BT Cited for North American "Unified Communications as a Service" Capabilities

NEW YORK, May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- BT (NYSE: BT), one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services, today said that it has been recognized in the Gartner, Inc., "Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications as a Service" research report.*  The report outlines the use cases and environments for the major unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions offered in the North American market. In particular, BT scored highly among vendors in the very large enterprise use case. 

Gartner said, "With UCaaS, the provider owns, manages and hosts the UC infrastructure in its facilities. Users then pay subscription fees for UC services, as opposed to making capital investments for an on-premises-based infrastructure. With the economic downturn largely behind us, a new normal has been established. A consequence of the downturn was to cause many organizations to rethink their approaches, attitudes and assumptions to capital expenditure (capex) spending in some areas; as a result, many are more receptive to as-a-service models."

BT introduced its hosted Internet protocol (IP) telephony service to business customers in the U.S. in 2010.  The service, which is designed for large enterprises and multinational corporations, allows businesses to bring converged voice, mobile and data services to every desktop in their organization, using cloud computing-based technologies.  It can help businesses dramatically reduce upfront investment costs while accelerating the adoption of UC on a global scale.

The service now supports more than 100,000 users and is being deployed worldwide.  It offers a utility based pricing model delivering rich IP telephony features on a standard platform, which allows customers to deploy enterprise IP telephony to sites around the world and interwork with legacy communications infrastructure.  New collaboration features in development include the ability to integrate with Microsoft Lync and the introduction of Cisco Jabber capabilities.

Kim McMann, President, BT U.S. and Canada, said: "I believe the evaluation of BT's service in this report shows the competitive nature of our UCaaS offers and highlights the value we bring to multinational customers. Our customers recognize BT's core strengths in offering a broad portfolio of managed service options and our strong focus on key vertical sectors including financial services, consumer packaged goods, government and healthcare, and global commerce."

*Gartner, Inc., Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications as a Service, Bern Elliot, Daniel O'Connell, March 30, 2011.

About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in more than 170 countries.  Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services.  BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.

In the year ended 31 March 2010, BT Group's revenue was 20,911 million pounds Sterling.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group.  BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. 

For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt

SOURCE BT

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