Cloud communications provider
RingCentral earlier this week announced the launch of a unified desktop application, called RingCentral Desktop, that integrates calling, team messaging, and video capabilities and allows a seamless transition from one to the next.
Specifically, RingCentral Desktop, combines the RingCentral Office cloud UC system, including phone, SMS, and even fax; Glip team collaboration app; and RingCentral Video, the internally developed video stack
announced last month, said William Moxley, chief product officer at RingCentral.
“RingCentral Desktop has earned the name, ‘MVP’ … because a user can message [m], video [v], and phone [p]. … It’s about communicating in any form, with a single solution," Moxley said.
Besides seamless switching from one mode to another, RingCentral Desktop offers:
- The ability to move a meeting from one device to another— if you’re listening on your phone while driving, for example, once you get to your office you could transfer it to your desktop with one click
- Advanced search –users can search for messages directed to an individual and filter results by an email address or team name, with the goal being to allow users to find information much quicker and be more specific in how they search. Users can search for things from a specific team, individual, type of file, type of message to give them a lot more flexibility to do a universal search across all forms of communication from one interface while making it easy to find things, Moxley said. “We wanted to make it easy to find that file you shared with someone, or the message that someone shared with you,” he said.
- Calendar integrations for Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite – this will soon include the ability to pull contacts from Office 365 or G Suite into the RingCentral Desktop app, “so that anybody that you have in your database of contacts in your productivity suite is available inside the desktop, web browser experience, or mobile phone,” Moxley said.
For Pacific Dental Services, RingCentral Desktop has helped address the problem of fragmented communications, said David Baker, chief information and digital officer at the organization, in a prepared statement. “The new app makes it much more efficient for us to communicate, share documents, make calls and schedule, join and host video meetings. The ability to switch between different modes of communication, and between devices, is extremely productive for team members and it’s a total game changer,” Baker said.
When asked about other future plans for RingCentral Desktop, Moxley wouldn’t reveal too much but noted that the company will eventually migrate all existing customers over to this new desktop. “We’re trying to take it a little slow and make sure customers are ready. When they are, we’ll start to push people to this new experience, which is much faster and easier to find information. End quote?
Available beginning tomorrow, May 7, for Windows PCs and Macs, RingCentral Desktop is included with the RingCentral Office licensing, and works with Glip, for customers that use the messaging platform by itself. Moxley said.
