Voiceflex is previewing a new UCaaS solution to channel partners and customers ahead of its launch later this month.
Described as a pure UCaaS application, Voiceflex Flow integrates directly with both Google and Microsoft Teams.
“Flow is a UCaaS application first, with voice integrated into it,” explains Paul Taylor, Sales & Marketing director at Voiceflex.
“You find a lot of these applications are voice-first, with UC bolted on on the back end. This is a pure UCaaS application with a UC licence. There is also no middleware, so it’s a direct integration; you’ll have Microsoft running in the front-end, and Flow running in the background.”
Voiceflex has acquired the technology and will act as a carrier in the UK for Swedish UC provider Telavox.
“We searched around the world to find a product which fitted the feature set we felt comfortable with and thought that our partner community would like,” says Taylor. “We really wanted a partner which had got a very good pedigree and long history in the market and could actually add value to the to the application.”
Partners ‘dipping their toes into hosted’
Voiceflex is currently talking to its channel partners, pre-launch. The feedback has been “exceptionally encouraging”, says Taylor, who believes while some resellers may have dipped their toes into the hosted world, they haven’t yet decided on a platform.
Available from early April, Flow will have two licence modes. One is UC-based, and the other is for a basic handset to put on people’s desks, or elsewhere on-premise. Customers can also use their own handset – they can be adopted onto the platform.
“We will be offering our own bundle, which includes a handset. But a lot of people do want to put their own handsets on there for a number of reasons,” says Taylor.
Additionally, from May Flow will provide an option for users to connect social media and messaging channels like WhatsApp, Facebook or to LinkedIn.
“You don’t have to take one whole suite, which connects you to everything,” says Taylor. “It’s a multi-channel messaging application, which is truly in one place but you only pay for what you consume”
Embedded into the Voiceflex platform
As of October 2021, Microsoft Teams usage hit 145 million daily active users. More good news for partners is that UC spending is expected to increase as customers continue their digital transformation strategies post-pandemic. Almost half of UK IT decision makers (47 percent) say their predicted spending in the next 12 months is more than previously planned for.
Taylor maintains that Flow will provide choice to channel partners, noting that other providers can struggle with adding a UC element to their offerings as they first must build the application.
“We are the carrier, it is our own network infrastructure and we’re also an Internet Service Provider (ISP),” he says. “We can provide everything for it. Like a lot of products we bring to market, they’re completely embedded within the platform; it’s all our own infrastructure. We will be directly connected to Telavox, from our datacentre into their datacentres – we’ve got direct connectivity, which is a big selling point.”
