Stuart Corner
Friday, 28 November 2008 04:03
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Vodafone has launched Business One, possibly the most comprehensive integrated communications offering for small businesses to be offered as a standard package.
Business One was
announced in June . Vodafone Australia, Cisco and the company behind the BlackBerry, Research In Motion (RIM) have teamed up to offer a one-stop shop communications service for small business combining fixed and mobile voice and data services, IP PBX, Blackberry and a converged fixed and mobile communications functionality.
The service has been on trial with a four 'friendly' customers since then and is now being offered by Vodafone to businesses needing up to 24 users. Vodafone will announce channel partners early next year and packages for businesses with up to 100 users. It will sell the service direct in parallel with its channel partners.
In October
Vodafone announced, Bizfone, a new channel partner which intends to recruit an army of individual communications consultants to sell Vodafone services to businesses with up to 250 employees. The new company is a subsidiary of First Mobile New Zealand which runs all Vodafone retail stores in New Zealand. Vodafone would not confirm if this organisation would be selling the new Business One service. But this seems more than likely.
The base Business One package for a 24 user business comprises: the Cisco Integrated Services Router - the heart of the service - running Cisco IP PBX software, VPN, firewall and wireless lan controller; Cisco WiFi access points; BlackBerry Enterprise Server software and the hardware to run it; Cisco fixed IP phones and BlackBerry handsets with WiFi and VoIP functionality. Standard fixed line services are provided by AAPT.
For this customers pay $2599 (inc GST) per month for up to 8000 minutes of mobile calls, 2250 fixed calls, 1000 text messages and unlimited mobile email. The base hardware and software package costs $1099 per month and IP phones and handsets are supplied separately either for a one off upfront fee or on a monthly payment plan.
This means that a 24 person business would be paying $155 per employee per month for all its calls, fixed and mobile and for all its communications systems. This seems like a fairly reasonable price. However a typical organisation might need the level of functionality offered by Business One for only a handful of employees, so might see the pricing as excessive.
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