AudioCodes eyes NZ SME market... launches 'Lync-in-a-box'

VoIP and voice network provider AudioCodes has its eyes firmly on cracking the SME market in New Zealand, launching a ‘Lync-in-a-box’ offering locally.

The company claims the offering, One Box 365, ‘is set to open the door for the vast majority of New Zealand businesses looking to leverage Microsoft’s UC platform.

Ben King, Audiocodes ANZ channel manager, says the One Box 365 is designed specifically for 25 to 200 seat market, making it ideal for New Zealand where the majority of businesses are less than 200 staff.

AudioCodes says One Box 365, part of the company’s One Voice for Lync suite of products and services, is designed for customers looking for a turn-key PBX replacement solution.

“Lync is pitched at 500+ seat organisations, and arguably larger, depending on who you speak to,” says King.

“As 95% of New Zealand and Australian businesses are under 200 staff, Lync is generally not cost effective to deploy for them, and thus this makes it hard for Microsoft Lync partners to compete at SMB level.

“Because One Box 365 is designed specifically for the sub-200 seat market, it provides Microsoft partners with a competitive edge when pitching against low-cost traditional PBX vendors.”

UCFX is one key channel partner selected to offer the solution.

Brent Colbert, UCFX channel development and marketing manager, says One Box 365 is ‘simple and fast to deploy’ making it ideal for Office 365 customers looking to extend their usage of Lync from IM and presence to full enterprise voice.

“For organisations under 200 seats, One Box 365 represents a cost-effective way to replace their legacy PBX’s with an enterprise voice solution while still leveraging the cloud benefits of Office 365,” Colbert says.

Nimrod Borovsky, AudioCodes vice president of marketing, says the offering means the company can now provide partners with ‘an intuitive and quick way to bring Lync enterprise voice alongside their Office 365 deployments in both pure cloud and hybrid on-premises solutions.

King says AudioCodes is looking to build its New Zealand partner base.