November 2016: Blueface

Alan Foy, CEO, Blueface

With the release of its unified communications platform, Blueface has announced expansion into US, French, German and Spanish markets.

Blueface UC, the new unified communications platform, was developed in-house by the cloud communications platform provider following significant investment in research and development over four years.

The new platform enables organisations of all sizes to take advantage of cloud communications with increased reliability and flexibility to meet their business needs. Features of the platform include an intuitive dashboard interface to manage real time business communications, user and device provisioning, flexible worker mobility options, cloud call recording and an enterprise grade call conferencing feature set.

Founded in 2004, and headquartered at Dublin’s IFSC, Blueface is a full service voice solution provider operating a proprietary IP/ cloud communications network and platform servicing SMEs, enterprises and global carriers.

Blueface is deployed through a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) model, enabling end users and channel partners to leverage the benefits of cloud communications through a recurring monthly fee.

Commenting on the expansion, Blueface CEO Alan Foy said: “The cloud communications sector is growing at an increasing rate worldwide as organisations realise the benefits this technology can deliver. We’re excited that the release of our new Blueface UC platform will put us at the heart of business communications on both sides of the Atlantic.”

He continued: “At Blueface, we have a core objective to deliver valuable best-in-class cloud communications services and experiences to our customers across our operating markets. We believe that our new Blueface UC platform demonstrates our strong commitment to innovation and to delivering on that core objective for our customers.”

PIONEERING EXPERIENCE

The cloud phone system is becoming an essential business tool and adoption is driven by the exponential increase in functionality it provides, along with massive flexibility and dramatic cost savings.

An interactive voice response (IVR) system can answer and process the call dynamically. Calls themselves can be joined, refused, redirected or recorded depending on the time of the day, the person calling or being called, or on any other definable rule.

The cloud communications sector is growing at an increasing rate worldwide as organisations realise the benefits this technology can deliver

Speaking with Business & Finance earlier this year, Brian Martin, general manager of Blueface, discussed how the cloud phone system is essential for businesses.

“There’s no doubt that the business communications industry is in the midst of fundamental change,” he stated. “Traditional phone lines, known as PSTN lines, are being decommissioned worldwide. Retiring the PSTN means that IP‑based telephony is now the standard for organisations, who must choose whether a cloud/hosted setup or on‑premises deployment better fulfils their needs.

“It has taken over 100,000 development hours to produce the latest version of our cloud communications platform, accompanied by 12 years of pioneering experience in the industry. This is in addition to an international expansion with operations in progress in the United States, Germany, Spain and France, complementing existing setups in Ireland, United Kingdom and Italy.”

CONTINUED GROWTH

It’s estimated that 95% of phone systems worldwide, including PSTN-based systems, are on-premises with the remaining 5% in the cloud. Given current levels of migration, these figures will likely be reversed within 10 years.

The Cloud Communications Alliance, which counts almost all of the global market leaders amongst its membership, reported growth rates of 20%-30% per annum in June of this year. Blueface is a founding member of the Alliance and hosted the global conference in May this year.

The consensus is that due to modern reliability and security standards, sophisticated functionality and ease of use, cloud communications will continue to grow at a similar pace for the foreseeable future and rapidly replace on-premises equipment. This, of course, means massive opportunity for cloud communications service providers.