RingCentral Cloud Communications and Collaboration for Dummies is a  guide to replacing legacy on-premises systems with a modern cloud communications solution. Has your aging on-premises PBX phone system become too expensive and complex to maintain? Is this legacy system holding your business back? It’s time to move forward with an advanced cloud communications and collaboration solution. ProTelesis is a proud partner of RingCentral offering a comprehensive lineup of Unified Communications solutions.

Simplify administration  and maximize ROI

Embrace mobility and  team collaboration

Enable a globally  distributed workforce

Integrate communications with your business applications

A (Brief) History of Business Communications

For more than a half century, the Private Branch eXchange (PBX) has been a centerpiece of business communications. A PBX is a phone switching system used to concentrate telephone lines or trunks, route intraoffice calls, and manage phone features. PBXs were originally purchased by businesses to improve the efficiency and reduce the expense of calls made within an office. Prior to the PBX, a call made by an employee to a coworker sitting at a desk in the same office had to be routed the same way as a call to a customer across town. It had to be routed from the employee’s desk phone to the telephone company’s central office (CO)  — perhaps several miles away — and then back to the coworker’s desk phone. Businesses would incur phone charges for every call made — even for a call across the room! Ironically, today a PBX can be a “Pretty Big eXpense” for businesses, as many PBXs require a significant capital investment. With the proliferation of mobile phones today, it’s easy to forget (or perhaps you’re young enough to have never experienced it) that in the not too distant past, we had to pay for every phone call — long distance and local. We also had to walk a mile in the snow — uphill both ways — to fetch a pail of water! Read the rest, get this guide.