collab9 Awarded 10 Year NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions Contract

    LOS ANGELES, CA, October 27, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- collab9, the first and only FedRAMPSM Authorized Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provider, today announced that the State of Utah awarded the company with the "NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions contract." The contract allows collab9 to sell its FedRAMP Authorized Cisco Powered Unified Communications (UC) cloud service to participating U.S. states. Additionally, authorized collab9 Value Added Resellers (VARs) will also be able to sell through this agreement.

collab9's FedRAMP Moderate Authorization ensures the services it delivers meet the most stringent security requirements of the federal government, and further validates the company's ability to provide a secure solution, verified by a federally approved auditor and the federal government.

NASPO ValuePoint

The NASPO ValuePoint Cooperative Purchasing Organization (formerly WSCA-NASPO) provides the highest standard of excellence in public cooperative contracting. By leveraging the leadership and expertise of all states with the purchasing power of their public entities, NASPO ValuePoint delivers best value, reliable, competitively sourced contracts. Since 1993, NASPO ValuePoint has been the cooperative purchasing arm of NASPO (the National Association of State Procurement Officials), encouraging, fostering, and guiding the nation's most significant public contract cooperative. NASPO ValuePoint is a unified, nationally focused cooperative aggregating the demand of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the organized U.S. territories, their political subdivisions, and other eligible entities spurring best value, innovation, and competition in the marketplace.

Contract Objective

The objective of the cooperative procurement effort in furtherance of the NASPO ValuePoint Cooperative Purchasing Program was to provide states, territories, and their authorized political subdivisions with high quality cloud-based service providers that will ultimately increase the technology department's overall efficiency, reduce costs, improve operational scalability, provide business continuity, increase collaboration efficiencies, and allow for expanded flexibility in work practices and system improvements. The resulting Master Agreement(s) will be extended to state governments (including individual departments, agencies, institutions), higher education, and political subdivisions (i.e., colleges, school districts, counties, cities, etc.) in the District of Columbia, territories of the United States, and other eligible entities.

Benefits for Public Sector

collab9's data center infrastructure meets the NIST 800-53 standards for Federal state and local government security requirements. Participating states, counties, cities, and other public sector entities can utilize collab9's secure UC service in the cloud - which includes voice, video, conferencing, instant messaging, mobility, and collaboration - and benefit from increased productivity, newer technology, cost-savings, and flexibility that cloud technology brings, but also address key business needs:

Financial Savings
• Substantial cost savings over traditional build and operate solutions.
• Reduced capital expenditures for critical phone infrastructure and its maintenance/upgrades.
• Reduced staffing costs for specialized administrators to run on-premises systems.
• Reduced cost of compliance through continuous monitoring.

Technology Modernization
• Rapid deployment with continual upgrading of the solution and infrastructure.
• Migration away from obsolete or aging communications systems.
• Delivery of feature-rich, cloud-based voice services managed outside the organization.
• Redundant infrastructure for disaster recovery and business continuity

"We're thrilled to be awarded the State of Utah's NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions Contract. Following our recent FedRAMP Authorization, the addition of this contract to collab9's portfolio of purchasing vehicles will provide the participating states, as well as cities and counties, access to the first and only FedRAMP/NIST 800-53 authorized unified communications service, which will be available through our comprehensive distribution channel of service providers, VARs, and prime contractors," said Kevin Schatzle, CEO of collab9.

Secure Hosted UC

collab9 offers the only FedRAMP Authorized UCaaS solution for hosted voice - the second most common application for businesses, after email. Its secure hosted collaboration solution includes:

• feature rich voice service for desk phones, mobile devices, and soft clients,
• unified messaging integrating voicemail and email,
• video calls,
• mobility, IM, and presence (Jabber),
• customer care applications (Contact Center),
• integration with Microsoft O365, Skype for Business, and Gmail, and
• E911 functionality.

For more information, visit: http://www.collab9.com/naspo.

About collab9
The first FedRAMP Authorized UCaaS provider, collab9 provides the only Cisco Powered cloud service for voice and collaboration that meets federal, state, and local government requirements for security. Its secure hosted Unified Communication (UC) solution offers call control, unified messaging integrating voicemail and email, video calls, mobility, IM, presence, Contact Center, E911, and integration with Microsoft and Google Cloud collaboration and email applications into a per user, per month subscription-based model. collab9's solution helps manage complexities in the disparate, BYOD, and mobile environments, allowing real-time collaboration to help improve productivity, performance, and customer service. For more information, visit: http://www.collab9.com; follow @collab9 on Twitter.

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