As announced back at Microsoft Ignite in September, BlueJeans has teamed up with Microsoft to help unleash the power of Microsoft Teams with their BlueJeans Video Gateway for Microsoft Teams. Designed to allow users to easily access Teams video meetings on any existing room system, the cloud-native infrastructure of BlueJeans new video gateway turns any rooms into a Teams meeting room.
As more and more business begin their migration from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans have identified a gap in the video conferencing estate. There is no doubt that Microsoft Teams is a market leader and provides no end of collaboration and productivity benefits to businesses. However, the current experience when it comes to group video endpoints still requires third party input.
Video endpoint integration is not yet as straight forward in Microsoft Teams as it is in Skype for Business. And whilst we’ve heard about the launch of the new Skype for Business Server 2019, Microsoft has reconfirmed that Teams is very much the future.
Enter BlueJeans Video Gateway for Microsoft Teams
BlueJeans latest gateway product is designed especially for Microsoft Teams to seamlessly integrate existing video room systems, board rooms, conference rooms and huddle spaces.
Once connected, users can expect a consistent experience, featuring one-touch, cloud-first joining experience. This is a major plus for employee experience and ease of user – something both BlueJeans and Microsoft aim to evangelise in.
Features
Users used to the BlueJeans, Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business experience will find the video gateway a breath of fresh air as it’s introduced into the Teams video interop stack. Core features of the new gateway include:
- H.323 and SIP-based video conferencing compatibility
- Consistent simplicity to room systems from multiple vendors
- One-touch join for a fast and intuitive Teams meeting
- Meeting schedule display for quick access and at-a-glance status checks
- Centralised reporting gives administrators full visibility into the status of their rooms
- Hosted securely in Microsoft Azure
Tech Specs
For the more technically inclined, the specification for the new BlueJeans video gateway for Microsoft Teams is included below:
- Protocols include SIP and H.323
- Audio codecs supported are G.711 (μ-law, A-Law), G.722, G.722.1, G.722.1c/Siren 14 and Opus 16Khz
- Video codecs and resolutions supported are H.263 (up to 4CIF), H.264 (up to 720p HD), H.264HP (up to 720p HD)
- H.323 Ports consist of outbound TCP Port 1720 – H.225 Signaling for H.323, outbound TCP Ports 5000-5999 – H.245 Call Control for H.323 and outbound UDP Ports 5000-5999 – RTP Media
- SIP Ports include Outbound TCP Port 5060 – SIP Signaling, uutbound TCP Port 5061 – SIPS (TLS) Signaling and outbound UDP Ports 5000-5999 – RTP Media
Consistent Experience
BlueJeans integrates into Microsoft Teams via the BlueJeans Meeting Bot. Once installed into Microsoft Teams, both applications are joined up into one unified experience.
Assuming you’ve setup a meeting via Office 365, you can now enter your meeting via Microsoft Teams from any compatible video endpoint, all with the same experience. Once in the meeting, you can utilise features such as content sharing and flexible screen layouts to give end users
control over their meeting.
The most obvious but unsung business benefit to the BlueJeans video gateway is a consistent Microsoft Teams video conferencing experience. When introducing a new app like Microsoft Teams, adoption and user experience is absolutely critical. This is the always the case. Be it brand new or an upgrade from Skype for Business. With BlueJeans video gateway for Microsoft Teams, the experience is slick and easy. More importantly, the experience of joining a video meeting is the same every time, regardless of device. It has often been the case in large businesses that each meeting room has a different joining experience due to the kit within the room. Different experiences each time lead to user frustration and kills adoption.
Leverage Existing Investments
As with any cloud application, leveraging your existing investment is crucial to realise the business case. Your team may have been given the go ahead to roll out Microsoft Teams. But, it doesn’t automatically mean you have funding for brand new video conferencing endpoints.
With the BlueJeans video gateway, it’s cloud-native solution works with thousands of room system configurations and brands. This is a vital element that allows you to make the most of your existing investments. From Logitech and Polycom to Lenovo and Pexip, this is something that is sure to please both the IT Manager and the CFO.
Brent Kelly, President and Principal Analyst, KelCor, Inc., commented on the BlueJeans video gateway for Microsoft Teams:
“Adding the Teams Gateway from BlueJeans to Office 365 subscriptions gives organisations an easy and convenient way to integrate third-party rooms and personal video endpoints into Teams meetings. This leverages existing assets and enables procuring additional non-Teams endpoints in the future”
Use Cases
The use case for BlueJeans video gateway for Microsoft Teams is pretty self-explanatory. When a business reaches a certain size, scalability of every solution is under scrutiny. Meeting rooms of all sizes will likely be stocked with expensive video conferencing equipment. It is often the case that you are not ready – or don’t have funding – to replace.
Businesses either adopting Microsoft Teams for the first time, or upgrading from Skype for Business, must consider their options when it comes to video conferencing. Unless you are in the extremely fortunate position of having budget for both a collaboration suite and a video conferencing refresh, a video gateway natively connected into Microsoft Teams is top of the shopping list.
BlueJeans and Microsoft
BlueJeans has been providing customers with solutions to enhance their meeting experiences
in Microsoft deployments since 2011. As a Microsoft Cloud Video Interop partner, BlueJeans work
together with Microsoft to empower the modern workforce.
Microsoft recognises the importance of video interop providers such as BlueJeans. Lori Wright, General Manager of Microsoft Teams and Skype Product Marketing at Microsoft noted,
“BlueJeans has a strong history of enabling customers to maximise their room system investments. Customers will appreciate how easy it is to bring their existing meeting spaces into Microsoft Teams meetings using the BlueJeans interop solution.”
Current customer on the BlueJeans books include the likes of huge conglomerates such as Facebook, Red Hat and LinkedIn. They also boast more nice areas such Upwork and AirAsia.
