Prodial puts no-contract business IP comms on the menu.
Having sold his previous venture, TalkNet, Bill Marlow is now promoting a radical approach to business IP communications: a no-contract service under the Prodial brand. Hosted communications services have long pitched themselves on the way they reduce the capex required for customers to enter the world of IP communications, so in creating the new Prodial offerings, Marlow said he recognised the need to make sure the company could offer ”’something different – something the end user doesn’t already have”.
Having sold his previous venture, TalkNet, Bill Marlow is now promoting a radical approach to business IP communications: a no-contract service under the Prodial brand. Hosted communications services have long pitched themselves on the way they reduce the capex required for customers to enter the world of IP communications, so in creating the new Prodial offerings, Marlow said he recognised the need to make sure the company could offer ”’something different – something the end user doesn’t already have”.
“Our offering had to remove the barriers to entry for any business,” he told SearchNetworking, so in addition to creating a service that can be connected with zero capex, “we decided to offer a zero-contract service, because if the customer likes the service, they will stay with it.” The only fixed charge is for line rental at $19.50 per month.
In developing its service, Marlow said Prodial formed the opinion that it needed to own all of its IP infrastructure. “Many IP services companies don’t own the technical infrastructure – we do. We have created two IP networks, each of which is running independent switches and gateways.
“And each network supports the same full load, with a 350 millisecond changeover between the networks if something goes wrong.” The aim, he said, is to create a business-grade infrastructure for the target market, which Marlow said is designed to fit a market gap for “medium to high-end SMEs and smaller corporates” – a market which avoids competition with the incumbents that dominate the large enterprise space.
Prodial says its suite of services includes VoIP services, virtual PABX solutions, CPE (if required), IP-enabled communicatinos, consultancy, and a range of Web-based products. Marlow said the “zero capex” proposition reaches all the way to companies that are using existing key telephone systems. Such customers could connect to the Prodial service, through the built-in Ethernet port if the KTS has one, or through a gateway, and move all of their call management into the Prodial environment. The key system only needs to handle the “in-building” part of the call.
“Services, features and applications are all going virtualised,” Marlow said. “So with a virtualised PABX, network and infrastructure, you can take anything that’s in the customer environment, and IP-enable it to work on our solution.” He also said the offering is designed to make the process transparent for the customers, while retaining all the services they are now using. Marlow said the service will use ADSL, ADSL2+ or SHDSL services from TPG/Soul to connect customers. For those customers that opt for SHDSL, 30% of the capacity will be reserved for voice services to guarantee call quality in the customer tail.
By maintaining control over all of its IP infrastructure, Marlow said, the company is able to pre-configure any CPE required to connect a customer, “with the aim of achieving a plug-and-play solution”.
The primary host for the service is in PerthIX, with interconnect with a number of local carriers in all states, along with connections to Tata and NTT for international traffic.
Self-managed services – if you want
Marlow also said that Prodial devoted a lot of effort to creating a service that customers could manage themselves at minimum effort. One of the big lessons of IP telephony, he said, has been that management interfaces are often difficult and forbidding for customers lacking the specialist training needed to handle IP communications systems. “We worked hard to simplify it all, [but at the same time] they can see anything in the operation of their whole company.” The management interfaces will also be available to channel partners, Prodial’s preferred go-to-market model.
“We will be looking for 15 to 20 channel partners,” Marlow said. “We will want the channel partners to take responsibility for getting loyal customers. “But to do that, the partner has to offer added value to the customer, and we would prefer that the partners would be able to field at least ‘level one’ customer support.” An example is assisting customers with moves-adds-changes. While the IP telephony world will never enjoy the expensive move-add-change fees of bygone days, many businesses still find the effort required to configure a new IP phone, or change its identity to match a change of staff, to be beyond their capabilities. Partners may not be able to charge $1,000 for such operations – but they will be able to turn such support operations into revenue with little effort.
“The system is designed to let the channel partner manage the customer – they get the network’s full set of features and services,” Marlow said. Given, however, that many channels in the telecommunications business are accustomed to trailing commissions of some kind or other, will they see the resale of a no-contract business service as too risky?
“I don’t think so,” Marlow said. “The channel partners will have no risk on their side. Prodial is assuming the risk. As far as we see, we’re offering a no-risk solution for businesses wanting to move into IP communications.”
Prodial currently has agreements in place with Nortec IT, SpliceCom, J2G, Lorem and Vocaltec.
