In March and April, use of Microsoft (News - Alert) Teams skyrocketed, as millions of new users had an immediate need for communications and collaboration tools working from home. What it didn’t necessarily do is connect voice services to the collaboration platform for companies using their existing voice providers. But, as remote working became the norm, the need to connect voice and other collaboration tools on a single platform increased.
That’s what Microsoft Teams Direct Routing enables, allowing businesses to connect their voice or SIP trunking providers to Teams through a physical or virtual Session Border Controller (SBC). The SBC passes incoming voice sessions to users through the Teams client, and similarly, outbound calls are routed through the SBC to existing PSTN or SIP trunking providers.
It allows companies to leverage their existing service providers while bringing all communications into their Teams environments. It also means companies can use their choice of carriers, rather than having to use Microsoft’s calling plans – which can get expensive quickly – and gives businesses greater control over their business numbers and configurations. At the same time, it eliminates the need to pay for and manage standalone telephony services.
This has all opened up a new revenue opportunity for providers offering Direct Routing services, and for their partners who are already selling Office365 and Teams service and support.
SIPPIO, for instance, has developed an Azure-native calling service for Teams, enabling simplified deployment with virtual SBCs running in Azure, without requiring additional cloud-to-cloud integration. Using SIPPIO’s Voice Panel application, new users can be up and running with Direct Routing in minutes. SIPPIO’s website currently claims its last onboarding took 7m 16s.
Now, SIPPIO has extended the reach of its Direct Routing as a Service capability through its partnership with giant distributor Ingram Micro, bringing SIPPIO’s capabilities to a massive reseller base of 55,000 partners serving 10 million seats globally.
“SIPPIO presents a compelling offering to bring to customers who need the agility of a single platform for end-to-end communications and collaboration,” said Ingram Micro (News - Alert) Global Cloud Senior Manager, Darryl Oliver. “As SIPPIO solutions are native to both Microsoft Teams and Azure Cloud Services, deployments are devoid of complexities, streamline workflows and most importantly, foster long-term user adoption.”
The new relationship expands SIPPIO’s presence globally and allows businesses to unify their communications and collaboration experiences under a single application. At the same time, businesses are able to maximize their Microsoft investments while giving users a complete, integrated, reliable communications experience.”
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Edited by
Erik Linask
