Smoothstone Receives Cisco Powered Designation

Louisville, Ky (March 20, 2009) — Smoothstone, an outsource provider of fully managed unified communications services for the mid–sized enterprise, today announced it has become a member of the Cisco Powered Program and has proven, through rigorous third–party audit, it has the resources and procedures to deploy, manage & support Cisco Powered Unified Communication services.

Smoothstone helps clients achieve the full benefits of Unified Communications, providing them with services that enable improved productivity and workforce mobility, a streamlined infrastructure that drives down operating expense and a set of management tools that enable the integration of communications with their business processes.

“Managed services allows companies to align IT and business goals, enabling them to focus scarce internal resources on their core competencies while servicing day–to–day IT infrastructure and operational needs through technology delivered as a service,” said Jeff Spagnola, vice president of worldwide managed services for Cisco. “By achieving a Cisco Powered designation, Smoothstone has made an investment in obtaining the training, skills and knowledge necessary to play a pivotal role in meeting this increasing demand.”

“Smoothstone´s recognition as a Cisco managed services provider serves as a validation to our customers that we are accomplishing our mission: to provide high performance, unified IP communications solutions to medium size entities,” remarked Jeff Wellemeyer, chief technical officer of Smoothstone. “Our newly defined relationship with Cisco will give us a strategic advantage when working with Cisco products and solutions in the future.”

The Cisco Powered Program recognizes a solution provider´s investment in the tools and processes necessary to provide high–quality network–based managed services. A Cisco Powered designation not only acknowledges that the managed service provider has invested in industry–leading Cisco solutions, but also entitles the solutions provider to take advantage of Cisco resources to envision, build, market and sell its managed services, contributing to market acceptance and adoption.

Through it´s participation in the Cisco Managed Services Channel Program, Smoothstone´s Cisco Powered unified communications services have undergone a rigorous third–party assessment and have met requirements based on the Information Technology Infrastructure Library® (ITIL) framework of best practices and market and industry requirements.

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Press Contact: Steve Simon, SS|PR, (847) 415.9347, steve@sspr.com

 

About Smoothstone IP Communications:

Smoothstone IP Communications is a nationwide provider of unified IP communications services to mid-sized enterprises. Smoothstone delivers Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), IP trunking, unified threat management, MPLS networking, contact center solutions, messaging and advanced collaboration tools as a unified suite of managed services and cloud based applications. Smoothstone´s scalable, on–demand applications & services can be integratedwith a customer´s existing network and telecommunications infrastructure, operational processes and employee activities, enabling a customer to migrate to unified IP communications as their business requirements dictate. For more information, visit www.smoothstone.com or call (800) 773.3037.

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