He points out these key advantages of a hosted UC deployment:

• Better disaster recovery
• Rapid service deployment
• Addresses the mobile Bring-Your-Own-Device challenge
• Lower cost and lower risk deployment
• Centralized management

To talk to a ConnectSolutions expert about how your organization can use a managed private cloud for your UC solution, please fill out the contact form found here.

Click here to read the full text of Kerravala’s article.

ConnectSolutions will be exhibiting at this year’s Enterprise Connect Conference & Expo in Orlando, Florida. The event will run from March 26 through the 29th, and will bring together over 100 exhibitors and thousands of attendees. The ConnectSolutions booth will feature demonstrations of our managed private clouds for Microsoft Lync and Adobe Connect. With a managed private cloud, our customers are able to quickly and efficiently deploy unified communication software in a secure environment. Powerful software from Microsoft and Adobe can only achieve their desired impact when the deployment is secure and reliable, and when the end users are trained and enabled to use the product. At ConnectSolutions we partner with our customers to ensure that the product mix they have chosen is optimized for their use cases. If you are planning on attending Enterprise Connect, be sure to visit us at Booth #1430!

While several companies out there are directing their attention toward bringing cloud services to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), ConnectSolutions is taking a different approach and is targeting large enterprises and federal government agencies, particularly since cloud adoption is struggling in this group, according to company officials.

“For large enterprises, they have rejected the cloud; there is an outright rejection of the public cloud because it doesn’t meet the requirements they need,” Matt Hendrickson, vice president of marketing for ConnectSolutions, told TMCnet today at ITEXPO (News – Alert) East 2012. “Most of our customers, which are really large enterprises, have rejected the cloud for reasons, like security, control, and customization. The public cloud is not really a viable option.”

Accordingly, ConnectSolutions markets Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) solutions for large enterprise and government organizations. Its managed private cloud offering, which sits between the public cloud and on-premises solution, affords large enterprises with all the benefits of the public cloud in a more feasible model for this segment.

“In a way, we are the best of both worlds,” Hendrickson said. “You have all the security and customization that are required along with all of the benefits of rapid deployment and easy pricing.”

Click here for the full text of the article.

ConnectSolutions is excited to exhibit at ITEXPO East in Miami Beach, Florida Jan 31-Feb 3, 2012. ITEXPO is the premier IP Communications event of the year and will draw over 7,000 participants from companies of all sizes and representing all sectors of the IP Communications industry, including service providers, carriers, enterprises, government agencies, resellers, manufacturers, and developers.

The ConnectSolutions team will host an interactive booth showcasing our Managed Private Cloud for Microsoft Lync. As the premier Unified Communication software, Lync increases employee productivity and reduces communication costs. When deployed and managed by ConnectSolutions, organizations have a faster, easier way to get started, while easing the burden on their IT staff.

Michael Fitzpatrick, President and CEO of ConnectSolutions, will join an impressive line-up of industry experts as a panel speaker for the “Storage: Hosted vs. Cloud vs. On-Premise” session Thursday, Feb 2nd from 1:00-1:45pm.

If you are attending the ITExpo, be sure to stop by our booth, see our launch for Microsoft Lync and enter to win a free ipad. If you would like to schedule an appointment with someone from our team, please call (510) 350-3500.

Established in 1982 in Pennsylvania as a statewide purchasing program for computers, PEPPM has grown into a national contract program that, in addition to computers, also includes items such as networking and telecommunications equipment, printers, peripherals and software along with other branded technology products. PEPPM, as a national cooperative purchasing program, is available to all K-14 and higher education institutions, State & Local Governments and authorities in all 50 States.

The PEPPM award allows our team to provide our customers with a total cost of ownership (TCO) benefit based on efficiencies associated with the use of these solutions,” said Paul Kohler, Vice President of Emergent, LLC. The award includes the solutions \ provided by three of Emergent’s top strategic partners: ConnectSolutions, MeetingOne and Red Hat. Together with Emergent, these three partners provide a complete catalogue of cloud, collaboration and cost effective solutions, specifically ConnectSolutions allows State & Local government IT departments to host their web conferencing and unified communication solutions on a FISMA compliant cloud.

As a cooperative purchasing program, PEPPM is designed to decrease costs, reduce paperwork, increase service levels by providing procurement efficiency for products like ConnectSolutions managed private cloud deployments for Unified Communications.

