Growth Predictions for Cloud Hosting In 2020
On-Premise hosting is going strong but telecom reseller, Barry Hunt, says the cloud be even bigger
TMC’s Editorial Director, Erik Linask, interviews Barry Hunt, President of ACC Telecom to discuss the future of cloud technology and their relationship with SkySwitch. Hunt says that while On-Premise is still their largest seller, the future of migration of more cloud seats looks very promising.
When it comes to selling cloud seats, reliability is essential. Hunt remarks that he has never seen downtime in the past three years that he’s been with SkySwitch, and goes into more detail on his experience with SkySwitch as a cloud-based white label communications platform provider.
Erik Linask speaks with Barry Hunt about ACC Telecom’s relationship with SkySwitch and the reliability of the cloud.
Full Video Transcript Below
Erik Linask 0:07
Hi, we’re here in Orlando at SkySwitch’s Vectors 2019. And on the program with me from ACC Telecom is Barry Hunt. Barry, thanks for joining me.
Barry Hunt 0:16
Well, you’re welcome Erik.
Erik Linask 0:18
So, tell me a little bit about your relationship with SkySwitch. You’re here at their user conference. You know, what brought you here and what’s your relationship with them like?
Barry Hunt 0:29
Well, we started with hosted, probably about 19 years ago, we were doing hosted and cloud before anybody ever heard of it. So we jumped in the business, like when it’s got reliable around 2008. And with CoreDial, they had a couple of big outages and somebody referred us to SkySwitch. So we needed a reliable company that had geo-redundant data centers, that was important, so we wouldn’t have downtime. Plus the cost per minute was about a third of the time.
So we were able to save customers a lot of money and give them a reliable solution. And we’d already had a lot of experience in the cloud. But we’re also a traditional phone company. We’ve been around since ‘79, so we’ve done a lot of PBX, Avaya, Cisco, Toshiba, Comdial, you name it, we’ve probably sold it. We still like to sell on-premise software. And we sell a lot of 3CX to be honest with you. So we sell more SIP trunks than we do cloud seats. But the price is starting to balance out so I can see us selling more SkySwitch seats, which is what they want us to sell. We’re the king of SIP trunks, we’re called.
Erik Linask 1:52
Well, you know, certainly they want to see you sell more seats. But you know, it’s it seems to me that there are a lot of things converging in the market that are going to make that possible. There’s such a huge addressable market still that that is living with their old on-premise stuff. And cloud for a lot of them seems to be a very viable option.
Barry Hunt 2:16
Absolutely, with SMS added to the service, the servicing year, they say 80% of PBXs are still out there, all PBXs and so it’s still a huge market to turn to the cloud.
Erik Linask 2:31
Tell me about your experience working with SkySwitch, you know, how are they to work with and frankly how’s the platform?
Barry Hunt 2:38
It’s a very reliable platform. There’s still some little extra costs we need to talk about that a lot of companies out there are including in their base costs – but very reliable. I don’t believe we’ve experienced any downtime for probably the last three years, that I’ve recognized. I’ve never had a complaint, let’s put it that way. I love working with SkySwitch, they’re a small company, it’s easy to get in touch with people. And it’s a very friendly relationship.
Erik Linask 3:12
So what made you come down to Vectors 2019?
Barry Hunt 3:16
I’ve been doing going to functions like this, probably 30 years. So I enjoy getting away.
Erik Linask 3:24
And, you know, I was just speaking with Jayson Jones from SkySwitch. And he was saying that, you know, they don’t do a whole lot of face-to-face visits with their partners, that this is one of the really good opportunities for them to actually get some face-to-face time, and then some quality time, and really build those relationships. Do you see it that way?
Barry Hunt 3:42
Absolutely. It’s the only time we get together to see each other. Thank you.
Erik Linask 3:46
Barry, thanks for joining us.