Big News You May Have Missed

Popular stories from the last week that you may have missed

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UC Today News Round Up
Unified Communications

Published: May 18, 2020

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Welcome back to another week of May, and more exciting announcements in the UC&C space.

Over the last week, we’ve continued to report on some of the biggest changes in the communication landscape, from updates to collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, to the incredible number of meeting minutes hosted by Cisco Webex.

In today’s complicated landscape, it’s more important than ever for all of us to ensure that we have the right tools in place to stay productive and connected.

If you haven’t had time to check out all the stories we covered over the last seven days, here are some of the biggest announcements you don’t want to miss.

Custom Backgrounds on Microsoft Teams

Microsoft found a new way to delight the millions of people working on Teams with the arrival of new custom backgrounds. The option to switch your background to virtually any image you can think of is far more appealing than just blurring your messy office, right?

If you haven’t explored the custom background options on Microsoft Teams yet, we’re here to walk you through everything that you need to know. Check out our comprehensive insight into Microsoft backgrounds, for tips on how to add a blur mid-meeting, and what tools you need to make new backgrounds work. We’ll even show you how to add your own images into your custom background folder so that you’re not stuck with the pre-set images chosen by the Microsoft team.

Five9 Announces Exciting Growth

Five9, one of the leaders in the cloud contact centre market, recently reported some fantastic figures for its Q1 earnings. The company earned a whopping rise of revenue of 28%, bringing in a record $95 million! What’s more, Five9 also saw a 33% rise in revenue for the last 12 months based in new enterprise solution subscriptions.

Aside from some fantastic earnings, Five9 has also been cultivating growth in other areas, joining forces with companies like Zoom and AT&T to deliver a wider range of features and functionality to its rapidly expanding audience. Zoom and Five9’s Agent-Expert consultation experience helps agents to solve more complicated customer concerns by linking them to subject matter experts. At the same time, AT&T and Five9 are working on a new contact centre solution with faster implementation options.

Cisco Webex Hosts 20 Billion Meeting Minutes

It’s fair to say that the video collaboration landscape has seen some explosive growth in the last few months. Everywhere you look, market leaders are reporting higher numbers of users, prompted by a growing demand for immersive work-from-home experiences. Cisco, offering the fantastic Webex Meetings solution for collaboration, has seen some particularly great results in the last month.

According to the Cisco team, Webex hosted 20 billion meeting minutes on the Webex platform, from over 324 million users. On top of that, Cisco also announced that during one day in March, the Webex platform achieved record growth, with close to 240,000 sign-ups for the platform in a single 24-hour period. On another day, it hosted over four million meetings!

Twilio Partners with Nye Health on Remote Comms

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, health services across the UK have been under more pressure than ever. Non-essential appointments have been cancelled, and most face-to-face communication has been replaced with phone consultations. This has pushed many health professionals on the front-lines to start using tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more, to stay connected with patients and colleagues.

Recently, CPaaS leader Twilio announced a new partnership with Nye Health, a platform for remote communications that connects patients with general physicians through video and telephone. The app and it’s browser-based offering have scaled to cover the entire nation in a matter of weeks with Twilio’s help and the right APIs.

The Future of Work is Here

As companies continue to respond to the new workplace created by the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations have shared their thoughts on the landscape. Workplace by Facebook, one of the leading tools in team collaboration for growing businesses, is just one of the many tools that have seen growing demand in the last couple of months.

We spoke to Julien Codorniou, the VP of Workplace from Facebook, about how Workplace is helping companies to thrive in this trying time. According to Julien, the pandemic has catapulted us into a new future, where remote and digital working are now essential aspects of business operation. Read all about Julien’s insights here.

What was your favourite story from the last week?

Remember to share your thoughts with us in the comments or join the conversation on social media! 

 

Customer ExperienceHealthcareMicrosoft TeamsVideo Conferencing
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