In the spotlight: Cbeyond's Brent Cobb

Cbeyond is riding a growing wave of success, bringing managed IP services, including voice, to small- and medium-sized businesses. Brent Cobb, vice president of product management and general manager of the mobile business for Cbeyond, spoke with Telephony Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson.

On Cbeyond's continued growth: As a managed service provider, 2007 was a great year for us. We had 30% top line growth. We also saw the average number of applications sold per customer go from 5.6 to 6.3. For 2008, we have launched Miami as a new market, and we know Minneapolis will be next — and we will open one other new market this year.

On the company's most popular offered services: Our largest growth has been in mobile adoption. By the end of 2007, 24% of our customers had one or more mobile services. We offer a full line of handsets for small business. We are [a multiple virtual network operator], and so we are buying minutes and megabytes and integrating them into our service.

On Cbeyond's competitive advantage in mobile: What customers are saying is that they want to be mobile and they trust Cbeyond as a service provider. This is not just about employees who travel. You'd be shocked at how many people have heard of smartphones but never used a Blackberry. They are looking for solutions. We go to the customer to discuss these solutions in a specific way that relates to their business: Are you a plumbing group that needs to share your information outside the office so that field service people can stay in touch?

What we've found is that when we can empower the customer with a smartphone, they are interacting with their customers via e-mail, with integrated fax and data, and getting access to their contact lists and calendars. All of this is driving productivity higher than it's ever been.