XO Hosting Mobile UC

XO [1] Communications has launched XO Anywhere, a new service that adds mobility and unified communications feature to its existing IP services portfolio. XO Anywhere enables employees to turn any phone into their XO office phone and includes mobile UC (i.e. FMC) capabilities such as simultaneous ring on up to 10 different devices at the same time through a single number, make and receive calls from any device with the office phone number displayed as a caller ID and charged to the office’s XO service, click-to-dial in Microsoft Outlook and web browsers, and a web-based tool bar. Current XO customers can get XO Anywhere services as a simple add-on to their IP based services.

BroadSoft [2] is proving the software to bring everything together.

While XO is laying claim as the first service provider to offering these features, by no means will they be the last. There are two key concepts underlying XO’s announcement: 1) Businesses are moving beyond the concept of vanilla UC and want to bring mobile phones into the fold of the corporate IP PBX and 2) The use of a hosted solution offered by a carrier, rather than an appliance-based gizmo installed on the customer premise and costs a lot. Businesses save money on capital expense and installation costs while carriers get to generate more revenues out of vanilla IP pipes and IP PBXes with value-added applications.

For more:
- XO’s Mobile [3] press release
- Telephony’s XO [4] write up

Related articles:
XO Communications Expands IP Services Portfolio [5]