Leaders in the communication and collaboration environment, Zoom recently announced new features and integrations for their Zoom Phone, Zoom Rooms, and Zoom Meetings solutions. With a portfolio designed to combine video, content sharing, voice, and chat, Zoom delivers an exceptional cloud platform. Not only is their solution easy to access and deploy, but it’s also highly innovative, with an average of 200 enhancements per year.
The most recent revelations from Zoom focused on the upgrades that the company has made to their Zoom Phone (Previously Zoom Voice), Meetings, and Rooms solutions.
Expanding Zoom Phone Capabilities
Zoom Phone, previously known as “Zoom Voice,” is the cloud phone system add-on solution designed to enhance Zoom’s Meetings service for Canadian and US clients. With support for both outbound and inbound calling, Zoom delivers easy communication via the Public Switched Telephone Network. Ultimately, you can replace your entire PBX with Zoom. Features announced for April 2019 include:
- Elevate Zoom Calls seamlessly into Zoom video meetings
- Zoom Phone Salesforce Integrations: Make Zoom Phone calls by simply clicking on any number in Salesforce
- Zero-touch provisioning services: Reduces the time required by IT administrators to deploy connected devices
Perhaps most impressive of all is the new collaboration between Zoom Phone and charter members like Five9 and Twilio. These native integrations with other leading cloud communication brands ensure that Zoom can provide quick and efficient SIP trunk peering, and intuitive call routing.
We spoke to Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, about the recent partnership and he told us:
“This is a melding of minds between two leaders in the cloud. Zoom is on a rocket ride, and so are we, so there’s a fantastic parallel there”
“I think this partnership provides best of breed contact centre, UC, and meetings to today’s customers. Put Five9 and Zoom’s offerings together, and you’ve got the best possible tech to compete against what’s available on-prem.”
Further Developments to the Zoom Experience
In a press release about the recent updates, Head of Product Management for Zoom, Oded Gal, said that Zoom was proud to be building on their Phone services so quickly. After all, Zoom Voice only launched initially in January if this year. The upgrades to Zoom’s UC strategy mean that the company can provide a genuinely impressive offering that stays true to the brand’s identity as a video-centric platform.
Alongside the updates to Zoom Phone, the vendor also revealed new smart features for Zoom Meetings. Meetings provides HD audio, video, and content sharing across all spaces and devices, with an easy-to-access conferencing platform. Through in-depth integrations and AI, Zoom Meetings is getting better than ever. New features include:
- Real-time transcription: From the third quarter of 2019, Zoom will offer real-time automated transcription in Meetings. Zoom is the first company to bring this concept to market
- Simultaneous Interpretation: Support for interpreters via various audio channels will be available from the third quarter of 2019 too – meeting participants will be able to choose the language that they prefer to receive real-time interpretations
- Enhanced Microsoft Teams Integration: From the second quarter of 2019, Zoom will come with even deeper integrations for Microsoft Teams – intended to simplify user You’ll be able to add Zoom tabs to your Teams, and schedule, start or view Zoom meetings with ease
- Meeting Notes Summary: From the third quarter of 2019, Zoom Meetings will capture notes and summary items and make them available for you to use whenever you need them
- Siri Shortcuts: Take advantage of voice search with Siri shortcuts. Ask Siri to start a schedule or ad-hoc meeting and bring your teams together in seconds
Rowan Trollope of Five9 told us:
“We wanted to pick the best of breed companies to partner with. We think that their offering is amazing, and they’re just getting started. I’ve always thought very highly of Zoom. They were a fierce competitor back when I was with Cisco, and they’ve done a phenomenal job growing the product.”
“If they bring that focus and engineering passion into their UC product and combine that with Five9, we’ll have something truly magical”
New Zoom Rooms Hardware Solutions
Zoom also recently announced a new range of offerings for their Zoom Rooms hardware partnerships. According to Oded Gal, Zoom’s new hardware partnerships will allow them to deliver high-quality, robust, and reliable video-enabled workspaces.
In reference to the latest reveals, Elka Popova, UC Industry analyst at Frost and Sullivan, said that Zoom’s technology is “taking the UCaaS market by storm.” With so many new products and useful features to share, Zoom is leading the pack for video collaboration experiences. The new Zoom Rooms upgrades include a software-based Zoom Room solution, SIP/H.323 connectors for conference rooms, and scheduling and digital signage displays that connect with Zoom Rooms. At Enterprise Connect, Zoom demonstrated:
- Crestron Flex B: New Crestron Smart Soundbar with exceptional audio and video quality. Paired with Crestron Touchscreens, the kit provides an immersive meeting experience
- Aver EP65: An all-in-one 65″ interactive whiteboard which includes all software configurations and components you might need to run a Zoom Room out of the box
- Logitech Solutions for Zoom Rooms: A range of single-vendor comprehensive bundles for any size of conference room from Logitech. Packages include solutions like the Logitech tap controller and Logitech conference cams
- DTEN D7: Dual all-in-one interactive whiteboard and display solution that provides a 55″-inch screen, and all the configurations needed to run Zoom Rooms for Touch
- Polycom Studio: A USB conferencing bar with speaker tracking technology that combines simplicity with enterprise-grade performance. The Polycom Studio comes with a camera, speaker, and microphone all consolidated into a single device
This year’s Enterprise Connect was an incredible experience for Zoom. Through a number of speaking engagements and shows, they gave some fantastic insights into how Zoom can help businesses to create the workplace of the future.
