铃盛公司

公司收入：不详

公司总部：加州圣马特奥市

所属行业：电信业

成立时间：2003年

员工人数：300

    2003年，当弗拉德•史姆尼斯成立互联网电话系统铃盛公司（RingCentra）时，人们提到“云”这个字眼儿时，更多想到的是“雨”，而不是计算机运算。史姆尼斯相信，借鉴财务软件行业Netsuite公司和客户关系管理（CRM）行业Salesforce.com网站的做法，通过实现互联网电话服务的流媒体化，他有能力战胜传统的电话系统供应商。他回忆道：“我觉得，正确的解决方案是把电话系统纳入云中。抛弃电话间或软件许可证之类的东西，把它当作服务来提供就可以了。”现在，基于云计算的电话服务领域市场相当拥挤，铃盛公司的竞争对手不仅包括小公司8X8，还包括行业巨头威瑞森（Verizon）、阿尔卡特（Alcatel）和朗讯公司（Lucent）等。但是，史姆尼斯凭借精准定位已经在电讯细分市场占据一席之地：提供流化服务一揽子解决方案，重点锁定员工人数不足200的企业客户。目前，公司号称拥有20万个企业客户，并已与美国电话电报公司（AT&T）签约，转售后者的服务。市场研究机构Infonetics公司的电信分析师黛安•迈尔斯说：“铃盛公司很清楚自己的潜在客户是谁，并且在保持简单运作方面做的很好。”

    ——理查德•麦吉尔•墨菲

    （翻译 乔树静）

RingCentral

Revenue: Not available

Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.

Industry: Telecommunications

Founded: 2003

Employees: 300

    When Vlad Shmunis launched Internet telephony startup RingCentral back in 2003, the word "cloud" was more commonly associated with rain than with computing. Taking a page from NetSuite in the accounting software space and Salesforce.com in CRM, Shmunis bet that he could beat traditional telecom providers by streaming phone service over the Internet. "I felt the right solution was to take telephony into the cloud," Shmunis recalls. "Forget the box, forget the software license, just deliver it as a service." Today RingCentral competes in a fairly crowded market for cloud-based telephony, including smaller players like 8X8 as well as Goliaths like Verizon, Alcatel and Lucent. But Shmunis has carved out a distinct niche in the telecom market, offering streamlined service packages aimed mostly at business customers with fewer than 200 employees. Today the company boasts about 200,000 business customers and has signed up AT&T to resell its services. "RingCentral knows who its market is and has done a good job of keeping it simple," says Diane Myers, a telecom analyst at market research firm Infonetics.

    --R.M.M.