Regus extends Flexible Working to Virtual Office customers - a major expansion of the SmartNumbers partnership to support 50,000 virtual office users.

London, England. May 2005

Regus UK Ltd today announced a major expansion of its partnership with SmartNumbers, providing enhanced telephony and flexible-working services to Regus Virtual Office customers. Under the terms of this 3 year agreement, Regus will use SmartNumbers as its core platform for a new range of advanced telephony services for their Regus Virtual Office (RVO) customers.

As the global leader in serviced offices, Regus enjoy significant growth in the market for Virtual Office customers. Today, more than  2,000 UK companies operate as RVO customers - using the Regus office network as their own corporate presence for meeting rooms, mail-handling and other client-facing activities - while operating from their home, overseas or other remote locations.  With growth rates in this market exceeding 50% annually, Regus anticipate the number of RVO customers to approach 10,000 within 3 years.

"Flexible working is one of the key drivers behind the surge in demand for our Virtual Office products", explains Simon Hunt, the Director of Regus Virtual Offices. "Our customers want to be able to work from any number of locations, across regions or time-zones, yet still be connected to their corporate voice services for voice-mail, fax-mail, hunt-groups and real-time presence. Our customers need to be confident that, wherever they or other members of their team are physically located, their customers will always receive the best telephone and messaging service experience. We have expanded our partnership with SmartNumbers to create a unique product to Regus that matches exactly the requirements of our customers to balance their flexible working requirements with the need to serve their customers most effectively."

Under the terms of this agreement, SmartNumbers and Regus have designed a series of unique telephony and messaging services that reflect the demanding requirements of today's RVO customer.  Highlights of the new RVO SmartNumbers include;

• The Regus Virtual Office Desktop, a web-based tool for call management and control, enabling organisations to establish teams, delegates and hunt-groups for incoming calls, no matter where the company employees may be located.
• The Regus Virtual Office Directory, a web-based tool for contact management that enables a company to share key contacts and information across all employees.  Contacts may be called by clicking their contact details on the screen, or can be sent SMS and other messaging options if required.
• SmartNumbers Real-time Presence, so that team members can immediately see the location and availability of all other employees and their ability to receive calls or collaborate through messaging.
• SmartNumbers Inbound Services whereby an RVO customer can connect and manage up to 4 inbound telephone calls from a single line.  The web-based tool provides real-time call management for employees working from home, without the requirement to buy additional dedicated telephone lines.
• Integration with other Regus services, such as meeting-room bookings, All Day PA and other services so that Regus customers can have an integrated service experience for all their valued Regus products.

"We are delighted to have been selected by Regus for this important project.", said Geoffrey Paterson, CEO of SmartNumbers. "With our focus on providing the highest quality voice services for flexible working, SmartNumbers are uniquely capable of meeting the requirements of Regus with respect to ease of use, scalability and flexibility for their customers. With an anticipated rollout to over 50,000 users across more than 5,000 separate companies, the SmartNumbers Flexible Working solution will be an important driver for both attracting and retaining RVO customers."

David Ford, Chief Executive, Regus UK Ltd, commented: "This is another first for Regus, and demonstrates our customer commitment to provide them with the very best in service delivery - as valuable for start-up businesses as it is for corporate and government. As flexible working takes off in the UK, we believe Regus is uniquely positioned to meet the demands of these types of organisations. Everything from booking meeting rooms, arranging PA services to telephone and messaging services can now be accomplished online, and we are pleased to be working with SmartNumbers as we define the Gold Standard for flexible working solutions."

About Regus

Represented in 350 cities in more than 60 countries, Regus is the global leader in supplying fully serviced offices. Offering 96,000 workstations in more than 750 prestigious locations across the globe, including over 90 in the UK , Regus is also a market leader in providing meeting rooms, training facilities and public access videoconferencing studios. More information can be found at www.regus.co.uk