Cost reduction or productivity gains?  That’s the question facing business today – at least those that have not yet made the switch to cloud-based communications services.  Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever and demand mobile business communications capabilities.  It’s a trend that is only going to continue as mobile natives continue to become a growing force in the business community. 

For business leaders, the choice is not whether to accommodate an evolving mobile mindset, but how to embrace it most effectively.  There are certainly ways to enable mobility and access to applications in an on-premises environment.  But, businesses both large and small are coming to the conclusion that cloud communications offers an opportunity to not only embrace mobility and productivity, but to reduce cost and management and maintenance efforts at the same time.

Today, Canadian businesses have access to a new cloud communications provider, Dialpad, which officially extended its services into the country, providing an innovative alternative to tired, traditional telcos, as well as a competitor to other cloud-based solutions.

Dialpad CEO Craig Walker has long understood the value of combining mobile access with quality voice service, having built GrandCentral Communications – which later became the foundation for GoogleVoice, a business he ran for several years at Google.  Walker has been nothing but consistent in his vision for creating disruption in communications and Dialpad is no different, based on the catchphrase the company has adopted, “Kill the Deskphone.”

The Dialpad service allows users to turn one or several connected devices into their business phones, including porting existing business numbers to their Dialpad accounts – without foregoing the must-have call control features for business communications (transfer, three-way calling, visual voicemail, call recording, call screening, simultaneous ringing, etc.).  Geographically dispersed workforces can also leverage P2P video to create an increased sense of community and unity within teams and entire organizations.  SMS/MMS and IM, along with presence, round out the suite of features that combine unified communications with the mobile experience to which users are accustomed.  And of course, there’s UberConference for meetings, launched by Walker back in 2012, which is included with all business plans.

Having the full breadth of mobile experience – on the mobile device that is most convenient at the moment – is key to ROI and business growth.  By giving users the intuitive tools they need and know, on devices they already love, businesses ensure high adoption rates, one of the common deficiencies of many UC solutions.

Integration with other business apps makes Dialpad an appealing alternative – beyond its low monthly cost (entry-level packages start at just CAD20 per user per month), the service includes integration with popular productivity, CRM, social media, and other apps, including Salesforce, Okta, LinkedIn, and Office 365.  Walker also isn’t shy about pointing out that Diapad is the only business phone system with native integration with Goolge’s G Suite, which Dialpad itself leverages heavily.

The SMB market continues to adopt cloud communications at a healthy rate but, comprehensive business feature sets, service quality and reliability, a reduction in phone system management and maintenance, lower costs, and the ability to be productive anywhere and on any device is driving more and more large enterprises towards cloud communications services as well.  Walker says Dialpad is seeing more and more interest from the large enterprise market, which adds stands to benefit most from a pure cost perspective.  Companies like Motorola Solutions, Uber, and Xero, among others are already using Dialpad, and he believes that, in the near future, all businesses will migrate to the cloud, because it simply makes no sense not to – there is little benefit to owning, operating, and managing their own on-premises systems any longer.

As for Canada, specifically, he says, “We see Canada as a massively underdeveloped market for our breakthrough pure-cloud communications service.  Canadian companies have long been saddled with legacy PBX service constraints, mostly from their native telcos. They have been unable to break the cycle of overpriced monthly service fees and confusing long-distance calling plans. That’s why it’s time to modernize communications for every business, from the smallest office to the largest enterprise customers, across all industries, bringing the era of the Anywhere Worker to Canadians.”

Dialpad’s Canadian efforts are being spearheaded by another mobile communications veteran, CounterPath and Hookflash co-founder Erik Lagerway, who said, “Our born-in-the-cloud solution is a perfect fit for a market characterized by an extremely high concentration of traditional phone companies that have a stranglehold on customers, pricing, scalability, and coverage,”

Whether the death of the deskphone in Canada or elsewhere is imminent or not remains to be seen – that’s a debate that’s been going on for a decade.  But, Dialpad, with its inclusive calling to the US and within Canada, is certainly ushering in the death of long distance in the Great White North.