Transparency = king of converging the future MTN Business shares first of many insights into dying and rising technologies for 2011 and beyond

13 December 2010 – Johannesburg; Today, the only constant with technology solutions is change! Products, applications and industry best practices continue to advance, with service providers needing to innovate to help their customers stay ahead of the game. MTN Business understands this well but remains level-headed and vocal about the fact that it's not simply about innovation, but rather about responsible, transparent business practises and advice that continually help customers achieve their stated objectives.

Says Angela Gahagan, managing executive at MTN Business; “Customers need to be correctly educated and informed when solutions become null and void or when investments outweigh ROI. Sharing such insight is not only ethical, in my opinion, but transparency on dying and rising technologies will actually drive 'real' convergence and reaffirm trust – all of which is key to valuable adoption and industry expansion, especially as we still face the after effects of a global recession. So this is the first in many insights to come as to what 2011 opportunities may face the market.”

“Let's consider that as the integration of fixed and wireless IP and GSM becomes key to meeting business demands of increased mobility of staff, employees have to always be available, couple this with the increased work pressures that now demand instant decisions and more efficient collaboration – then can the individual technologies that are currently being driven into the market actually deliver a comprehensive business solution?” says Gahagan.

“To our mind, one such unsuitable product is the traditional PABX. As high maintenance costs, fixed infrastructure restrictions coupled to utilisation and inflexibility concerns have fast eroded the benefits of this traditionally purposeful product. As we aggressively move towards mobile convergence and cloud applications* it becomes clear that the 'traditional' PABX no longer delivers the value required for growing businesses.”

“Certainly we are cognisance of the fact that businesses are not about to rip up and replace a platform they have spent a fortune on, rather we need to reiterate that service providers must engage in a consultancy manner to analyse current infrastructure and advise the most appropriate mitigation route. For example, customers that have invested heavily in their existing PABX system would be encouraged to take advantage of solutions that enable them to utilise IP calling in the interim or run integrated hybrid solutions, without having to immediately replace their PBX,” adds Gahagan.

For those customers looking to upgrade their systems, Managed IP PBX (instead of traditional PBX) and a PBX on a converged IP and GSM network, regularly referred to as Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), presents a much stronger business case as these solutions significantly reduce capital expenditure; maintenance costs and total network costs, while still increasing access and evolution to converged applications.

If one considers that budgets and strategy decisions will be made in the first quarter of 2011, and with the results of 'MTN Business snap shot: IT budget spend* survey revealing almost 90% of respondents view telecom investments as essential to business validity, then MTN Business believes its continued efforts of informing the marketplace on dying, emerging and viable technologies should be heightened and will be well received for customers and other businesses to make well informed technology implementation decisions. Concludes Gahagan; “Our intention is to share insight and be a valuable player in promoting viable convergence solutions – that will last into the next decade at a minimum.”

Note to editors
*Extract from MTN Business Snap Shot Survey: Although sentiments are mixed, most respondents agreed on solution focus areas as priorities for their budget spend in 2011. High on the list in terms of telecom spend included voice and data communications (approximately 30%) with networking (28%) and cloud-based services (27%) following respectively.

About MTN Business
As a leading telecommunications provider operating one of Africa's most technically innovative, reliable and secure Virtual Private Networks (VPN), MTN Business is able to offer world class mobile telecommunications, Internet solutions and next generation communication services.

We are aware that businesses and government constantly require a 360 degree communications service and therefore, have ensured that we are perfectly positioned to meet our customer's needs to reduce costs, improve connectivity and security and ultimately partner with a reliable and knowledgeable converged communications partner.

For more information, please visit www.mtnbusiness.co.za