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Catching Up with Intermedia

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Image: madedee - stock.adobe.com
 
Looking to stay ahead of the competition and differentiate itself among a crowded field, cloud communications provider Intermedia has been “pedal to the metal” in building out its UC, collaboration, and contact center suites, Mark Sher, a VP of product and marketing for the company shared in a recent No Jitter briefing.
 
To that point, Intermedia last month launched an API platform. The Extend API platform, available in beta, allows partners and customers to integrate Intermedia’s capabilities — voice, meeting, contact center, analytics, and address book — into their own core business applications.
 
Via Intermedia’s Extend API development portal, developers get access to resources necessary to build custom solutions that incorporate automated workflows, business-critical dashboards, wallboards, historical reports, screen pops, and more, Sher said. For example, a company might use the Extend API platform to add click-to-call functionality along with access to contact history in a CRM dashboard. Or, it might add the ability to access meeting information, then start and manage meetings from a calendar program, the company described.
 
The Extend API Platform follows on last year’s launch of Unite Extend, a suite of out-of-the-box integrations with popular cloud applications like Salesforce, NetSuite, and Zendesk, Sher said. The ability to support customized integrations “is the next step in helping customers with efficiency and productivity,” he added.
 
Other Intermedia portfolio updates include enhancements to Unite, the UCaaS platform it launched in early 2018. Unite combines screen sharing and video from the 2017 acquisition of AnyMeeting with Intermedia’s cloud-based voice, file sharing, and secure backup capabilities, as described at the time in this No Jitter article. Intermedia offers Unite in pro, enterprise, and essential licenses.
 
In May, Intermedia released two calling packages for pairing with Microsoft Teams: Unite with Microsoft Teams and Unite for Microsoft Teams. With these offerings, businesses can continue using Teams for meetings, chat, and file-sharing, while using Intermedia for advanced telephony, Sher said.
 
For businesses already using Teams for collaboration, Unite with Teams delivers cloud PBX via Intermedia’s Unite mobile and desktop applications, with unlimited local and long-distance calling, voicemail, presence, call center features, business SMS, and call analytics (Unite’s chat, meetings, and file-sharing capabilities are disabled), Sher said. In addition, Unite with Teams also enables calling via the Intermedia platform for contact agents and managers using Teams, Sher said. Licenses are available on a per-user basis.
 
In contrast, Unite for Teams delivers cloud PBX via an add-on connector for Teams to provide a native experience for placing and receiving calls. Once configured, the phone system add-on appears under the Calls section in Teams for each user (see image below). With Unite for Teams, companies get unlimited local and long-distance calling, voicemail, call history, basic calling features, and one license of Teams connector integration software.
 

Image: Intermedia
 
The biggest differentiator between these two packages, Sher said, is that Unite with Teams allows users to sign in to both Teams and the Unite apps via Azure Active Directory single sign on. In the case of Unite for Teams, the Unite app disappears, and everything takes place within Teams.
 
Looking at Intermedia’s roadmap, Sher said the company continues to invest heavily in ensuring employees can easily collaborate with each other and connect with customers better and from wherever.

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