VERIZON UNWRAPS UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE

Unified communications will get the market push it needs this week when Verizon Communications and uReach Technologies announce a partnership to provide such services in the Chicago and Washington areas. The deal makes Verizon the first major U.S. carrier to offer unified communications to the consumer market.

Since its inception, unified communications has been difficult to deploy successfully, not because of the products or the providers offering the services but because of the lack of financial capital and brand strength needed to effectively market them.

“Going back, companies in the unified communications space gave the service away, hoping to recoup their costs through advertising and then by trying to upsell to customers,” said Richard J. McCusker, director of retail messaging solutions for Verizon's in-region services. “That really didn't work. There was no real drive to use the services, and a lot of these companies folded up and walked away.”

Since then, pricing has evolved because IP can now be leveraged, consumer demand is greater because communications services are more complex, and target marketing helped to find the right audience, said Krishnamurty Kambhampati, co-founder and CEO of uReach.

Verizon's brand-name recognition gives unified communications the push it needs. “[The Verizon brand name] puts the success level or that starting point in a completely different realm,” said Aurika Yen, analyst for The Yankee Group.

Verizon will charge a flat-rate fee for a bucket of minutes for its unified communications service, which lets customers use a toll-free number to access voice mail, e-mail paging and faxes. Personal management information features and call-management functions such as find me/follow me also are included.

Under the deal, uReach will act as an applications service provider, providing the service via its data center that hooks into the public network and IP networks. “Our technology allows the carriers to quickly deploy in different markets,” Kambhampati said. “That's a function of the platform's ability to reach out into different networks and provide the service.”

Meanwhile, Verizon will provide much-needed marketing strength. The Washington launch is being marketed to mobile professionals, small businesses and consumers; the Chicago launch targets small and medium-sized businesses. Customers do not have to subscribe to a Verizon wireless or wireline service to register for the platform.

“[Unified communications] really needed to be rolled out by a major provider to penetrate and get people to adopt the service,” said Will Stofega, research analyst of residential communications and small business for IDC.