West IP Communications (News - Alert), regarded as a service provider that has the potential for long term success, did well for itself by rising a notch higher on Infonetics Research's 2011 North American Business VoIP Services Leadership Scorecard. In fact, the company nudged past Verizon (News - Alert) to claim the second slot.

A subsidiary of West Corporation, West IP Communications combines reliable world-class technologies with deep experience and flexibility to provide next generation applications and service and solutions that are personalized to suit a company's specific needs, said company officials.

"Our focus on operations and service excellence, coupled with the flexibility of our solutions, propelled our rise on the Infonetics (News - Alert) report," said Robert Wise, executive vice president at West IP Communications.

Infonetics Research made its assessment on a blend of factors that ranged from installation and management to providing support options.

West IP Communications provides businesses with advanced network and voice applications built on Tier 1, IP-based technologies that help them manage or support critical communications. With voice, data, video and Internet services, staffed by Cisco (News - Alert)-certified engineers, on a single network, companies have to deal with one global provider and a single invoice.

Regarded as a specialist in transitioning organizations to the cloud, West IP Communications' scalable, on-demand applications and services easily integrate with existing network and telecommunications infrastructure and all operational processes and activities, making the transitioning seamless, according to company officials.

West IP Communications offers two hosted VoIP solutions, VoiceMaxx, targeted to large enterprises, and VoiceMaxx CE, targeted to medium and large enterprises.

Diane Myers, principal analyst of VoIP and IMS at Infonetics, who spearheaded the report, attributed West IP Communication’s current position to its ability to drive new customers onto its hosted VoIP platform and its bundled offerings with data services that ensured a high quality of service levels.

In other news reports Cisco expanded its software to push for collaboration between its users. The company announced the launch of a new messaging app called, Cisco Jabber. The company, who purchased Jabber almost four years ago, has finally integrated the technology adding IM, voice and video, voicemail, desktop sharing and conferencing to its users. The new instant messaging service will come at no additional charge and will be bundled with the company’s Unified Communications (News - Alert).