Welcome back to another weekly roundup here at UC Today.
As we continue to work our way through March, we’ve seen a regular stream of exciting news from leading brands like RingCentral, Microsoft Teams, and Vonage.
Companies everywhere are continuing their search for the best collaboration and communication technology to support the new age of hybrid work, and everyone’s working towards a more connected future. In the last 7 days, we saw Teams set the stage for Mixed Reality meetings and RingCentral integrating with leading CRM, Salesforce.
Here are our top stories from the week.
Microsoft Prepares for Mesh Mixed Reality Meetings
The future of meetings could involve exploring new realities. Microsoft is on track to bring a new dimension of collaboration into the meeting space, with its new Mesh platform. The Mesh solution made its debut at Ignite as a collaboration platform that supports users in sharing more immersive virtual experiences. During the keynote speech, Microsoft showed Mesh users experimenting with 3D objects and interacting with 3D avatars.
As we head into a new age of hybrid work, Microsoft could be one of the market leaders, introducing us all to a more immersive meeting room. Cisco’s CEO, Chuck Robbins, also recently spoke about the 3D future he envisions for Webex. Microsoft Mesh could be the key to bringing “presence” back into co-worker conversations.
AT&T and Dubber Partner Up
Leading call recording solution, Dubber recently announced the voice vendor AT&T had deployed its voice intelligence and call-recording technology. The offerings are now available through the AT&T network, through the toll-free system offered by AT&T as well as AT&T hosted voice, and the Cisco Webex Calling solution through AT&T.
The Dubber AI solution for unified voice recording will support customers in the AT&T community with capturing compliant recordings and developing stronger data sets. Customers will easily unify voice data from their UCaaS environments, accessing features like sentiment analysis and integrations with solutions like Salesforce. The solution should lead to a powerful new voice experience for the workplace of today and tomorrow.
RingCentral Joins Forces with Salesforce
Cloud communication innovator, RingCentral, has announced a new integrated calling service for Salesforce customers. This new solution offers sales agents the opportunity to make and manage calls within Salesforce without ever having to leave the app. The single-pane-of-glass environment will help agents to stay focused on their tasks, with no need to jump between services.
Integrated calling through RingCentral within Salesforce means that reps can handle calls within their browser and enjoy a host of extra features, including a dashboard that provides insights into team performance. Other features include screen pops for agent context, meeting scheduling, call logs, and click-to-call simplicity. The newly combined services will help agents in the modern environment to drive more meaningful interactions for customers.
Onecom Purchases 9 Group
Onecom has followed up its recent acquisition of Olive with another purchase this week. The company has purchased 9 Group as its second huge transaction in less than a month. The new deal will add thousands of cloud and fixed-line clients to the Onecom customer base, along with hundreds of valuable channel partners.
The acquisition followers a valuable £100 million investment made in Onecom by the LDC private equity firm in 2019. According to Onecom, this new deal will spark the creation of a powerhouse group offering a 50/50 split of mobile and non-mobile communication solutions. According to the CEO of 9 Group, James Palmer, Onecom and 9 Group represent the perfect marriage of technology and vision. Both teams are excited to begin growing together.
Updated Vonage Solutions for Microsoft Teams
Cloud communication innovator Vonage recently announced its new solution for Microsoft Teams customers. The Vonage Business Communication system for Microsoft Teams, known as VBC, will offer users various MMS, SMS, and business calling features. Originally introduced in 2020, the Vonage offering for Teams will now provide a variety of additional capabilities for companies with an investment in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Users will now have an opportunity to leverage all of the 50 PBX features from Vonage Business Communications while staying inside the familiar Microsoft Teams interface. Direct routing technology will ensure that users can preserve their existing numbers, control their communication features, and minimise costs. The updated solution will also come with connections to the Vonage services for contact centre technology, and CRM integrations.
Which were your favourite stories from this week? Don’t forget to join the conversation with us on social media.
