Before I took this job, I never knew how many acquisitions take place in the world everyday. Just last week, I covered Google’s takeover of phone-management tool GrandCentral, and even before I can rest my poor brain and fingers, here’s another one staring at me in the face, shamelessly asking me to turn on my word processor and begin typing. Well… it’s not as if I have a choice… so let’s begin.
On this side of the ring, we have Open Communication Systems (Radio Handi) – a San Francisco based privately held company, which has now been acquired by our other candidate. OCS deals in advanced telecommunications applications and software development tools based on open standards, and its most popular claim to fame is its Radio Handi communication service, which lets organized and ad-hoc groups of people to communicate with each other in a mixed media environment that blends live voice, web, email and SMS messaging.
On the other side, is Virtual PBX Inc the pioneer of the hosted PBX market – introducing the first product in its class in 1997 – and the company that has acquired the other.
PBX, or Private Branch eXchange operate connections between private organizations – usually businesses – and the public switched telephone network, incorporating telephones, fax machines, modems and more in the process. PBX handles calls between these extensions as well as connects to PSTN via trunk lines, but the hardware acquisition and maintenance cost is usually beyond the scope of small companies, giving rise to the idea of Hosted PBXs, in which a customer desists from buying expensive hardware and merely signs up for PBX service with a telephone service provider, who manage their own PBX setup and outsource its features via the Internet.
To quote the three primary uses for Virtual PBX as per the press release of the acquisition by Virtual PBX Inc –
1) For small businesses that want full PBX functionality without the capital and support expense of installed equipment.
2) For companies of any size that need to route calls to telecommuters or other employees outside of a main office.
3) For enterprises looking for phone disasters recovery solutions (Essentially, this means the ability to route calls to alternate numbers in case you experience phone failure)
So now you’re through with your ‘Beginners Guide to PBX.’ Good. Now as I’ve been taught since Grade I in my English class, ‘Two companies are better than one,’ so let’s take a look at how this acquisition will benefit Virtual PBX Inc.
As with any other acquisition, the deal will effectively add OCS’ customers to Virtual PBX Inc’s, expanding its market and paving the way for new and deeper market penetration, while alongside adding a range of VoIP, mobile, text and mixed-media communication services to their product line. Integrating OCS’ next-gen cross-platform telecommunications technology into their own network will also lead to quite a few fancy innovations in Virtual PBX Inc’s Hosted PBX network, not to mention increase the likelihood of reducing operational costs. Virtual PBX Inc has announced that it plans to provide a suite of virtual office telecommunications services that can be purchased separately or together, and that these new offerings will begin to appear by the fourth quarter of this year.
All very good, and all very nice. Virtual PBX Inc already had the ability to boast of being the inventor of the Hosted PBX setup, and this acquisition has firmly reinforced their already strong market position. The freedom of the customer to choose from an increasing list of services will give Virtual PBX Inc a trump card that will help attract new customers to the company, resulting in smiles for everyone – especially Virtual PBX Inc’s bank book. And yes, there’s another good thing resulting out of this acquisition – it enlightened some people living in ignorant bliss (like me) about the marvels of PBX and the wonders of modern technology.
This post is written by Samarth Chandola, Full time VOIP news editor at Free VOIP Guide.
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