Unified Communications Featured Article

Unified Communications Week in Review

By Adam Brandt
Web Editor

Obi-Wan Kenobi once described the Force as that which gives a Jedi his or her power; a pervasive entity that “surrounds us and penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” Apart from being an epic quote from an immovable movie, in it is wisdom applicable to many such things in our own lives, such as unified communications: the technological solution that certainly surrounds and binds companies together. Let us now take a look forward, in a galaxy not so long ago, or so far away, at this week in UC.

Two major technological revelations hit the hospitality sector this week, taking the form of Broadsoft’s release of UC-One Hospitality, and AVST’s unveiling of the CX-H.

Broadsoft, after acquiring Systems Design & Development, Inc., brings together both companies’ innovations in this avant-garde product, which encompasses UC and SCC’s Jazz Fusion (News - Alert) features holistically. The UC-One Hospitality offers one centralized solution, across all branches, to the hospitality sector, reducing IT infrastructure demands and costs (related to on-premise PBX).

AVST’s (News - Alert) CX-H is part of the company’s CX-Series suite of offerings, facilitating UC for a wide array of industry verticals. Officially called the CX-H 11.7, this solution is able to support over 150 telephone systems and more than 60 property management systems, providing features essential to the hospitality sector.

Winning a major contract this week was Mitel, a business communications solutions provider, with the National Join Powers Alliance (NJPA), a public agency and member focused cooperative for 50,000 agencies across the U.S.

What do these terms mean for both constituent parties? Mitel (News - Alert) gets a lot more money, while the NJPA will now have access to communication and collaboration products, contact center solutions, and cloud services.

Last up for the week we had Icewarp speaking on its recent UC solutions sale to Patra Corporation, a managed services company who work with insurance agencies.  In need of a UC offering cheaper than Microsoft (News - Alert) exchange, the company found Icewarp to be the only logical and cost effective choice.

For more on these or any other stories you may have missed, be sure to check out TMCnet’s Unified Communications page.