The challenge will be to attract the mid-size business market – one that’s been rightfully acknowledged as a difficult market to attract. Beyond the default “buy from Telstra” option, the segment Prodial is approaching is difficult to find, difficult to convince, and difficult to wean away from incumbents. Marlow acknowleges this challenge, but believes that something that eliminates immediate barriers to entry will help Prodial’s partners offer a strong story to potential customers. For example, since the service is designed to support whatever customer equipment is currently installed, even businesses who are only partway through the lease of a PABX need not fear for their investment: they can move their services without changing their equipment, IP-enable a legacy-style communications network, and only make their capex decision when they believe it’s necessary to do so.
“Our offering had to remove the barriers to entry for any business,” he told SearchNetworking, so in addition to creating a service that can be connected with zero capex, “we decided to offer a zero-contract service, because if the customer likes the service, they will stay with it.” The only fixed charge is for line rental at $19.50 per month.
In developing its service, Marlow said Prodial formed the opinion that it needed to own all of its IP infrastructure. “Many IP services companies don’t own the technical infrastructure – we do. We have created two IP networks, each of which is running independent switches and gateways.
“And each network supports the same full load, with a 350 millisecond changeover between the networks if something goes wrong.” The aim, he said, is to create a business-grade infrastructure for the target market, which Marlow said is designed to fit a market gap for “medium to high-end SMEs and smaller corporates” – a market which avoids competition with the incumbents that dominate the large enterprise space.
Prodial says its suite of services includes VoIP services, virtual PABX solutions, CPE (if required), IP-enabled communicatinos, consultancy, and a range of Web-based products. Marlow said the “zero capex” proposition reaches all the way to companies that are using existing key telephone systems. Such customers could connect to the Prodial service, through the built-in Ethernet port if the KTS has one, or through a gateway, and move all of their call management into the Prodial environment. The key system only needs to handle the “in-building” part of the call.
“Services, features and applications are all going virtualised,” Marlow said. “So with a virtualised PABX, network and infrastructure, you can take anything that’s in the customer environment, and IP-enable it to work on our solution.” He also said the offering is designed to make the process transparent for the customers, while retaining all the services they are now using. Marlow said the service will use ADSL, ADSL2+ or SHDSL services from TPG/Soul to connect customers. For those customers that opt for SHDSL, 30% of the capacity will be reserved for voice services to guarantee call quality in the customer tail.
By maintaining control over all of its IP infrastructure, Marlow said, the company is able to pre-configure any CPE required to connect a customer, “with the aim of achieving a plug-and-play solution”.
The primary host for the service is in PerthIX, with interconnect with a number of local carriers in all states, along with connections to Tata and NTT for international traffic.
Self-managed services – if you want
Marlow also said that Prodial devoted a lot of effort to creating a service that customers could manage themselves at minimum effort. One of the big lessons of IP telephony, he said, has been that management interfaces are often difficult and forbidding for customers lacking the specialist training needed to handle IP communications systems. “We worked hard to simplify it all, [but at the same time] they can see anything in the operation of their whole company.” The management interfaces will also be available to channel partners, Prodial’s preferred go-to-market model.
“We will be looking for 15 to 20 channel partners,” Marlow said. “We will want the channel partners to take responsibility for getting loyal customers. “But to do that, the partner has to offer added value to the customer, and we would prefer that the partners would be able to field at least ‘level one’ customer support.” An example is assisting customers with moves-adds-changes. While the IP telephony world will never enjoy the expensive move-add-change fees of bygone days, many businesses still find the effort required to configure a new IP phone, or change its identity to match a change of staff, to be beyond their capabilities. Partners may not be able to charge $1,000 for such operations – but they will be able to turn such support operations into revenue with little effort.
“The system is designed to let the channel partner manage the customer – they get the network’s full set of features and services,” Marlow said. Given, however, that many channels in the telecommunications business are accustomed to trailing commissions of some kind or other, will they see the resale of a no-contract business service as too risky?
“I don’t think so,” Marlow said. “The channel partners will have no risk on their side. Prodial is assuming the risk. As far as we see, we’re offering a no-risk solution for businesses wanting to move into IP communications.”
Prodial currently has agreements in place with Nortec IT, SpliceCom, J2G, Lorem and Vocaltec.
The challenge will be to attract the mid-size business market – one that’s been rightfully acknowledged as a difficult market to attract. Beyond the default “buy from Telstra” option, the segment Prodial is approaching is difficult to find, difficult to convince, and difficult to wean away from incumbents. Marlow acknowleges this challenge, but believes that something that eliminates immediate barriers to entry will help Prodial’s partners offer a strong story to potential customers. For example, since the service is designed to support whatever customer equipment is currently installed, even businesses who are only partway through the lease of a PABX need not fear for their investment: they can move their services without changing their equipment, IP-enable a legacy-style communications network, and only make their capex decision when they believe it’s necessary to do so.