Arkadin Asia Pacific Announces Strategic Move With Unified Communications-as-a-Service With Microsoft Lync

Arkadin Is the First Global Collaboration Service Provider (CSP) to Deploy a Hosted Lync Platform in Asia Pacific


SINGAPORE--(Marketwired - Oct 24, 2013) - Arkadin, one of the world's largest and fastest growing Collaboration Service Providers, today announced the launch of its unified communications-as-a-service solution, powered by Microsoft Lync 2013. Lync is Microsoft's leading enterprise-class unified communications (UC) solution, which consolidates a full range of collaboration, conferencing and communication applications enabling a unified user experience from desktops to mobile devices. As a strategic Microsoft partner with proven expertise in UC, Arkadin ensures efficient deployments due to its cloud-based platform in Asia Pacific. The service is owned and operated by Arkadin in Singapore, with dedicated local-language customer support teams.

"Microsoft is delighted to see our partnership with Arkadin grow further with the launch of this innovative service to the Asia Pacific market. Arkadin's strong track record in unified communications means they understand this new world of work from anywhere and the service levels required to address customer needs. We are pleased they have chosen Lync as their platform as it gives businesses a rich real-time communications service for improving employee productivity by instantly connecting people from wherever they are," says Faycal Bouchlaghem, General Manager, Communications Sector, Microsoft Asia Pacific. "Arkadin's Lync offer provides significant value with its high quality audio integration and easy to deploy hosted model."

"Our Asia-Pacific customers recognize the benefits of Lync for making their communications more efficient," says Serge Genetet, Arkadin's EVP and Managing Director Asia Pacific. "We're thrilled to offer Lync through our secure, reliable platform, without the complexities of on-premise installations. Our global, yet local customer-service strategy ensures they have everything they need for successful deployments."

Turn-key hosted solution results in fast scalable deployments and high ROI
Arkadin's turn-key hosted solution gives businesses access to the full range of real-time UC functions. Instant Messaging and Presence; Audio, Web and Video Conferencing; IP Telephony, Unified Messaging and Mobility applications are intuitive, enabling users to seamlessly switch between the different communications and collaboration modalities.  

Businesses enjoy multiple benefits from the SaaS delivery model securely provided by Arkadin:

  • Quicker ROI vs. on premise installations due to fast, scalable and hassle-free deployments from Arkadin's secure platform requiring minimal IT resources.
  • Lower expenses from hosted IP telephony which reduces costs by almost 40% over three years.
  • Comprehensive end-to-end Customer Services with user training, local 24x7 client care, reporting and Professional Services to ensure smooth deployments and rapid user adoption.

Crystal clear and stable Arkadin audio conferencing can also be seamlessly integrated to Lync Document sharing and Video. With that, Internal and external participants to Lync conferences can join via Arkadin's best-in-class Audio Conferencing Service; leveraging on its global infrastructure covering more than 30 countries and proven high quality sound and unlimited capacity of the PSTN conferencing.

According to Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research, Arkadin's approach addresses many of the challenges that can hinder UC deployments giving it the potential for broad adoption: "There are challenges that can impact a successful deployment -- platform costs, support requirements, quality issues, and user adoption are common. Arkadin's solution addresses these head on, by offering the potential for a lower TCO, a high quality audio conferencing platform, and improved user adoption through its trusted support model and professional services program. The combination of Microsoft's market-leading Lync platform with Arkadin's hosted collaboration service model is an exciting development with the potential to UC-enable organizations of all sizes."

About Arkadin
Founded in 2001, Arkadin is one of the largest and fastest growing collaboration services providers in the world. With a vision rooted in the belief that progress emerges from people's desire to share, Arkadin offers a complete range of remote audio, web, and video conferencing and Unified Communications solutions. The services are delivered in the SaaS model for fast, scalable deployments and a high ROI. Its global network of 51 operating centers in 32 countries has dedicated local-language support teams to service its 37,000 customers.

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Contact:
Mak Wei Seng