Adobe Connect is a leading eLearning product for many of our customers who have successfully used the ConnectSolutions managed private cloud for training and elearning. Kaplan Test Prep and Learning Tree International offer online education to millions of students annually.

Other ConnectSolutions customers provide external customer software training, financial education, internal company training, and new employee on-boarding. We are excited to note that Lisa Doyle, Chancellor of the VA Acquisition Academy is a keynote speaker at the event. VAAA is a ConnectSolutions customer using Connect for training and eLearning, as well as internal meetings. With nearly 30 years of experience as an acquisition professional in the federal and private sector, Lisa Doyle is responsible for training the VA acquisition workforce by instilling essential competencies and skills, career development programs, and developing meaningful experiential learning.  She oversees five schools at the Academy including Acquisition Internship, Program Management, Contracting Professional, Facilities Management, and Supply Chain Management Schools.

Please stop by and say hello to Charles Welsh at the Adobe booth!

Over the years, the HD Pod has been used by a number of our customers to enhance video quality in their Connect rooms. By open sourcing this code, we hope more people will be able to enjoy enhanced viewing experiences with Connect.

Jay discussed how the convergence of web conferencing, voice & telephony, instant messaging, presence, email integration, and mobile communications can create a unified system that increases employee productivity and drives down costs.  A key part of the presentation included the nine key steps to building a Unified Communications plan at a government agency.

In addition to Jay’s presentation, ConnectSolutions CEO & Co-Founder Michael Fitzpatrick shared his experience working with large government deployments including the US Patent & Trademark Office, FEMA and CMS.  Through ConnectSolutions, federal customers have deployed FISMA-compliant solutions that also meet federal Cloud First standards.  Michael also shared key learnings from a recent survey of Chief Information Officers in the enterprise and government space.

Click hear to view an on-demand recording of the event.

Blair discussed industry trends, strategies and best practices around unified communications.  She also discussed ways to maximize ROI and deliver measurable cost-savings on individual, departmental, and company-wide levels.

Additionally, ConnectSolutions CEO and Co-Founder Michael Fitzpatrick shared findings from a series of meetings recently held with Chief Information Officers of large enterprise and government organizations.

Click here to view a recording of the briefing.

Emeryville, CA – November 3, 2011 – ConnectSolutions (www.connectsolutions.com), a leading provider of unified communication and conferencing solutions has released the first-ever Managed Private Cloud for Microsoft Lync, an enterprise-class offering specifically designed for large, global organizations. As part of its introductory launch, ConnectSolutions is offering a 1,000-person department rollout of Microsoft Lync for $10 per user per month.* This helps an organization’s end-users and IT staff acclimate to Microsoft Lync in a safe, phased approach before deploying enterprise-wide.

The Managed Private Cloud for Microsoft Lync is deployed on ConnectSolutions’ enterprise-class UC3 Platform, a reliable, scalable and secure platform that runs unified communications and conferencing applications in the cloud. The company operates out of five global data centers and delivers FISMA-compliant offerings that meet the stringent security requirements of the federal government. ConnectSolutions’ Orion Services team ensures that Microsoft Lync is architected to fit into existing IT infrastructure as well as provides support and training which leads to rapid enterprise adoption.

With its cloud offering, ConnectSolutions helps organizations realize the productivity gains and reduced communication costs provided with Microsoft Lync in weeks, not months or years – without the capital infrastructure investment and dedicated IT resources otherwise required. Organizations with enterprise-license agreements (ELA) can use the Microsoft licenses they have already purchased.

“Our clients are excited about Microsoft Lync and the benefits of unified communications, but they’ve asked us for a faster, easier way to get started.” says Michael Fitzpatrick, President & CEO. “By delivering integrated UC applications on the UC3 Platform, we alleviate the headaches associated with managing it themselves. We’ve already built the complex global infrastructure and resolved the IT challenges associated with large-scale communications deployments. Now, we can extend these benefits to our clients in the cloud which helps IT teams be more agile.”

About ConnectSolutions

ConnectSolutions is a leading private-cloud service provider of Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) solutions for large enterprise and government organizations. ConnectSolutions deploys best-of-breed communication, conferencing, and collaboration applications on a secure, reliable, and scalable platform and offers convenient, per-seat purchasing plans. Contact: Matt Hendrickson, VP Marketing, matth@connectsolutions.com, 510-530-3516.

* Expires 1/31/2012.Limited offer for enterprise and government organizations while capacity is available. Enterprise voice capabilities and Microsoft Lync licenses are sold separately.