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It’s been an exciting couple of weeks here in the Unified Communications and Collaboration space, with plenty of stories to talk about from Twilio, Logitech, Slack, and big reveals from Avaya Engage 2020.
RingCentral, RingCentral, leaders in the world of communication, collaboration, and contact centre technology are this month’s headline sponsor. Across March we’re covering all things about Contact Centre’s and CCaaS, so be sure to check out all our latest features and news stories by visiting our CCaaS category on the UC Today website.
If you’ve missed out on any of our most exciting stories from the past few week – here are some of the top stories.
Rounding Up Avaya ENGAGE 2020
One of the marketplace leaders in communication and collaboration solutions, Avaya, recently held their annual “ENGAGE” event this year. The theme of the conference was centred around transformation, which makes a lot of sense when you consider the meaningful changes that Avaya has been making lately.
Some of the biggest updates revealed at the ENGAGE event included an introduction to new partner solutions to help Avaya take its solutions to the market. Additionally, Avaya also announced an upcoming CCaaS product for 2020, designed to give companies access to the power of pure cloud in the contact centre. The future for Avaya certainly looks bright.
IBM Delivers Slack Accounts to Remaining Employees
You might have seen rumours floating around in the UC space that IBM has ramped up its relationship with collaboration company Slack. While that’s undoubtedly true – the amount of new seats that Slack can claim from IBM has been a little inflated by some reporters. The company isn’t adding 350,000 new seats to its roster. Instead, the actual number of positions added recently was just under 50,000.
While nearly 50,000 new customers is nothing to be sniffed at, there has been a lot of confusion in the industry recently. Fortunately, Slack clarified its relationship with IBM for us in an email to the UC Today, team. According to Slack, IBM now has over 300,000 users on the platform in total and is planning on deploying the collaboration app company-wide.
Should Twilio be a UCaaS Vendor?
Towards the beginning of February, Twilio shared its fourth-quarter earnings for the 2019 financial period. Although the company surpassed analyst expectations, the value of the Twilio’s CPaaS stocks fell by around 7%. That’s because Twilio reported a lower-than-expected set of guidance numbers heading into 2020.
Principal Analyst and Founder of ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala, said that the problem might have something to do with the fact that Twilio has been “overvalued” for quite some time now. He told UC Today that although Twilio is still growing at an impressive rate, he believes that the company would accomplish a lot more by entering the market as a UCaaS vendor and changing its structure to match something like Vonage/Nexmo.
Rounding Up ISE: The Highlights
Our very own Rob Scott had the pleasure of attending the ISE event (Integrated Systems Europe), this year. The conference is one of the most exciting environments in the world for people interested in audio and video technology, and it also has a dedicated UC hall. Rob noted a number of trends when perusing the content at ISE this year, including a rising demand for service management tools as part of the video conferencing and collaboration stack.
Both Logitech and Poly were introducing new service management tools at their booths for 2020, though each had a slightly different approach in mind. Additionally, many of the businesses at ISE seemed to be passionate about embracing a “video first” culture in the workplace, with everyone from Google, to Zoom touting the benefits of video communication. Find out more here.
3 Technologies Changing Industries in 2020
We love getting industry insights from marketplace leaders here at UC Today. We had a fantastic guest blog published by the VP of Product Management and Tech Solutions for Spectralink, Andrew Duncan. Andrew shared his thoughts on the technology that is changing industries around the world in 2020 and beyond.
In his intriguing piece, Duncan discussed the evolution of the Internet of Things, and the rising demand for connected devices, as well as the growth of the cloud environment. Andrew also discussed the importance of enterprise mobility, and what being connected on the go will mean to businesses in the years to come. See the full guest post.
Crestron and Logitech Join Forces
Consolidation seems to be an ongoing trend in the communication and collaboration landscape. Countless companies are coming together to share their experience, expertise, and talents in the pursuit of better customer experiences. Crestron, a leader in workplace tech solutions, and Logitech, premium video provider, are embracing this idea of teamwork, with a new partnership.
The two companies will be working together on delivering excellent room experiences to customers from all backgrounds.
The solutions will pair the Crestron Flex C Series products with tools like the Logitech MeetUp, Rally, and Rally plus. The result should be an enhanced UC experience for meeting rooms of varying sizes. Check out our full article for an insight into the new collaboration.
Giving a Voice to Microsoft with VoIPcloud
Microsoft might have one of the most popular collaboration tools in the world with Microsoft Teams – but the company has always had limitations when it comes to voice. According to the Managing Director of VoIPcloud, Mark Whitehead, Microsoft’s issues with voice are beginning to become more of a problem for companies that want to use Teams as the central component of their communication and collaboration landscape.
Fortunately, VoIPcloud is here to help. The UK supplier offers an IP telephony platform that has been offering tools to take companies beyond the dial tone with Microsoft Teams for more than a year. VoIPcloud is aiming to provide Teams users with the tools they need for an incredible communication stack.
The NHS Must Embrace New Communications Says StarLeaf
StarLeaf recently revealed some interesting insights into the healthcare landscape. According to this pioneer of seamless collaboration solutions, the NHS trusts that are located throughout the UK today could be in serious trouble if they refuse to update their communication strategy. Around 80% of these trusts currently use video conferencing to stay connected. However, 56% of the trusts don’t have any training in place to help people adopt the technology.
StarLeaf’s research indicates that not only does the NHS need to be more open to new forms of communication that exist outside of voice conversations, but the group requires to provide more training too. A lack of training could easily lead to issues like shadow IT.
Flexible Workers Struggle with Tech
More than ever before, employees around the world are beginning to discover the benefits of working remotely, from offices and home spaces outside of their nine-to-five workspaces. However, according to a report conducted by 99&One, many remote workers are struggling to access the full advantages of a mobile lifestyle, because of problems with technology.
Employees state that they’re commonly overloaded with technology that they haven’t had a chance to properly adapt. However, employees that were given training and support to help them make the most of new technology were 56% happier in their jobs. Here are 99&One’s insights into how employers can support the new remote workforce.
Migrating from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams
If you’ve been using a specific collaboration or communication tool for quite some time now, then it can be difficult to even imagine switching to something else. Unfortunately for those who are uncomfortable with change, Microsoft will be migrating all customers from Skype for Business into Microsoft Teams eventually. That means that if you don’t have a strategy for the transition, now is the time to get one.
Rob Scott joins us in a video with leaders from across the UCC landscape to talk about how you can move comfortably into Microsoft Teams, to ensure that you’re ready for the future. See the full video here.
Check out all the stories, by clicking the links below, or if you’re watching from YouTube, Click the description where we have links to all the articles. And don’t forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments below, and if you haven’t already, check out the UC Summit.
There’s still plenty of time to climb your way to the top of our summit, with countless amazing learning experiences to explore and the chance to win some incredible prizes.
