What is Workspace?

WorkSpace gives small businesses easy, affordable access to big-business communication
tools. It unifies all of your communications into a single, user-friendly service that’s delivered
to each employee’s desktop as a per-user subscription. There is no capital outlay and no
ongoing support or maintenance costs.

With Workspace, you not only get all the PBX voice services you need but also many other
communications services you already depend on, like e-mail, calendar, instant messaging,
conferencing, and desktop sharing. And wrapped around all of it is a tool called Presence.
A quick glance at your desktop tells you where your colleagues are at the moment, and
one-touch connects you instantly via phone, IM, or even a spontaneous conference call with
desk sharing.

With WorkSpace, everywhere you go, your office goes. Your entire organization stays
connected and productive, regardless of whether they’re in the office, working from home,
or on the road. And WorkSpace is built on the Microsoft platform, so the user interface is
familiar and easy to use.

Why Businesses Need WorkSpace

You’re Paying Multiple Providers Big Monthly Fees for Office Communication Tools

WorkSpace integrates your phones, e-mail, instant messaging, conferencing, and more into
one unified communications solution with one low bill to pay.

You Have a Mobile Workforce

Because WorkSpace delivers its services online, it’s completely portable and available
wherever you have Internet access. WorkSpace also delivers voicemail to email and essential
features like call forwarding and simultaneous ring, so you are constantly connected no matter
where you go throughout the day. This is especially advantageous for employees who travel a lot
or spend a lot of time out of the office.

You Want Your Business to Project a Professional, Polished Image

With WorkSpace, smaller businesses have all the advantages of a big-company communication tool,
including professional-grade call handling services with auto-attendant, voicemail, call forwarding,
call conferencing, call routing, and call center functions – even professional greetings and music on hold.
Small companies and home-based businesses can project a professional and sophisticated image to
customers and clients.

You Want Big-business Technology without the investment – and without the hassle

WorkSpace gives you big-business benefits without the need for costly equipment or
maintenance. Instead of incurring the heavy upfront costs of buying, installing, and running
in-house communications systems, small businesses can benefit from a more flexible
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model that lets you buy communication services the same
way you pay for utilities. Gone is the complexity of multiple platforms from different services
providers.

White Paper

Executive SummaryIntroduction
Enterprise-level communications solutions
Why leverage subscription services?

• Increased Productivity

• Reduced Costs

• Reduced Complexity

• Peace of Mind

Conclusion
Next Steps

Executive Summary

For most organizations, e-mail and telephony are critical business tools. But as internet
technologies have developed, new collaboration and communication tools are now available from within the same Microsoft Outlook interface that is already familiar to most business
e-mail users.

These new services are now available on a hosted (subscription) basis from WorkSpace Communications. Along with e-mail and local/long-distance calling, Microsoft
Communication services include document sharing, online live meeting facilities and instant messaging, applications that are rapidly gaining adoption in business due to their ease of use and integration, as well as the productivity gains they offer through enhanced teamwork and collaboration.

WorkSpace can lead to significant cost savings throughout an organization, with the potential to reduce travel and training costs, real estate costs, telephony costs, IT infrastructure costs and more.

In addition, IT managers benefit from a reduced administrative burden and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that services are reliable, secure, resilient to threats, compliant and based on the latest technology from Microsoft.

Many businesses already take advantage of hosted e-mail services. As these e-mail services are extended to become a suite of communication tools, this will create greater flexibility, control and collaboration while increasing the cost savings, efficiency and
reliability already enjoyed.

Introduction

As any organization knows, e-mail and telephony have become business-critical tools. But Web technologies have rapidly evolved, enabling a growing spectrum of capabilities offered by communication and collaboration tools. While e-mail and telephony remain crucial to many organizations, they are now integrated as part of a much broader set of equally
business-critical tools.

Successful businesses are built on good communication – and companies are now able to
reach out to colleagues, customers and partners in more ways than ever before. With a broader set of communication tools, people can share documents and collaborate on projects from locations around the world; they can share schedule information with colleagues to make sure everyone makes the best use of their time; they can even hold real-time meetings with people anywhere in the world, using only a PC and Internet connection. Most important, businesses can be accessible to their customers when it counts, wherever they are.

Clearly, tomorrow’s successful businesses will be built on more than just e-mail. The technologies that enable this level of connectivity are available to every business, and those that don’t embrace them may find it difficult to compete. But IT implementations, like any business decision, need to be justified – especially with today’s ever-tightening budgets.

