With Microsoft reporting in October 2020 that there are more than 115 million Teams daily active users,, the solution saw a 53% growth in usage since April 2020. This growth rate is likely to have continued into 2021 as home and remote working requirements remain in place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Teams has achieved critical mass as a collaboration tool, now CIOs and IT managers are focused on utilising it as a platform to replace legacy telephony systems and associated applications.
However, Teams isn’t simply a replacement or alternative technology for standard calling. It has matured into a rich unified communications platform that organisations are using as a collaboration tool, with many business functions relying on it. “As a Microsoft Partner and independent software vendor, we have been watching Microsoft Teams mature long before adoption reached critical mass and we have been preparing for its potential as a unified communications platform to become a mass-market reality,” says Mauro Franchin, the CTO of Mida Solutions. “People now recognise the efficiency, productivity and convenience of using a single cloud platform to manage all of their communications. However, to do so they need to connect Microsoft Teams to their choice of telecoms provider.”
Franchin explains that most companies have chosen Microsoft Direct Routing as the means by which they connect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) but this requires a Microsoft-certified session border controller (SBC) in order to integrate and enable their contact centre services. The SBC is essential for enabling solutions such as Mida Solutions’ C3 Cloud Contact Center for Teams to connect to both Microsoft Teams and a customer’s existing on-premises telephony infrastructure, the PSTN or an on-premises Skype for Business deployment.
Mida C3 Cloud Contact Center for Teams is a turnkey cloud contact centre that works perfectly with Teams, offering a complete suite of video and voice applications. The suite includes Mida’s Attendant Console, Recorder, Queue Manager and Automated Attendant. The solution has been optimised to enable fast time-to-market with flexible pricing so users’ can pay-as-they-grow. In addition, it fully integrates with tools such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce and many more. When it comes to SBC integration, C3 Cloud Contact Center works with most certified SBCs and recently Mida Solutions has been working closely with Ribbon Communications to test and deploy Ribbon SBCs alongside the Mida solution.
A recent Ribbon Unified Communications survey of 4,500 IT decision-makers showed a 103% year-on-year increase amongst small businesses, of less than 100 employees, which have either deployed, are in the process of deploying or are planning to deploy Microsoft Teams. Large companies, with more than 1,000 employees, reported an increase of 36%.
“Ribbon and Mida Solutions recognise that these organisations will need a tested and proven solution to integrate their contact centre services,” said Matt Hurst, the Senior Director of XaaS Solutions at Ribbon Communications, emphasising the scale of the market and the need for straightforward SBC integrations.
Franchin added:
“We’re pleased to continue our collaboration with Ribbon to provide customers with easy access to Ribbon SBCs to enable their Teams integrations as adoption continues to grow”
