From APIs to UC: Rounding Up the News from EC19: Page 2 of 4

 

With so much overlap between contact center and AI/analytics news, this seems as good a spot as any to break into the next category. AI was everywhere at EC19, as you can see in our No Jitter coverage here, here, here, here, and here. But here are some other AI-related bits of news, too.

 

Avaya, one of the original partners Google named last year for its Contact Center AI (CCAI) solution, announced further integration with CCAI in efforts to improve customer experiences and enable a more efficient workforce. Google and Avaya are working together in three key areas:

 

 

CallMiner, which offers the Eureka speech and customer engagement analytics platform, announced the launch of Eureka Visualize. Visualize, powered by business intelligence platform Tableau, does just about what you’d expect a product in this vein to do: It visualizes speech analytics data in a customizable dashboard and reports.

 

Via Visualize, enterprises can discover opportunities where speech analytics data can offer insight and improvement. With a Compare feature, organizations can compare A/B campaigns and evaluate alternatives to drive results. Further, with an Articulate feature, businesses can use graphics that help tell their stories and distribute information and education across an organization.

 

 

Masergy, known for its software-defined WAN, cloud, and managed security solutions, announced the launch of Masergy Intelligent Virtual Agent, which powers all virtual assistant and chatbot features for its UCaaS solutions and serves as the queueing agent for Masergy Cloud Contact Center. This offering represents the company’s “ongoing commitment to [help] enterprises make the shift from reactive to proactive customer service,” said Bob Laskey, EVP and chief revenue officer, in a prepared statement. “Masergy Intelligent Virtual Agent operationalizes advancements in AI, speech recognition, and natural language processing to enhance an always-available voice for customer service.”

 

Masergy developed the solution in partnership with Inference Solutions. It is aimed at helping organizations drive growth in a low-cost way, by adding intelligence to repetitive tasks, applying natural language processing to improve task completion accuracy, and improving customer experience through the addition of self-service capabilities, among other ways, the company said.

 

From new calling solutions to a cloud adoption program and integrations to boot, activity in these core areas sure speaks well for the future of UC and team collaboration.

 

Among other news, Cisco announced an enterprise-class, native-cloud solution, Webex Calling.

 

Webex Calling brings together Cisco’s BroadCloud platform with Webex, as Scott Hoffpauir, VP of cloud calling technology group at Cisco, wrote in a Cisco Blogs post. It combines a full enterprise PBX feature set with the team collaboration capabilities of Webex Teams.

 

Webex Calling is available today in the U.S. as part of Cisco’s Collaboration Flex Plan sold by Cisco VAR channel partners. Webex Calling will be available in more than 35 countries across North America, Europe, and the APAC region by the end of the year, Cisco said.

 

While we already touched on Avaya’s contact center AI efforts with Google, the company also introduced a program aimed at assisting organizations considering cloud communications delivery models as part of their digital transformations.

 

The program provides enterprises with professional services resources and incentives to help them map out the most effective and efficient path to implementing Avaya OneCloud solutions. Avaya customers that enroll in the program and ultimately implement an Avaya OneCloud solution will receive credits for perpetual licenses and reduced per-seat cloud pricing, as well as have termination penalties removed from current support services contracts, Avaya said.

 

Program participants can also take advantage of cloud transformation workshops in which Avaya professional services cloud experts will work with an organization’s decision makers to develop an understanding of what a cloud transformation would look like for the business and which Avaya OneCloud deployment model is the best fit. In these workshops, participants will develop implementation timelines and define business outcomes.

 

In a prepared statement, Zeus Kerravala, longtime No Jitter contributor and founder of ZK Research, summed up the value proposition as such: “For business leaders digitally transforming their communications via the cloud, it is important they find solutions that fit their workflows and a solution provider that offers a range of options.”

 

Ribbon Communications had a busy EC19 week, announcing several partnerships. To start, the enterprise software provider announced that its Session Border Controller Software edition (SBC SWe) now supports the recently launched Amazon Chime Voice Connector on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Voice Connector is AWS’s new SIP service that offers global calling with pay-as-you-go pricing. Ribbon’s SBC SWe provides Amazon Chime customers with security, high availability, and interoperability for VoIP traffic being sent to and from Amazon Chime Voice Connector, Ribbon said.

 

Separately, Ribbon announced the general availability of SBC SWe Lite, a virtualized enterprise SBC for small and midsized businesses, in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. SWe Lite is fully certified to deliver secure voice services for Microsoft Teams Direct Routing and Skype for Business, Ribbon said. This move represents a ”major step forward” in Ribbon’s cloud investment strategy, said Kevin Riley, CTO for Ribbon, in a prepared statement.

 

Lastly, Ribbon announced an integrated solution with its SBC and 128 Technology’s SD-WAN technologies. The solution is aimed at solving several common cloud networking issues, including bandwidth inefficiencies, security gaps, and high operational costs, the company said.