Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Cbeyond Builds Momentum in Indirect Channel with Announcement of the Partner Advisory Board

ATLANTA, Sep 23, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY), a provider of communications and IT solutions to more than 46,000 small businesses across the country, announced today the company's first Channel Partner Advisory Board. This group of Cbeyond channel partners, representing diverse business models across Cbeyond's large partner community, will provide ongoing strategic counsel to Cbeyond to help promote and extend its robust indirect sales channel and increase the long-term benefits for Cbeyond's partner community.

The Channel Partner Advisory Board marks one of many strategic initiatives by Cbeyond to bolster the company's partner program this year. Recently named by PHONE+ magazine as a Top 50 Channel Program for 2009, Cbeyond is focused this year on building a strong and sustainable partner program to not only grow Cbeyond's indirect sales channel, but to ensure the program proves successful for Cbeyond partners. Ensuring partners are successful is important to Cbeyond team members like Ernie Mcilquham, a Cbeyond Channel Manager who was voted as one of the Top 15 Channel Managers of 2009 recently by PHONE + magazine. In addition, Cbeyond announced the Platform Partner Program earlier this month to better align Cbeyond with leading IP PBX equipment manufacturers to certify the equipment as interoperable with Cbeyond's core voice and data services offering - BeyondVoice with SIPconnect(R).

A sample of Cbeyond channel partners have come together to form Cbeyond's first Channel Partner Advisory Board. These participants' input is sought for strategic planning purposes on an on-going basis. The primary mission of the Board is to facilitate open communication between Cbeyond's management team and select channel partners. The Board is a crucial source of insight about channel partner issues and concerns, competitive intelligence, product development enhancements, service delivery requirements and program support elements that all must work in concert for Cbeyond and Cbeyond partners for their mutual benefit. Board members have the opportunity to influence decision-making at the highest levels of Cbeyond management and to interact and share best practices with channel partners from other regions and diverse technology backgrounds.

"The Cbeyond Channel Partner Advisory Board is instrumental in shaping our evolving Channel Partner Program. I view this program as a two way sharing of information with the benefit of Cbeyond receiving tremendous information from companies that have a vested interest in our success," said Brad Linden, Cbeyond's Vice President of Channel Sales. "Some of the immediate benefits we expect to see include improved technical support and customer care for partners and their customers, new and innovative approaches to marketing programs to energize our partner base, and most importantly, an ongoing focus to shape our program from year to year based on what our partners need to succeed."

"Cbeyond has taken great measures to make sure their new advisory board is an excellent use of time for all partners involved," said Curt Allen, President of X4 Communications. "As opposed to some advisory boards that turn into a vehicle for the service provider or carrier to announce their plans to the agent community, this one has taken the approach of listening to the needs of the members and committing to take action based upon those needs."

This is Cbeyond's first Partner Advisory Board, and Cbeyond will be looking to enhance and refresh the program as it evolves.

About Cbeyond

Cbeyond, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBEY) is a leading provider of IT and communications to more than 46,000 small businesses throughout the United States. Recently named as the sixth fastest growing technology company by Forbes magazine, and added to Standard & Poor's Small Cap S&P 600 Index, Cbeyond offers more than 30 productivity-enhancing applications including local and long-distance voice, broadband Internet, mobile, BlackBerry(R), broadband laptop access, voicemail, email, web hosting, fax-to-email, data backup, file-sharing and virtual private networking. Cbeyond delivers these services over a 100 percent private all IP network. For more information on Cbeyond, visit www.cbeyond.net.

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SOURCE: Cbeyond, Inc.

Cbeyond
Shana Keith, 678-384-8304
shana.keith@cbeyond.net

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