Verizon Enhances its Collaboration Portfolio

Verizon has announced new enhancements to its global Collaboration portfolio capabilities, designed to improve workforce productivity with an improved collaboration experience. These new enhancements add conferencing and mobile collaboration tools, based on Cisco WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, Collaboration Meeting Room, and the UCCaaS Mobile First service from Verizon.

The enhanced capabilities are intended to create an "office-in-the-cloud" solution, customized to the user's needs. Together, they're meant to provide a quick and seamless collaboration experience for clients, employees, partners, and suppliers.

First among the new announcements is UCCaaS Mobile First, a collaboration solution based on the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution. It lets users make and receive voice and HD video calls from their preferred device, as well as access tools such as WebEx conferencing and instant messaging, and boosts the audio and video performance of the Cisco Jabber mobile UC client. It leverages Verizon UCCaaS and Verizon's Private Network Traffic Management solution to provide prioritized voice and video calls over the Cisco Jabber client and 4G LTE devices.

There's also Cloud Connected Audio, an at-the-ready solution that lets users connect to conferences via an audio bridge, and provides tools for managing users and the various audio and visual components the meeting requires. Users can launch and join meetings with a single click from Cisco Jabber, connecting over 1,000 concurrent participants at once across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. The service is available at a monthly subscription fee.

"Not surprisingly, Verizon is using its UCaaS service offerings for real-time connections to collaborative business meetings," states UCStrategies UC Expert Art Rosenberg. "This is a major step from traditional person-to-person voice calls. However, it still does not include transitions from messaging. nor what I consider very important, customer service interactions. The last capability must include process-to-person proactive notifications, which could be a stepping-stone towards any collaborative interaction. So, we are staying tuned for more!"

Verizon's global collaboration portfolio solutions come with a dedicated team to help with on-boarding and implementation, as well as end-user training, demonstrations, and access to a 24/7 help desk.

For more information, visit www.verizonenterprise.com.