Virtual Office Resource

With today's available technology, the virtual office has become just as efficient as a physical office. The ever increasing computing capabilities of smart mobile devices, wireless broadband and cloud-based services is making all this possible. The new Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) Rainbow cloud-based collaboration and relationship management platform looks to build on that by connecting business systems with more efficiency and making business users and their contacts more available in their virtual office environment no matter where they are.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, Rainbow has been designed to work seamlessly together with existing communication systems within organizations with a set of cloud-based services that can be implemented as an overlay solution for cloud-based collaboration with easy deployment and adoption by end users and organizations.

Alcatel-Lucent is making Rainbow available in different tiers, starting with Rainbow Essential, which is now available for free as a Unified Communications (News - Alert) as a Service (UCaaS). This free version can be installed on PCs or smartphones with features that include, contact management, presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling, screen sharing, and file sharing.

Rainbow's ability to embed a hybrid approach with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) and third party communication platforms will protect existing on premises-based communication systems by providing additional capabilities, including telephony presence, telephony multi-site federation, and call control. This feature is going to be available in the second quarter of 2017.

Rainbow Premium will also be available in 2017 through the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Business Partner network with additional services for users and administrators. Multiparty conferencing, user management, backup, PBX (News - Alert) and directory integration, and advanced call control will be some of the features the premium version will provide.

Rainbow makes contacts available from any device once the app has been installed with enterprise grade control that synchronizes address books, makes company back-up, manages teams and integrates with communications equipment. The system also offers standard APIs that can be integrated into existing environments to bring the many different tools within an organization to work together seamlessly. And support comes with a 24/7 virtual assistant named Emily designed to answer questions regarding Rainbow.

Nicolas Brunel, EVP Communications Business Division at ALE said, "Rainbow delivers employees an innovative way of engaging spontaneously with their entire business community -- while IT managers benefit not only from a click-to-deploy app, but also from telecom cost reduction. This will support business’ digital transformation with innovative financial and consumption-based business models needed in the new ‘as-a-service’ economy."

As a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS), Rainbow will simplify cloud-based collaboration by adding features that are essential for today's virtual office. It provides accessibility from anywhere on a web browser and iOS or Android (News - Alert) systems without IT intervention to stay connected with coworkers from anywhere.