News

Check back often for the latest news!

December 7, 2018- IBM appears to be leaving the collaboration-tools battles to others, selling off rest of the Lotus Notes / Domino business.

IBM selling Lotus Notes/Domino business to HCL for $1.8B

August 15, 2018- Bucking the trend to remove (costly) humans from customer service interactions, T-Mobile is emphasizing the personal touch of live agent answering to help differentiate them from competitors.

T-Mobile gets rid of robot system for customer service calls

July 12, 2018- Microsoft is (finally) making it possible to use the Teams collaboration tools without an O365 account and free for up to 300 users in a group.  Experts feel this a direct challenge to the Slack freemium model.

4 New Ways Microsoft 365 takes the work out of Teamwork

June 7, 2018 - Not well understood by the average business or user, the rules governing compensation between carriers for calls that originate and terminate with different providers are under review.  The practice of intercarrier compensation enables things like free conference calling services (that make their money via this backend billing) but also is subject to abuse.  Now the FCC is looking at possible reforms.

FCC Seeks Comment on Reforms to Intercarrier Compensation System for Calls to Toll Free Numbers

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May 21, 2018Microsoft last month updated the roadmap for 2018 plans and announced some specifics for SharePoint (with public preview beginning this month).  Although some of the features are enticing, it reinforces the role Microsoft Teams will play moving forward and that everything is pointing toward cloud-based solutions.

SharePoint Innovations Transform Content Collaboration with Mixed Reality and AI

April 25, 2018Microsoft has extended the deadline for customers to adapt to its decision to drop support for SBCs to connect on-premises PBX systems to Microsoft Exchange Online for voicemail.   A bit late for customers that are in process or have completed some redesigns, but more time for those that are not yet ready.

New date for discontinuation of support for Session Border Controllers in Exchange Online Unified Messaging

April 24, 2018Mitel is going private, which may help them focus on long-term goals instead of short-term stock performance.  It will be interesting to see if the new ownership arrangement allows Mitel to continue its “growth by acquisition” habits.

Mitel Enters into Definitive Arrangement Agreement to be Acquired by Affiliates of Searchlight Capital Partners for $2.0 Billion

April 18, 2018Cisco is finally making the branding change that will help clear up confusion over the WebEx and Spark overlap.  Hopefully, the capabilities and features will be smoothly defined and integrated, too.

Cisco Scrap Spark for Webex Teams

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