Enterprise Communications

Enterprise Briefs

By TMCnet News  |  November 21, 2017

Say Goodbye to Google Talk

Google is retiring its Google Talk. Users of the messaging service are being encouraged to migrate to Hangouts, which the company is now positioning as a business service and splitting to Chat and Meet offerings. In fact, as TechCrunch reported in March, that switch will be mandatory after June 26.

RingCentral Opens Up, Addresses UX

RingCentral has unveiled a new generation of its business communications solution. The latest version of RingCentral Office will leverage the company’s Glip team collaboration offering as its primary interface. That will provide users with a single view of their voice, video, messaging, tasks, file sharing, fax, and SMS capabilities and interactions. As a result, users can have team messaging and one-on-one conversations through one screen.

BroadSoft Launches Platform-as-a-Service

BroadCloud is a new platform-as-a-service offering from BroadSoft that aims to help service providers bring cloud applications to market more quickly. At the same time, as cloud services tend to do, it keeps upfront expenditures low and ongoing spending predictable.

Windstream (News - Alert) Announces Broadview Buy

Windstream Holdings plans to buy cloud-based unified communications solutions provider Broadview Networks Holdings Inc. for $227.5 million in cash. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year. Broadview sells its solutions, which are marketed under the OfficeSuite UC brand, to small and medium-sized businesses. Windstream is a Fortune 500 company that provides a variety of communications and networking solutions including cloud services, managed services, security services, triple play offerings, and unified communications to consumers, businesses, enterprise organizations, and wholesale customers across the U.S. In addition to gaining the Broadview solution, the acquisition will provide Windstream with Broadview’s experienced salesforce. Windstream expects to gain $30 million in annual operating synergies within two years as a result of the deal.

Momentum (News - Alert) Telecom Provides Channel, UC Update

The last few months have been eventful ones for Momentum Telecom and its 500-some channel partners. The company, which sells business voice and unified communications services as well as SIP trunking, earlier this year announced Chuck Piazza has come aboard as Momentum’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. He previously served as senior vice president of sales for West Unified Communications Services. Momentum Telecom also recently integrated its product with Skype (News - Alert) for Business. Momentum Telecom has CRM integrations with Salesforce and others, and an integration with the inContact cloud-based contact center solution. Momentum Telecom’s BroadSoft-based unified communications solution features call center as a service, conferencing and collaboration, instant messaging, presence, voicemail to text, voicemail transcription, and more. And the company offers broadband management for endpoints.

Zang Cloud Has Embedded Workflow

Avaya company Zahng has embedded Zang Workflow into its communication platform as a service Zang Cloud. That allows developers and others to build communications apps and workflows via drag-and-drop maneuvers.

AeroFS Updates Amium

A new version of the Amium collaboration platform from AeroFS is available. It allows users and teams to work seamlessly with outside users at no additional cost. And it allows for group and direct messaging with automated file syncing and updating; provides an audit trail of interactions and feedback from every user – whether internal or external; and is available now on Mac, Windows, and Linux as well as iOS and Android (News - Alert).

What’s New with Spark

Cisco Spark now includes videoconferencing that can register to both Cisco Spark and on-premises deployments. The latest version of Spark also has advanced security options, the ability for any standards-based SIP endpoint (hardware or soft client) to join a Cisco Spark Meeting, and new customer care capabilities.

Car Company Picks SAP

Mercedes-Benz has chosen SAP SuccessFactors solutions to centralize its global HR processes, streamline HR service delivery, and attract top talent.

Oblong Unveils Mezzanine Teamwork

Mezzanine Teamwork is a new solution from Oblong Industries that brings collaboration to huddle spaces and small meeting rooms. Oblong's customers include NASA, PwC, IBM, Fujitsu, and Accenture (News - Alert).

Sennheiser Launches SP 220

The SP 220 from Sennheiser is a portable, dual speakerphone solution. The company says it is ideal for creating high-quality audio conferences within huddle rooms or meeting rooms with up to 12 participants.


Edited by Erik Linask