From pulling the plug on Google Hangouts to HP and Poly officially merging, here are some extracts from popular news stories this week.
HP and Poly Merge into One Team Following Acquisition
HP and Poly employees have officially merged following HP’s $3.3 billion acquisition of the company, Enrique Lores, President and CEO at HP, confirms.
The takeover was completed at the end of August in what was described as “a historic day” by HP.
Poly’s CEO Dave Shull joins HP as President of Workforce Services and Solutions, bringing his extensive experience in technology and business development to the executive team.
Andy Rhodes will become the combined HP-Poly business as General Manager of Hybrid Work Solutions and Peripherals after he previously ran HP’s commercial Personal Systems business.
Lores said: “It’s an exciting day across HP, as we officially welcome our new colleagues from Poly.
“Since completing our acquisition in August, our teams have been spending a lot of time together to set our combined business up for success.
“Each passing day brings new reasons to be excited about our future. We have incredible opportunities to innovate at the heart of hybrid work and create amazing new solutions for our customers.
“Thank you to everyone across HP and Poly who worked so hard to get us here. We are stronger together and our future begins now. As one team, there is no limit to what we can achieve.”
HP believes its acquisition of Poly will benefit its revenue and operating profit in 2023 as it aims to create new opportunities in hybrid working solutions.
Google Officially Pulls Plug on Hangouts
Google has officially called time on its Hangouts platform on November 1 as users are now automatically switched to Chat.
Hangouts have slowly been phased out since it was announced in 2020 that the platform would change to Chat in November 2022.
By mid-year 2022, Google ensured that users no longer had access to the Hangouts mobile app or the Chrome extension on the web browser.
In June this year, Ravi Kanneganti, Product Manager, Google Chat, said: “In October 2020, we announced Google Chat would be available for everyone.
“Since then, people could continue using Hangouts or upgrade to Google Chat — available as its own app or within Gmail — to take advantage of its modern features and integration with other Workspace products.
“We’ve continued to invest in Chat to help people better collaborate and express themselves, and now we’re taking steps to help remaining Hangouts users move to Chat.”
Hangouts conversations will be automatically transferred to Chat to ensure that users can pick up messages from where they left off.
GoTo Aims to Drive Productivity with Connect Updates
GoTo has enhanced its Connect platform with new releases to help drive productivity and reliability in a hybrid work environment.
The updates include a new dial plan editor, call volume analytics, and an efficiency mode to help find and alleviate problems in poor network situations.
GoTo says it is putting IT admins at the forefront of making flexible working a reality by ensuring that employees can make essential connections with customers and partners.
Paddy Srinivasan, Chief Executive Officer of GoTo, said: “With employees working from anywhere, providing consistent, high-quality connections can be challenging, especially for IT admins.
“At GoTo, we continue to optimise for IT admins to give them the insights and reliability needed to reduce tickets and keep businesses running.
“Today’s enhancements go a step further to remove common technology barriers and enable IT admins, to work smarter, all while having the 99.999% uptime they depend on.”
New Dial Plan Editor
GoTo Connect’s dial plan editor allows users to access a drag-and-drop call flow creator, which helps save time.
In the latest update, GoTo has enhanced the system with call volume analytics to be at the forefront of the platform.
It is designed to help IT admins uncover business insights that could be key to improving customer experience and drive revenue.
CallTower Designated Microsoft Certified Solutions Partner
CallTower has been designated Certified Solution Partner status via the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program.
The partnership enables CallTower to provide greater customer success with access to new capabilities and resources.
The unified communications, contact centre and collaboration solution provider, CallTower, is one of the first Microsoft Partners to receive this designation.
David Heighton, Senior Microsoft Engineer at CallTower, said: “CallTower is thrilled to have received this designation.
“This will allow us to demonstrate our advanced Microsoft Cloud capabilities to our customers and partners.”
CallTower believes the Microsoft Solutions Partner for Modern Work shows its technical capabilities, experience and ability to provide customer success in a way which is aligned with Microsoft Cloud.
It also demonstrates the company’s positive effects on customer productivity and its capability to enable hybrid working via Microsoft 365.
Moreover, a Microsoft Solutions Partner, CallTower has shown its commitment to training and accreditations.
Ribbon Extends Portfolio With Connect for Webex
Ribbon has unveiled a significant extension to its Connect portfolio with the Ribbon Connect for Webex.
The multi-tenant, software as a service (SaaS) solution enables service providers to rapidly deliver telephony services to Webex Calling deployments worldwide via Cloud Connect.
The Ribbon Connect portfolio means service providers can accelerate their integration to Webex Calling and other market-leading UC providers.
Tony Scarfo, EVP and General Manager of Ribbon’s Cloud and Edge Business Unit, commented:
“Ribbon and Webex share some of the world’s largest service providers as customers and we’re committed to continually improving our offerings to help them succeed in a dynamic landscape.
“We’re extending our Ribbon Connect portfolio to accelerate their access to new revenue sources and empower them to retain organisations migrating to cloud-based calling as customers.”
According to Ribbon, the Connect portfolio fully complements its extensive range of SBCs and voice threat prevention capabilities.
Webex hopes that by selecting Ribbon as a launch partner for the Calling Enablement Program that it will give its customers a more extensive selection when they look for communication technology.
