ITonCloud chief executive Andrew Tucker said, “Offering the full functionality of Skype for Business which include Standard, Enterprise and the Plus versions is part of our commitment to make IT straight forward and easy for our clients.

“Many cloud solutions, like Office 365, Azure or AWS, need to be purpose-built piece by piece. What we have focused on providing is a solution that is fully formed to make it easier for our clients to focus on their business instead of IT.”

According to Tucker, despite only launching two years ago, Skype for Business has positioned itself to be the market leader in the UC (unified communications) category with an estimated 36% of the market, according to research from Spiceworks.

“Many cloud solutions can only offer part of the Skype for Business experience, for instance only the Standard version without telephony and video conferencing (VC) for groups. Our offering includes both telephony and VC running seamlessly in our hosted desktop environment,” Tucker said.

ITonCloud says client Home Care Holdings, a mobile health provider, was one of the first to take advantage of the new Skype for Business Enterprise Plus as well as Standard to meet users’ needs appropriately. The first rollout has been completed, with 300 users already utilising all the features, and another 200 being to be added to complete the first two stages of the rollout.

Home Care Holdings Group chief technology officer Jerome Barrientos said, “The Skype for Business integration with the ITonCloud platform has been a game changer for us. It will mean we can do away with landlines completely, enhancing our mobility and collaboration among our users.”

“It will also generate considerable cost savings for us, reducing our telephony costs. This is because we no longer have to invest in hardware and complex on-site systems, instead we have a managed service with a single supplier with is stable and has a reliability of cost.

“It’s an offering that fits in with our overall IT strategy which is to focus on simplification and provide our network or users with systems that are robust.”

ITonCloud says Skype for Business integration will be available to all customers at a minimal cost per user. – and new versions and updates are automatically applied.

“One of the many benefits of having your IT environment hosted in the cloud is maintenance, updates, regular back-ups and virus/malware protection are all taken care of for you, allowing you to focus your resources on business critical activities,” Tucker said.

ITonCloud says it allows its users to host their entire IT environment in the cloud, reducing the need for on-premise servers and significantly cutting set up and maintenance costs.

“Users can easily access programs and apps through an integrated virtual desktop hosted in the cloud, facilitating greater security, mobility and flexibility,” said Tucker.