Verizon Business (News - Alert), a unit of Verizon Communications that provides IP and telecommunications solutions, has announced to launch a new managed service that will enable corporate users to collaborate more easily in today's fast-paced workplace.

 

The new managed unified communications and collaboration solution is based upon the Cisco Unified Communications (News - Alert) Manager 6.1 platform, and is aimed at helping companies enhance collaboration and productivity among mobile workforces and the extended enterprise - suppliers, partners, customers and employees.

 

Verizon is the first major U.S. based service provider to deploy Cisco (News - Alert) Unified Communications Manager 6.1 platform. With the new managed service by Verizon, corporate information technology (IT) departments will be able to out-task the complex operations often associated with the day-to-day management of UC&C solutions.

 

Also, the workers can seamlessly integrate communications tools such as voice mail, e-mail and instant messaging with this service.

 

The new service will be launched in the Asia-Pacific region early next year, while it is available immediately to customers in the U.S. and many European countries. The offering features a host of productivity-enhancing applications, such as unified messaging, which integrates voice mail and e-mail and delivers greater efficiency for corporate end users by enabling one-source access to voice and data messages.

 

The new Verizon Business managed service offers employees a single phone number and business voice-mail box with its unified mobility feature. It enables employees to receive calls wherever it is convenient, and make outgoing calls that appear with the user's assigned business phone numbers.

 

The new service is an addition to Verizon Business' comprehensive portfolio of advanced collaboration services, including Integrated Communications Package and PBX (News - Alert) Mobile Extension.

 

Both of these services can be leveraged with the company's voice-over-IP (VoIP) portfolio to create a flexible unified communications and collaboration framework. The company deploys its global IP network to offer conferencing, mobility, VoIP, contact center, managed and hosted services to its customers.

 

Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Verizon Business said that today's enterprise is faced with many new challenges, including how to enable employee productivity, do more with less and be environmentally responsible.

 

Gofus noted that unified communications helps companies address these issues, enabling them to fully realize the power of their Internet protocol networks as they deliver advanced IP-enabled applications.