There is a way to access all of these communications capabilities that is just cost-effective not only in terms of IT spend, but also in terms of money saved through reducing business travel. A growing number of companies are discovering the benefits of a comprehensive suite of unified communications tools, based on industry-leading Microsoft technologies and delivered over the Internet with no need for upfront investment. This is collaboration at its best, and it keeps colleagues connected and productive at all times, whether they are in the office or on the road.

Enterprise-level Communications Solutions for a Small Business

Businesses of all sizes recognize the importance of unified communication tools, but many have hesitated to embrace them for fear of increasing complexity, cost and the burden on
IT resources. What do you do if, for example, instead of growing your business, you find yourself spending unprofitable hours on routine IT management?

The good news is, whatever a company’s budget, there is a way to get the benefits of unified communications without the costly IT burden. Many businesses are already aware
of the value of hosted e-mail services – from ease of deployment to simplified, centralized management and security, and reduced costs. It makes sense to extend that efficiency and convenience to other services – and in today’s connected world, this can be easily achieved.

Implementing a set of information-sharing and teamwork applications is only half the story, though. People work best with technologies they know, and if they constantly need to switch between applications, they won’t use them regularly and the potential gains in productivity won’t be fully realized.

Using a single, familiar application interface with the ability to access all services makes a
lot of sense and helps increase adoption of new technologies and reduces training requirements.

WorkSpace Communications now offers a full suite of unified communication tools built on
the Microsoft platform. Microsoft SharePoint, Live Meeting and Office Communication
Server (telephony) are available through the familiar Microsoft Outlook interface, which has become central to most people’s working environment. Users can send e-mails, access shared documents, schedule appointments, hold real-time online meetings and instantly connect with colleagues through instant messaging (IM), and make and receive phone calls, all fully integrated within Outlook.

These are the business-critical solutions and capabilities that WorkSpace Communications
provides:

Messaging and Collaboration

Microsoft Office Outlook®

• Manage your e-mail, tasks and business contact from one place

• Help protect yourself from junk e-mail and malicious software

• Share your calendar with people within or outside of your organization

Microsoft Exchange®

• Professional e-mail, calendar and contacts you can access from virtually anywhere, at any time and on any device

• Additional online tools for e-mail management, spam protection, encryption and
  emergency access.

• Interoperation with other communication services as Microsoft SharePoint, Web
  Conferencing and Office Communications Server

Microsoft SharePoint®

• Share documents, team calendars, contacts and manage workflow through a single,
  Internet-based location

• Rich team collaboration and improved productivity

• Seamless interoperation with Outlook for calendars, contacts and tasks

Advanced Unified Communications

Office Communications Server and Office Communicator

• Manage voicemail, e-mail and faxes from one Inbox

• Combined e-mail, instant messaging (IM), and Residential Voice capabilities

Why Leverage Subscription Services?

There are many reasons why leveraging subscription-based services for your communication and collaboration services is a good idea. In particular, it cuts the capital expenditure associated with buying hardware and software, as well as the operational costs and resources needed to manage the solution.

The software-plus-services model of IT solution delivery enables IT decision makers to choose which services they have in-house, and which ones are delivered online. You can even choose a hybrid solution, which combines hosted services with capabilities that can only be achieved with software running in a corporate data centre or locally on a powerful device. The wide range of options available gives businesses of all sizes the opportunity to optimize productivity using enterprise-level applications.

There are four main benefits of WorkSpace Communications solutions:

Increased Productivity

Reducing complexity for both IT and end users always has a positive impact on productivity – IT workers can devote their attention to projects that add value to the business, and end users can access the services they need quickly and easily.

Taking a suite of unified communication services from WorkSpace can unlock these productivity gains. Our users can access all of their communication and collaboration applications through Outlook, helping them to get more done without adding complexity.

Support Mobility

The productivity gains that can be made by enabling mobile workers are immense – they can communicate with colleagues, manage their schedules and make informed decisions whether at work, home, a customer’s premises or travelling between locations. With WorkSpace, downtime is a thing of the past. The touch of an icon shows you where your colleagues are, and one click connects you instantly via whatever tool is best at the moment – whether it’s a phone call, an e-mail, instant messaging or even a spontaneous conference call with file sharing. Your office is, quite literally, everywhere you are.

