InterCall Launches Hosted Unified Communications Geared to Small and Medium-sized Businesses

CHICAGO, April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- InterCall, the world's largest conferencing and collaboration services provider, today announced the launch of InterCall Hosted Unified Communications for the SMB market. The solution delivers the productivity, cost savings and enterprise-class reliability businesses are looking for in a Unified Communications solution, without expensive hardware and infrastructure investments, long and complex deployments or on-going support and upgrade concerns.

"Many small to mid-sized businesses are very interested in Unified Communications from a productivity and cost savings standpoint, but are intimidated by the prospect of hardware expenses, complicated implementations, and day-to-day management requirements," said Bob Wise, executive vice president of Unified Communications Services, InterCall. "This solution provides cost-effective, easy-to-deploy and scalable Unified Communications services that meet the needs of that market."

InterCall Hosted Unified Communications includes central hosting and management of:

• Microsoft® Exchange
• Office Communicator
• SharePoint
• Active Directory
• Cisco UC Manager

The solution will be bundled with InterCall's award-winning audio conferencing and custom options will be available. As a fully hosted solution, customers can leverage all the benefits of Unified Communications without upfront capital expenditures and no need to hire dedicated on-site staff to maintain the system.

To deliver the offering, InterCall has partnered with CallTower, a leading provider of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and recognized in Gartner's 2009 UCaaS Magic Quadrant as a visionary in the Unified Communications services market. The combination of InterCall's best-in-class conferencing services along with CallTower's technology platform provides customers with an unparalleled service and support experience, as well as the benefit of having a single vendor to manage and a single invoice for their monthly communications spend.

"We were wholly impressed by InterCall's Unified Communications vision," said Bob Barnes, executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development at CallTower. "Their long history of success, their ability and desire to find the best available partners, and their commitment to bring them to market in an integrated fashion is what makes us strongly believe in the partnership."

InterCall customers will also have access to expert technology consultants, thanks to the recent acquisition of SKT Business Communication Solutions by West Corporation (InterCall and SKT BCS are a part of West Corporation). SKT BCS is a leading professional services, systems integration and information technology firm specializing in the consulting, project management and implementation of Unified Communications and IP telephony, legacy telecommunications systems, virtualization and Communications Enabled Business Processes.  

Both the CallTower partnership and SKT relationship are key pieces of InterCall's Unified Communications strategy, reflecting the transition from being the world's largest conferencing provider to becoming the leading provider of collaborative business solutions.

"We've built our services out of the desire to meet customer needs, so our move from being the number one conferencing provider to the number one collaboration provider is a natural transition that reflects where the market is going," stated Wise. "This partnership will ensure our continued delivery of best-of-breed services and easy-to-use solutions."

About InterCall

InterCall, a subsidiary of West Corporation, is the largest service provider in the world specializing in conference communications. Founded in 1991, InterCall helps people and companies are more productive by providing advanced audio, event, Web and video conferencing solutions that are easy-to-use and save them time and money. Along with a team of over 950 Meeting Consultants, the company employs more than 1,600 operators, customer service representatives, call supervisors, accounting, marketing and IT professionals. InterCall's strong U.S. presence, which includes 10 call centers and 35 sales offices, is bolstered by a global reach that extends to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. For more information, please visit www.intercall.com.

About CallTower, Inc.

CallTower (www.calltower.com) transforms a company's voice and data communications into a strategic business tool that provides a competitive advantage in today's market. CallTower's Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provides growing companies with enterprise-class reliability, a single point of support, productivity-enhancing features and 24/7 service for a fixed monthly fee. CallTower's communication services are based on the Cisco® CallManager, Microsoft Office Communications Server, Microsoft® Exchange Server and Microsoft® Sharepoint Server powered by the proprietary CallTower vXML VoiceCube voice messaging platform.

About West Corporation

West Corporation is a leading provider of technology-driven, voice-oriented solutions. West offers its clients a broad range of communications and infrastructure management solutions that help them manage or support critical communications. West's customer contact solutions and conferencing services are designed to improve its clients' cost structure and provide reliable, high-quality services. West also provides mission-critical services, such as public safety and emergency communications.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, West serves Fortune 1000 companies and other clients in a variety of industries, including telecommunications, banking, retail, financial, technology and healthcare. West has sales and operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America. For more information on West Corporation, please call 1-800-841-9000 or visit www.west.com.

SOURCE InterCall