As cloud computing continues to increase in adoption, more companies are turning to Communications as a Service (CaaS) to improve their communications strategies and lower costs and achieve greater efficiencies. TMCnet was there to cover the latest CaaS news this week. Here are some highlights:

VirtualTone recently announced a strategic partnership with A PC Geek, an IT company functioning out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. VirtualTone Gold Agent partners offer small-to-medium businesses the benefit of cloud technology for their communications and IT infrastructure. Since VirtualTone makes use of local companies like A PC Geek to provide the onsite part of their solutions, these local organizations will be able to provide their clients with the latest technology and a complete solution at the same time.

Through the Gold Agent program, VirtualTone ties-up with local IT firms to deploy hands-on services, providing budget-friendly, cloud-based solutions for the client and a chance for better monetary gain for the partner. Gold Agents are certified by VirtualTone, meaning that they measure up to high levels of customer satisfaction and project management that is stipulated by VirtualTone. The company allows the partner complete control of the administration interface of VirtualTone services for a particular consumer. For more about this program, click here.

In other CaaS news, advanced collaboration and communications tools became available to small and medium-sized businesses, thanks to a new service offering from Chinook Communications. The company announced its Total Connect service, which is the first ever production release worldwide of the Microsoft (News - Alert)-supported Lync Server 2010 Multitenant Pack for Partner Hosting.

Total Connect is a fully integrated bundle featuring a complete range of Microsoft Lync Server voice communications features. It offers a number of additional capabilities, included instant messaging, a hosted Microsoft Lync-based phone system, presence, application sharing, PSTN integrated audio conferencing as well as Web-based audio and video conferencing, Microsoft Exchange 2010-based email and unified messaging and secure document management with Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

For more CaaS news, be sure to visit TMCnet again next week for all the latest developments.