SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 31, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq:EGHT), provider of innovative cloud communications and computing solutions, today announced the appointment of Vance Raeside as its Washington DC-based Director, Federal Sales, responsible for overseeing all direct and indirect sales activity with federal, state and local government agencies.
Raeside brings nearly two decades of telecommunications sales experience to 8x8, including 13 years selling into the public sector as Manager, Federal Sales at Shoretel, Inc. and Manager, Business/Systems Integrator Partners at Nortel Government Solutions. While at Shoretel, Raeside developed and launched the company's go to market strategy for sales to US Federal government agencies resulting in the addition of 60 new federal channel partners and the initiation of new GSA Connections II and Networx contracts. At Nortel Government Solutions, Raeside managed relationships with strategic partners and systems integrator partners including General Dynamics, SAIC and Ronco, meeting sales quotas in excess of $36 million. Prior to Nortel, Raeside was a sales executive at Bell Nexxia in Toronto, Canada where he sold competitive network and hardware solutions to named accounts with a strong focus on application sales.
"Vance's deep knowledge of the IP communications industry coupled with his outstanding track record in federal government sales is a tremendous asset for 8x8 as we expand our presence in the public sector," said Kim Niederman, senior vice president of worldwide sales at 8x8. "With government agencies at federal, state and local levels adopting cloud technologies at unprecedented rates, 8x8 is well positioned to meet this growing demand with a wide range of cloud-based SaaS and IaaS solutions."
In addition to several existing federal government deployments secured through joint collaboration with 8x8 government teaming partner Level 3 Communications, 8x8 recently announced it had been selected by the City of Garden Grove, California to provide cloud-based disaster recovery services for its VMware vSphere virtualization platform.
"I'm thrilled to be joining a company as nimble and highly regarded as 8x8, especially in light of the Federal Government CIO's statement earlier this year that an estimated $20 billion of its $80 billion in IT spending is a potential for migration to cloud computing solutions," said Raeside. "It's amazing what 8x8 has accomplished in a very short period of time – from successfully penetrating the SMB market with VoIP and UC solutions to moving upmarket into serving the enterprise and government sectors to introducing a complete suite of cloud hosting solutions. This is fantastic time to be part of the cloud revolution and I'm proud to be associated with one of the industry's premier service providers."
About 8x8, Inc.
8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq:EGHT), a pioneer in the development of cloud-based VoIP, video, mobile, and unified communications solutions, leverages its patented software technologies to deliver industry-leading SaaS applications to businesses of any size with employees in any location. We offer integrated business communications and cloud computing services that are designed to meet the highest levels of availability, reliability and scalability. Increasingly, businesses are finding they can reduce costs, improve productivity, and be positioned competitively for the future by choosing 8x8 for their mission critical, cloud-based communications and computing needs. For additional information, visit www.8x8.com, or connect with 8x8 on Facebook and Twitter.