"Businesses are continuing to embrace the cloud to improve performance, while allowing them to remain customer-focused and revenue driven," said Asheesh Saksena, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, Cox Communications.  "With this as a backdrop, we developed Essential Cloud to include the very best applications to enable customers to run their small and medium businesses as efficiently as a large enterprise."

Essential Cloud carefully curates business solutions that can be purchased and managed through one portal, similarly to how music files are managed by consumers.  It recommends three "Basic Essentials," which are solutions every business needs, and then tailors solutions by four primary verticals: real estate, restaurant, professional services, and personal services.  For instance, Essential Cloud directs those in the professional services industry to a menu of options which includes email marketing, online appointment booking, proposal creation, and secure file sharing - solutions that almost any professional services company would need to run and grow.

"Essential Cloud is another example of our commitment to provide technology solutions that small business need to grow," added Steve Rowley, senior vice president of Cox Business.

Essential Cloud also features PayLeap, a payments/merchant services platform, as its anchor business solution. Developed by Acculynk, a Cox Business partner, PayLeap provides small and medium-sized businesses with the ability to integrate in-store, online and mobile payment processing in one offering, thereby eliminating many of the steps and costs typically associated with card payment processing.

Customers can access their apps from anywhere, at any time, with continual backup.  Essential Cloud also offers personalized service and live consultation via a concierge team to aid users in selecting the best apps for their unique business needs.  To learn more about Essential Cloud, visit:  www.essentialcloud.com.

Cox Business continues to go deeper in delivering cloud solutions for customers.  In 2013, Cox Business launched VoiceManager IP Centrex, a cloud-based voice solution for business designed to increase efficiencies in one reliable communications platform.  In addition, Cox Business forged a partnership with ViaWest to offer commercial customers secure fiber network connectivity along with colocation and cloud infrastructure solutions.