FEATURE: Fonality rides decentralization

Fonality is a company worth watching. Several years ago it took a different route to the challenge of IP communications, creating a network of over 5,000 servers to support what it calls a hybrid-hosted VoIP service. It built a central hosting platform targeting contact centers and promoting its service as the perfect means to manage a distributed calling center.

At the heart of the platform is a strong presence capability, which is key to the management of any successful distributed environment. The timing was perfect with the solution arriving just as calling centers began moving out of large centralized buildings. Capitalizing on the telecommuter movement, centers are now increasingly highly diversified with reps in numerous locations. Twelve hundred call centers later, the Fonality solution clearly has been attractive for companies wanting to move to the next generation of voice and call center architecture

   Meanwhile the huge plus of having the platform in the cloud is it virtually eliminates the need for truck rolls, with almost all the functionality tied up in the platform, rather than in the premises. This enables easy upgrades and maintenance. And it was exactly this low cost model that attracted PC giant Dell when it began looking for a partner to promote VoIP services. Dell enjoys a 30-percent share of the U.S. enterprise market and observers had assumed it would partner with the big premise players such as Avaya or Cisco. At the time of the announcement it was a case of Fonality who? No more. Fonality brings out its latest platform upgrade next week. Not one truck will be seen.