Hosted Exchange enables secure access to e-mail, calendar and contacts from virtually anywhere, at any time on a variety of different devices, through Outlook Web Access and via a mobile phone. Calendars and contacts can also be shared with colleagues to enable easy scheduling for meetings. Microsoft SharePoint provides access via any web browser to key documents and information. Microsoft Office Communicator opens a wide range of communication options to users, enabling them to communicate easily with others in different locations or time zones using a range of communications options, all via a consistent and simple user experience.

Enhanced Teamwork

Sharing information is vital to efficient teamwork and decision-making. Microsoft SharePoint lets employees share documents, contacts, calendars and tasks through a single cloud-based location with rich team collaboration capabilities to help teams work more effectively, whether they’re in the same office or at different locations.

Enable Collaboration

Meetings, training sessions and workshops are key to any business, but it can be difficult to get everybody together in the same place at the same time, and travelling to and from meetings and events can prove costly and time consuming. Office Live Meeting enables people to share rich visual content such as presentations, or work on documents together via real-time online meetings, workshops, training sessions and customer or partner events, using only a PC and an internet connection.

Keep Informed

In addition to working more efficiently together, employees and customers can access real-time or recorded training content when they need it, giving them the resources and support to help them work at their best.

Connect with Colleagues

Hosted Office Communications Server lets colleagues and team members see each other’s
presence status and instantly connect with each other through a secure and auditable internal company instant messaging system or through a voice connection.

Reduced Costs

It is widely accepted that outsourcing services can significantly reduce the cost of IT. It is well known that hosted e-mail services can enable businesses to benefit from a secure, reliable e-mail system without having to invest time and capital on hardware, implementation and system management. Extending the hosted environment to other communication and collaboration applications can help to ensure both further cost reductions and greater predictability.

Travel and Telecoms

A key area of business expenditure that should not be ignored is travel. In an increasingly
global business environment, many organizations have employees, customers and partners
spread across multiple geographies and locations. It is crucial to such businesses that their
people are able to communicate and collaborate with each other, wherever they are. But attending multiple meetings can be costly and time-consuming, not to mention the impact on the environment. As part of the WorkSpace solution, Office Live Meeting helps cut travel costs by enabling people to hold collaborative, real-time meetings wherever they are. In addition, using voice communications and instant messaging can dramatically lower both fixed line and mobile telephony costs.

The following savings are based upon Forrester Research, 2007 Total Economic Impact of Unified Communications:

• Reduce travel and training cost (20-40 percent): Replace internal meeting, in-person training, and customer/partner visits with Office Web Conference.

• Reduce real estate and facility costs (30-40 percent): Reduce office space per employee and improve space utilization with telecommuting and remote working.

• Reduce telephony and audio-conferencing charges (10-40 percent): Replace long distance and audio conferencing call charges with Residential Voice.

• Reduce the cost of voicemail (20-60 percent): Replace and consolidate disparate
  voicemail and fax systems with unified messaging.

• Reduce IT infrastructure and administration cost (up to 50 percent): Extend existing investment while optimizing IT infrastructure by consolidating servers and multiple vendor solutions.

No Upfront Expenditure

It is widely accepted that outsourcing services can significantly reduce the cost of IT. It is well known that hosted e-mail services can enable businesses to benefit from a secure, reliable e-mail system without having to invest time and capital on hardware, implementation and system management. Extending the hosted environment to other communication and collaboration applications can help to ensure further cost reductions and greater predictability.

Predictable Ongoing Costs

Sharing information is vital to efficient teamwork and decision-making. Microsoft SharePoint
lets employees share documents, contacts, calendars and tasks through a single cloud-based location with rich team collaboration capabilities to help teams work more effectively, whether they’re in the same office or at different locations.

Protecting Existing Investments

Existing investments are also protected through a new licensing model from Microsoft, which is available through a range of hosting providers. This enables businesses to use existing
Microsoft licenses covered under Software Assurance with their host of choice.

WorkSpace is both economical and easy to scale with business growth, and it ensures that
there will be no unexpected bills for fixing broken hardware or systems. In addition, special bundled service pricing makes the full suite of telephony and Microsoft services economical, as well as making communication and collaboration more efficient and productive.

Reduced Complexity

Any unified communication and collaboration system is going to involve a certain amount of
complexity – and with that comes cost. Aside from the initial investment in hardware and software, resources are needed to configure, integrate and deploy the solutions, across the organization. Even for a relatively simple system, this can involve considerable complexity, and it doesn’t end there.

