ICEWARP: HP UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVE IS GOOD FOR MARKET, BUT IS IT GOOD FOR SMBS?

Springfield, VA – July 28, 2011- HP’s upcoming Unified Communications offerings are good for the overall UC market, but are they the best fit for SMBs?  In IceWarp’s view, the solutions from different and sometimes competing vendors the software giant is promoting in a bundle, as opposed to one standards-based UC product, will create deployment uncertainties and high entry costs for small to mid-size organizations.

The emerging provider of Unified Communications & Collaboration solutions reacted today to the InfoWorld report that HP is going to offer “a new set of services to help customers proceed down the increasingly complex UC path in a heterogeneous manner, drawing on offerings from a set of able technology partners in Microsoft, Avaya, Polycom, and Alcatel-Lucent.”

“HP’s decision to move into the UC field in force is excellent for the market and acts as a powerful validation of its tremendous promise,” says Ladislav Goc, IceWarp President. “However, a decade of worldwide UC deployment experience showed us that mixed-use environments are notoriously difficult to handle. Plus, they create a host of user adoption and training issues by disrupting workers’ familiar environment.”

IceWarp’s deployment experience shows that small businesses are especially sensitive to these factors, because they create financial and business uncertainties. “That is why the SMB market is hungry for the UC solutions that are based on standards, free of crippling client dependency and offer everything in one product with transparent deployment and maintenance costs,” notes Mr. Goc. “Plus, a cluster of top-shelf applications could be simply out of SMBs price range, regardless of whether it works as advertised or not.”

According to the InfoWorld story by Ted Samson, a highly regarded industry guru, “HP does acknowledge that for the time being, fully seamless UC across any and all devices remains a pipe dream until more open standards emerge. That means, for example, that iPhone users and Android users at the same organization might have different experiences on their respective devices.”

IceWarp doesn’t share HP’s take on the issue, because this approach essentially means going against the wave of consumerization that has changed the way organizations are now deploying and supporting their communications systems.

“Mobile workers want the same flexibility and ease of use they are getting from the off-the-shelf gadgets,” continues Mr. Goc. “And this is quite reasonable: existing standards make it possible to deploy robust UC systems that can seamlessly support any mobile devices currently on the market, including latest iPhones and Android-based products. If a solution is standards-based and not locked into a client – IceWarp is a good example – it enables mobile workers to use devices from Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM and Google with practically the same experience and with an extremely high level of security.”

Already recognized as a leading email solutions provider, IceWarp (formerly Merak Mail Server) is deployed in more than 20,000 organizations and supports over 50 million users worldwide. The company disrupts the Unified Communications (UC) category by delivering all UC components (email, mobile synchronization, SMS, chat, voice and video) in one integrated, extremely secure and easy-to-deploy solution. Its customer include such market leaders as Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) and Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ, NASDAQ: VZ), as well as small to midsized firms.

For more information, please visit IceWarp (www.icewarp.com)