Palo Alto, CA - February 13, 2009 - Pacific Business Centers (PBC), a leading provider of on-demand offices in California, announced a record level of activity in 2008, particularly in the fourth quarter. "Inquiries were up 43% in 2008," said PBC's marketing manager Nicholas DeGraff, "and we signed twice as many new customers than in the prior year. What is especially gratifying is that one out of two visitors in search of office space that came to tour our facilities ended up signing a deal!"
Compelling economics and the need for utmost flexibility in highly uncertain times are driving start-ups, professional firms, and corporate users to hosted offices. Hosted offices provide access to support services on a pay-per-use basis, including: conference rooms , IT services, VoIP telephony, administrative support, bookkeeping, online law library, and furnished private offices. With the infrastructure already in place, a business presence can be established immediately and overhead expenses are minimized. Flexible lease options allow companies the freedom to grow or downsize at will.
"We call this WAAS, or Workplace-As-A-ServiceTM, but you can call it Cloud Officing if you want" said Laurent Dhollande, PBC's CEO. WAAS is a similar concept to Software-As-A-Service or Cloud Computing in the technology arena, aimed at making an expensive infrastructure available at a reduced cost under a utility model. The idea is to provide a low overhead workplace solution, on a hosted, pay-per-use, and ubiquitous basis.
"We liquefy the most illiquid asset of all -real estate- and deliver the entire workplace on-demand, embedded with a large array of support services" added Dhollande. "The model is proven for start-ups and professional firms, and now large corporations are showing a tremendous interest in our approach. PBC is launching a new initiative code named GoODWORKTM, to respond to emerging strategies by large corporations, driven by economic and environmental considerations, to provide distributed workplaces. Click here for more info.
The 4th quarter was the strongest quarter on record for PBC's inquiries, amidst the worst recession in decades. Early indications suggest that the first quarter of 2009 might even be stronger.
"We are not immune to the recession" said Dhollande. "We are seeing more clients go out of business than ever before, but at the same time, we have never signed as many new customers as we are today. All in all, our occupancy has inched up and we are incubating more start-ups and professional firms than ever before. We feel we have a good pulse on local economic activity and it is comforting to see that the California entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well amidst the worst recession in decades!"
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