No Jitter Roll: Five for Friday 2019-10-31No Jitter Roll: Five for Friday 2019-10-31
A look at the latest news coming from Avaya, RingCentral, BlueJeans, Epsilon, Voyant, and Fuze.
October 31, 2019
In this week’s No Jitter Roll, we share the latest on a strategic partnership, a smartphone conferencing solution, Google Cloud connectivity, sales analytic integration, and enhanced UCC portals.
Avaya, RingCentral Partnership Official
Kicking off this week’s news is word that Avaya and RingCentral have finalized their strategic partnership deal, announced earlier this month, following receipt of certain regulatory approvals.
As part of the deal, the two companies introduced Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral, which combines RingCentral's UCaaS platform and Avaya's technology, services, and migration capabilities. The Avaya Cloud Office is projected to launch in the first quarter of 2020, according to RingCentral.
Additionally, RingCentral contributed $500 million to the partnership, which includes a $125 million investment of 3% redeemable preferred equity, according to RingCentral.
Samsung, Verizon, BlueJeans Partner for Mobile Conferencing
During the Samsung Developer Conference this week, BlueJeans, Verizon, and Samsung unveiled a mobile collaboration solution that brings together the BlueJeans videoconferencing service, Samsung Galaxy 2019 devices, and Verizon network capabilities.
Before the partnership, BlueJeans mobile users would typically rely on a selfie mode for smartphone videoconferencing. Now Samsung/BlueJean users can use an HDMI adapter to connect any Samsung Galaxy 2019 device to a larger display that enables Samsung’s video casting DeX mode to run their conferences, BlueJeans said. Currently, this combined offering is only available to Verizon customers, according to BlueJeans.
Also, BlueJeans and Samsung co-developed BlueJeans Privacy Mode, which uses the Galaxy S10 5G camera to blur users’ backgrounds, BlueJeans said. To further enhance the mobile conferencing solution, BlueJeans customized the Note 10's S Pen to enable functions like muting and camera select from it.
Epsilon Partners with Google Cloud Interconnect
In other partnership news, cloud communications managed service provider Epsilon announced its support of Google Cloud’s Partner Interconnect, a service that allows direct connection to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) globally.
Delivered through a software-defined network, the Epsilon Cloud Connect solution allows enterprises to establish dedicated connections to the nearest GCP edge point via Epsilon's Metro Ethernet Forum-certified. Ethernet service. Enterprises will be able to select from a variety of interface speeds ranging from 50Mbps to 10Gbps, Epsilon said.
Voyant Enhances Customer, Partner Portals
Elsewhere in the cloud, UCaaS provider Voyant made a series of enhancements to its customer and partner portals.
The first set of changes, for the Voyant Customer Administration Portal, include:
Premium Call Center for Dialed Number Identification Service routing, skills-based agent routing, and call disposition codes license
Two connected line services that help deliver correct caller ID information and allow users to restrict their caller IDs when making calls
Anywhere Extra Locations, which lets Voyant users add additional numbers at new locations that will ring along with the main number and, for cellular calls, allow display of business caller ID instead of the mobile number, Voyant said.
The second set of changes, Atlas Partner Portal, which included:
Downloadable daily local number porting reports for current port orders
Email notifications providing alerts when customer invoices are ready to download
Ability to order Poly VVX x50 devices from the portal.
Fuze Sounds the ‘Gong’ Integration
In integration news, UCaaS provider Fuze revealed an integration with the AI-driven revenue intelligence platform from Gong.io, participant in the Enterprise Connect 2019 Innovation Showcase.
With the integration, Fuze users can take advantage of Gong’s data and insight to devise sales revenue strategies, Fuze said. Gong’s technology allows sales representatives to record phone calls and web conferences and then use AI to uncover insight like the most effective talk tracks and what questions are best to ask prospective customers.
The integration is generally available.
Looking for more companies and other UCC technologies? Then, make sure to check out the growing exhibitor list for Enterprise Connect 2020 and start planning your trip today. Registration is now open; use the code NOJITTER to save $200 off the current rate!
