This Month in Telecom: February 2018

This Month in Telecom is a monthly news round-up on VoipReview.org that aims to give our readers a fast and easy way to catch up on the latest news and top stories that are trending in the voice and telecommunications space. Check in every month to find out more about stories you may have missed in regards to new companies, mergers, trends, and other telecom advancements.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories in telecom for the month of February.

Cisco Seals $1.9 Billion BroadSoft Deal

The month opened with Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in IT and networking, announcing the completion of its acquisition of BroadSoft (NASDAQ: BSFT). Valued at $1.9 billion, the acquisition is expected to accelerate Cisco’s cloud strategy and collaboration portfolio. Cisco will be able to combine BroadSoft’s industry-leading cloud calling and center solutions with its existing portfolio of calling, meetings, messaging, customer care, and hardware endpoints solutions and services, which are delivered through VAR and Service Provider partners.

According to the release, Cisco will keep former BroadSoft CEO Michael Tessler and his team under its Unified Communications Technology Group, which will be led by Vice President and General Manager Tom Puorro. The Unified Communications Technology Group, meanwhile, falls under the Applications Group headed by Rowan Trollope.

Intermedia Unite Now Available

Earlier this month, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and business cloud email provider Intermedia unveiled a new UCaaS platform aimed at small and medium-sized business (SMBs): Intermedia Unite. A next-generation business communication platform, Intermedia Unite offers a bundle of services that includes Intermedia’s own cloud-based voice solution, screen sharing, backup and file sharing, and video collaboration--the latter of which was obtained by the company after its acquisition of web conferencing provider Anymeeting.

In a release, Intermedia CEO Michael Gold said that Intermedia Unite is designed to enable SMBs to achieve greater productivity and collaboration through its integrated set of features. At the same time, the new platform also empowers the company’s channel partners to sell, set up, manage, and support the service more easily through its new set of intuitive partner tools.

Dialpad Offers Free Business Phone System to Small Businesses Across the US

On Valentine’s Day, Dialpad, the San Francisco-based cloud communications solutions provider and desk phone killer, offered the sweetest gift to small businesses across the United States: Dialpad Free. A subset of the company’s award-winning business communications solution, Dialpad Free is exactly what its name says--a  feature-packed full-service phone system offered for free.

With Dialpad Free, anywhere, anytime users get one free main office phone number and up to five extensions. It includes many of the features available via a paid Dialpad plan, including HD calling, voicemail, call logs, internal call transfer, call analytics, integrated conference calling, a live internal chat function, video calling between Dialpad Free users, and an easy-to-use collaboration suite.

Launched in December, Dialpad Free was previously available only to Bay Area Google’s G-Suite subscribers but is now available to any small business in the US with five or fewer employees. To take advantage of Dialpad Free, new subscribers simply have to use Office 365 or Dialpad’s Open Signup to authenticate their new phone service and get connected.

Genesys Brings PureCloud Platform to More Markets

Genesys, an industry-leading provider of omnichannel customer experience and contact center solutions, increases its reach to more markets by expanding voice options for the Genesys PureCloud platform.

PureCloud Voice, an easy-to-use, fully automated IP telephony service, is now available in the UK for local businesses looking to quickly deploy an affordable and scalable cloud-based voice solution. Genesys also anticipates to introduce PureCloud Voice in the Netherlands, France and Ireland by the end of the first quarter. Further, the company announced in a release that they plan to bring the PureCloud Voice offering to more than 15 other new markets in 2018, including countries in Europe and the Asia Pacific.

In addition to increasing the global footprint of PureCloud Voice, Genesys also introduced a cloud-based Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) option, which allows customers to maintain strategic carrier relationships and gives them the flexibility to switch vendors when needed,

New PGi Report Highlights the Increasing Use of Smartphones for UC&C Services

Smartphones are now the go-to device for Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) Services. This is what the new PGi global report, entitled, “The Future of UC&C on Mobile,” reveals. The world’s largest dedicated provider of collaboration solutions, PGi reports that nearly half (44 percent) of their survey respondents preferred using their smartphone for UC&C services) in the next few years. PC/laptops, meanwhile, were a close second (43 percent); followed by desk phone (9 percent) and tablet (four percent).

According to the report, which surveyed 300 mobile industry leaders on UC&C with a focus on mobile usage, the growth of mobile device use contrasts with the decline of desk phone usage for conference calls, which is marked at 70 percent in the past five years. This further underlines the increasing mobility of workers.

Frank Paterno, Vice President for Global Carriers at PGI, expressed his thoughts about the report, saying, “This survey and our own user data continues to prove that mobility is a standard professional tool that enables better productivity, more flexibility and powers global, digital workers to get more done from anywhere at any time.”

Zang Launches New Workflow Updates

A subsidiary of Avaya, Zang recently rolled out seven new workflow updates designed to help businesses take communications to the next level. These include:

• Arrow Connect IoT tasks - allows users to integrate sensors and smart devices into workflows.
• New tasks - five new smart tasks added to Zang Cloud: Add Participant, Send MMS, Record and Transcribe Calls, Play Recording, and Speech Recognition.
• Template-based workflows - saves users time and effort by offering working example that can be started and customized to fit specific development needs.
• Custom Events - allows users to add phone calls or SMS inside user workflows.
• Definition of properties - lets users define properties in their workflow, ensuring that projects are on budget and on time.
• Invoking of workflows from REST client - users can now invoke workflows from a REST client, helping to enhance collaboration and workflow completion.
• Ease of conditions - anyone from the user’s environment can now call into a Zang Workflow because it doesn’t need to be a purchased number.

Mo Nezarati, General Manager of Zang, Inc. has this to say about their latest updates: "Communication in business is all about having the right tools. With these new workflow updates, we're providing new smart Zang Cloud solutions that will help businesses improve team communication and collaboration both inside and outside of their organization, enabling them to provide superior service and build lasting connections with customers."