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Ensim Corporation and BroadSoft reportedly announced that they are demonstrating a new unified communication solution for small to medium businesses, and it mainly features Ensim (News - Alert) Unify that fully supports BroadSoft’s BroadWorks, which is essentially a Microsoft applications support platform, at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 or WPC09 in New Orleans.

"Creating a comprehensive hosted UC solution presents a unique set of challenges due to the complexity of integrating multiple applications from multiple vendors in a unified and turnkey manner," said David J. Wippich, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ensim Corporation. "Ensim Unify enables service providers to quickly, easily and inexpensively launch and manage a hosted UC offering that combines state-of-the-art, self-management capabilities with unrivaled flexibility."

Officials at the company said that Ensim Unify Service Provider Edition Release 4.7.0, which automates the creation, activation and configuration of hosted IP, Software as a Service and application services, and BroadSoft’s (News - Alert) BroadWorks, which works seamlessly with Microsoft’s Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) 4.5, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2, have been successfully deployed as a combined offering by Outsourcery Limited, which was formerly Genesis Communications Limited, a U.K. based provider of UC and hosted IT solutions.

"This combined effort provides Outsourcery with the ability to revolutionize the way start-ups and SMBs consume and pay for all their communications and IT needs," said Piers Linney, Director of Outsourcery. "By offering a complete hosted UC solution on a per user, per month basis, SMBs gain access to enterprise-level solutions without the need for expensive hardware or onerous maintenance contracts."

Collaborative efforts, such as this one between BroadSoft and Ensim, are in keeping with one of the seven mantras of the time, which dictates that organizations must make serious efforts to reach out and work with each other. The seven guidelines for succeeding in current economic environment are collectively called the CES (News - Alert) 7 and were pronounced and initiated at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009.

"The global unified communications market is growing to be a $6 billion market opportunity for service providers," said John Zanni, General Manager of Worldwide Software Plus Services in the Communications Sector at Microsoft Corp. "The ability for industry partners such as Ensim to provide a complete UC solution offers a real-time experience for end users by integrating telephony and desktop applications without carrying costs of IT equipment and support."

Officials from the companies claim that the combined product is being targeted as a SaaS (News - Alert) in the form of a complete Unified Communications Solution as a Service. SaaS gives customers the freedom to use and pay for only select components of their choice from software suites, and the flexibility to add other requisites as and when the need arises. Prior to this innovative customer driven request for ‘a use and pay when required only’ approach, entire solutions had to be bought and installed at a significantly higher one-time cost.

IT support, resources such as staff, network equipment, installation fees and annual maintenance contracts are kept to a minimum, if not eliminated. With lesser pre-installed information to wade through, systems become more agile and corrective measures require lesser bandwidth, are more focussed and can be done remotely.

"Unified Communications (News - Alert) is incredibly powerful, but often its cost and complexity has made it accessible only to large enterprises," said David Bukovsky, Vice President of Products for BroadSoft. "This has been a major impetus behind the growing demand for 'UC as a Service' - UC provided 'in the cloud' by service providers. This collaborative solution not only gives service providers the capability to fulfill a market demand, but it does so in a way that allows them to rapidly and cost effectively scale and grow their business."

The demonstration includes: Ensim Unify BroadWorks Manager to automate provisioning and integrate Operational Support Systems (OSSs); Ensim Unify Exchange Manager to combine Exchange Server 2007 functions into a full range of custom service plans; Ensim Unify OCS (R2) Manager to manage the entire unified communications infrastructure; Complete UC functionality to integrate business telephony, video telephony, collaboration, call centers, mobile and wireless, and business tools like CRM and ERP.