No Jitter Roll: Video Collab Startup, COVID-19 OffersNo Jitter Roll: Video Collab Startup, COVID-19 Offers

For this week’s No Jitter Roll, we look at several offers related to coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), a corporate cloud move, Direct Routing certification, secure remote application access, and a new desktop video collaboration app.

Jamm Makes Its Debut

The videoconferencing market grew by one with startup Jamm launching its solution last week.

Designed for spontaneous video meetings (“jam” sessions), Jamm is a lightweight video collaboration desktop application, said Jamm co-founder Badri Rajasekar, during a No Jitter briefing. With Jamm, users can host and join ad hoc video meetings by simply clicking on a user in Jamm and launching a meeting, Rajasekar said. In addition, Jamm users can see who is in a meeting, and with whom, and join in if need be, he added.

Jamm features include whiteboarding, screensharing, video and voice recording, and the ability to create animated user avatars. Jamm also sports a common area, which allows users to “hangout” virtually with fellow team members in an open meeting format, Rajasekar said.

Looking to the future, Jamm is working on integrating with software like GitHub and Trello, creating APIs for various Jamm components, and designing a “walkie talkie” function, as part of a bigger roadmap, Rajasekar said. Currently, the application can be integrated into Slack and email.

COVID-19 Impacts Cloud Communications

As the COVID-19 pandemic pushes businesses to allow employees to work from home, communications and collaboration vendors are ramping up offerings aimed at facilitating the burgeoning need to support remote work (see related story here). Here are a few of the latest offerings:

NTT Renames Cloud Business, Adds Execs

Global services provider NTT this week announced that is has launched a new Cloud Communications division — previously known as Arkadin — and welcomed industry veterans Fiona Lodge, who had been with Dimension Data (now also part of NTT), and Jean Turgeon, most recently with DXC Technology, to the business unit. Lodge joined NTT’s Cloud Communications division as chief product and strategy officer, and Turgeon as chief technology and information officer.

Ribbon Gets Microsoft Teams Certification

Communications software and network solutions provider Ribbon announced that its EdgeMarc line of session border controllers are now certified for use with Microsoft Teams Direct Routing. With Direct Routing, enterprises can connect their public switched telephone network, legacy networks, or endpoints to Teams for voice calling.

Cato Networks Adds Remote User Access Option

SD-WAN provider Cato Networks this week released a clientless access option and application portal, Instant Access, to allow remote users to access IT-authorized applications through the Cato software-defined, zero-trust perimeter. Through Instant Access, users will click a URL, authenticate once through single sign-on, and gain access to their authorized applications.

Dana Casielles, No Jitter associate editor, contributed to this article.