sheet may teach us a thing or two about

Whether Barack Obama’s tax plan is better for “Joe the plumber” and so many other small business owners in the US or perhaps John Mccain’s plan, one thing is certain: Phone.com Virtual Office phone service is definitely better! When it comes to helping small business owners save money and improve productivity, image, perception and credibility you should consider Phone.com Virtual Office as your business phone service. With the lowest prices in the industry and 24*7 customer support, Phone.com Virtual Office provides a small business with excellent and extremely affordable tools to set up a business phone system that traditionally was

An open letter about our customer support: By: Ari In a recent issue of MITs Sloan Business School Management Review there was an article focusing on customer service and the importance of listening and making the most of your customer’s complaints and feedback. Good customer service is not only about fixing a customers problem or offering compensation for a problem (though both important!) it is also about how the company assures the customer a problem will not happen again and how it learns from a customer how to improve a product or service. At Phone.com we pride ourselves in our

By: Ari We, at Phone.com, always want to make it as easy as possible for new customers to get started with their service immediately after sign up. Due to the huge feature set of Phone.com Virtual Office we noticed that some customers may get a bit overwhelmed about how to set up their account. So, we added a simple “wizard” that helps guide first time users set up their Virtual Office account with a basic forward / follow me and voicemail. Once you have that going. You can start enjoying your service within minutes of your sign up and then

On Thursday I attended a great new executive networking event in NYC (execulife.com). One of the groups featured at the event was Grassroots.org. Grassroots is a non-profit organization that focuses on helping “start-up” non profit organizations with all their IT needs. Grassroots currently serves over 600 non-profits in the US and Canada and offers them IT services such as web-design, domain-names, web hosting, SEO and also offer Virtual Office phone services through our own partnership with them. Phone.com is proud to work with Grassroots.org and its great young and dynamic staff and volunteers all helping charitable causes. To learn more

By: Alon Cohen As a consumer evaluating a company that provides you with real time communication services you probably ask: who stands behind it? Are they reliable? What are their major assets that work for me? What will happen to my phone number if the company disappears one day? Well, at Phone.com we understand that question, we would ask it ourselves. To begin with, we promise 24*7 customer-support! Someone is always available to take our customer’s call (your call!). We will be glad to help you set up your accounts, and advise you on better ways to effectively use our

By: Ari Yesterday, Alon and I were gussets of PC Magazine in New York City. We were invited to present Phone.com – Virtual Office and discuss trends in the small business phone market including hosted and managed pbxs and other solutions for SMEs. This event was part of the New York SMB Club which was founded by Mor Sela and featured IT professionals from the tri-state area. It was a great (and warm) NY evening! We had a live discussion exchanging ideas about the telecom needs of small business. What we all agreed on is how wide the definition of