Following the implementation, the IT infrastructure will need ongoing management, and user
identities may need to be managed for each application. Regulatory compliance is a growing
concern across many Industries, so information must be auditable as well as secure. In addition, end users may need training for different applications, and as newer versions are released, repeat training and refreshes may also be needed.

This complexity can be dramatically reduced by taking an integrated suite of services from one supplier. The services can be quickly deployed, and it is easy to manage and upgrade from one or more services to the full suite. In addition, a complete unified communication and collaboration suite removes the need for multiple user identities. Each user has a single identity, with only one password to remember, and users can be added and removed with ease. Training needs are also minimized because users can access the services through software and interfaces already familiar to them.

With hosted services, the infrastructure and software is owned and licensed by the supplier. This means that all the services are controlled via a single, Web-based control panel that enables organizations to easily manage all their services from one location. For example, new users can be easily added with a few clicks rather than undergoing a cumbersome installation process. In addition, services will be supported by WorkSpace on a 24/7 basis, dramatically reducing the maintenance resource burden on your company.

Hosted services can also offer an easy way to take care of regulatory compliance. WorkSpace offers auditing and archiving solutions without the need for expensive internal solutions and infrastructure. Because the services are hosted and offered on a subscription pricing model, they will not become obsolete, but will evolve with the changing regulatory and legislative requirements in your market.

Peace of Mind

A major threat facing many businesses with in-house IT systems is the prospect of downtime and, in the event of a system failure, data loss. Businesses are increasingly vulnerable to the risks of viruses, spam, phishing attacks, system crashes and security breaches. In addition to ensuring that services are consistently available to those who need them and that business-critical data is kept safe, businesses also need to make sure their business records are compliant with a growing number of regulations. This can cause a major headache for in-house IT teams, as well as impacting the business in terms of both costs and resources.

By bringing together your communication and collaboration channels into a suite of integrated services delivered online, businesses can minimize these risks while retaining control of their services.

Guaranteed Reliability

Because WorkSpace Communications services are delivered online, customers benefit from
our money-back guaranteed service level agreement (SLA), which guarantees high levels
of uptime so that services are consistently available to all who need them.

Security

Our hosted communication and collaboration services include multi-layered network protection, anti-spam and antivirus defenses to minimize threats to the services, while
users can access messages and shared documents over the internet using an encrypted connection, wherever they are.

In addition, all the data is stored centrally in a secure, state-of-the-art data center with
professional security solutions. It is also backed up regularly, so if you do lose any data – whether by accident or theft – it can be recovered for you.

Compliance

Compliance with industry and governmental regulations and the integrity of data are increasingly important in today’s business environment. It is crucial to know not only that data is secure, but also that it can be found when needed, and that its context and integrity are beyond question. This is difficult for businesses to achieve in-house – internal auditing and archiving solutions and infrastructure can be expensive, and as the regulatory environment changes, they may need regular upgrades or replacement.

WorkSpace delivers auditing and archiving solutions to help ensure that businesses meet their compliance needs without added expense, and because the solution is delivered and updated online, it will evolve with the regulatory and legislative requirements of the market.

Conclusion

There can be no doubt that the outsourcing model of IT solution delivery has evolved significantly beyond e-mail and telephony applications. Now, Microsoft Communication Services, the full suite of enterprise level unified communication and collaboration tools provided by WorkSpace, can enable businesses of any size to optimize their communication tools in a cost-effective, secure and
compliant manner.

Combining information sharing and teamwork applications in a single, hosted package of
services is clearly worthy of consideration. Many businesses already take advantage of hosted e-mail services, so extending these to include a suite of communication tools will enable greater employee productivity from the communication and collaboration environment, increasing the benefits of cost savings, efficiency and reliability already enjoyed. For those that have not yet stepped into the world of unified communications, WorkSpace can offer a simple and effective way to remove costs while enabling efficiency savings and growth.

In light of the gains that can be made at all levels of the organization, perhaps the question of why businesses should outsource their services can be answered with another question – with all the capabilities and cost savings on offer today, and easy upgrades as the technologies develop in the future, why not?

Next Steps

Call Prospeed today at 888-425-7425 to find out more about how your organization can benefit from WorkSpace Communications. Or, fill out the contact form below and we will call you.

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