It’s not called a managed services program. And it’s not hyped as a recurring revenue effort. But Cisco Systems’ latest pricing plan in the unified communications market is something that may interest managed service providers. The networking giant has introduced “per-user-per-day pricing” to help channel partners accelerate their unified communication sales to small and midsize businesses.

The so-called Cisco EasyLease “is tailored to SMB customers, offering simplified documentation, expedited credit approvals and low transaction minimums,” according to a Cisco release.

Some critics have said that managed services — and hardware as a service, in particular — are nothing more than a new way to describe customer leases.

Regardless of what you call it, the per-user-per-day pricing model is an easy way to show customers how much they will actually pay for a solution, and savvy MSPs should marry that information with a per-user-per-day cost savings model, to show customers how much money they can save (or new revenue they can generate) by moving to unified communications.

Cisco says it has also enhanced several online tools, including:

You can find details at www.cisco.com/go/ciscocapital.