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No Jitter Roll: Five for Friday

Our regular roundup of news from across the enterprise communications and collaboration universe returns from a brief hiatus. Today we share items on technology for virtual meetings, contact center deployment options, compliance for mobile communications and contact centers, and a workforce management/customer experience merger.
 
Yamaha Releases Speakerphone for Open Workspaces
No open meeting rooms? No problem, says Yamaha Unified Communications of a new speakerphone -- the YVC-330 -- that features the company’s SoundCap technology for masking background noise in open workspaces.
 
As the company described in its product announcement, the YVC-330 with new SoundCap technology uses a trio of capabilities for facilitating virtual meetings in noisy environments:
  • Far field noise reduction -- zeros in on and captures only the voices of people sitting around a meeting table, so remote participants hear just them and no background babble from nearby coworkers
  • Auto-mute function -- kicks in when none of the participants are speaking; enhances the performance of voice activity detection technology
  • Auto-speaker volume adjustment -- by automatically regulating the volume to ambient noise levels, this feature allows meeting participants to maintain speech privacy and keep their conversations from intruding on nearby workers
In addition to the SoundCap technology, the YVC-330 speakerphone features USB, Bluetooth, and near- field communication connections, as well as power, through its USB cable. This makes the speakerphone easily movable from one virtual meeting spot to another anywhere in the workplace, Yamaha said.
 
Yamaha is demonstrating this new virtual meeting room solution next week at InfoComm 2019, booth 4961. The product will be available in early fall; pricing is not yet finalized, Yamaha said.
 
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Talkdesk Goes Hybrid
Pure-play cloud contact center startup Talkdesk has given a nod to the oftentimes stringent compliance and security requirements of many companies with this week’s introduction of a public-private cloud deployment model it calls Hybrid Spaces.
 
Hybrid Spaces gives contact center customers the ability to operate on Talkdesk’s cloud platform -- benefitting from the processing and performance that comes with running in a public cloud -- while meeting security, privacy, and compliance requirements by storing customer data in a private cloud. The hybrid model offers customers the ability to transition data from legacy premises systems or first-generation cloud environments into private storage, using Talkdesk’s enterprise-class security frameworks, and public cloud processing, the company said.
 
Availability and pricing not available at press time.
 
Tango Teams on Mobile Comms Recording
Mobile-first communications service provider Tango Networks has partnered with software vendor ASC to deliver a solution aimed at enabling enterprises to capture, record, archive, and analyze mobile communications.
 
As noted in a February No Jitter Roll, Tango offers the ability for enterprises to bring control of mobile voice, messaging, and data onto a private mobile network via its new Mobile-X service. The service allows native communications on employee mobile devices from the enterprise’s UC platform and supports advanced authentication and security mechanisms. And now via the ASC partnership, it provides the ability to ensure compliance for communications from any mobile device, over any network and in any location, the company said in its press release on the news.
 
ASC delivers recording, as well as analytics and quality management, via its neo cloud service -- an approach combining on-premises and cloud-delivered capabilities for contact centers, financial companies, and public-safety organizations.
 
The joint solution is available via channel partners.
 
Semafone Grows Compliance Portfolio
Compliance for contact center operations is also the focus of news coming out this week from Semafone, data security and compliance solutions vendor.
 
The company announced that it is now offering a cloud-delivered version of its Cardprotect secure payment product in the U.S., and introduced an appliance for hybrid cloud. The out-of-the-box, fully supported appliance, called Rushmore, allows contact centers to benefit from a cloud deployment model while keeping telephony systems on premises, Semafone said in its press release.
 
With these new options, Semafone now offers pure cloud, a hybrid of public and on-premises, hybrid with a managed appliance (a la Rushmore), and on-premises deployment models for its Cardprotect solution, which uses DTMF masking to allow contact centers to accept payments over the phone in a secure manner without exposure to customer service reps or eavesdroppers, capture in call recordings, or risk of being entered into unrelated information systems.
 
Cardprotect also encrypts payment card data for secure routing to payment processors, with the contact center agent able to remain on the line with the customer all the while. Cardprotect works with any telephony carrier, Semafone said.
 
Pricing was not available at press time.
 
Marrying for WFM-CX: Calabrio Picks Up Teleopti
As contact center analyst Sheila McGee-Smith laid out for us a year ago, workforce optimization and customer engagement solutions provider Calabrio has been on a march from the premises to the cloud. So, too, has workforce management (WFM) software maker Teleopti. Now they’re on the move together.
 
Earlier this week, Calabrio announced it’s acquiring Teleopti, and will bring together the companies’ products into a single cloud-delivered, data-driven customer experience platform.
 
In an email response to No Jitter’s questions, Calabrio CEO Tom Goodmanson said the acquisition “boiled down … to three key themes: people, place, and product.” In other words, Teleopti is a good cultural fit, expands Calabrio’s global reach from its roots in Europe (the company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden), and has WFM software that jibes with its own.
 
When asked for her assessment of the deal, McGee-Smith told me she sees the “global nature of the Teleopti business, with customers in more than 85 countries,” as the “most complementary aspect.” She also pointed to the strong cloud presence Teleopti has established, having lined up partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Twilio, Talkdesk, and other contact center-as-a-service providers – not to mention its “relationship with Mitel, and its one million contact center seats.”
 
In addition, McGee-Smith said, Teleopti brings with it a “sophisticated set of features” that will better enable the merged company to “win against leaders NICE and Verint than Calabrio [could] alone, especially with 500+ seat accounts.”
 
Calabrio didn’t disclose financial terms or management/staffing details, although Goodmanson said, “With both companies growing at greater than 30% per year, we will need all of the talent that these two companies bring to the table.”
 
The deal is expected to close on Monday, June 10.