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Some not-to-miss highlights from the last week in Unified Communications

From Microsoft Teams updates and a new acquisition to pirated Avaya licenses, here are extracts from popular stories this week.  

Node4 has announced its takeover of MSP risual, which it says will bring a deep knowledge of Microsoft platforms to the company.  

The acquisition, which remains subject to National Security and Investment (NSI) approval, will see Node4 add risual’s 170 employees to their ranks.  

It follows Node4 acquiring TNP back in July 2021 and will bolster the company’s capability of offering a comprehensive portfolio of Microsoft services to clients in the public and private sector.  

Andrew Gilbert, CEO of Node4 , said: “As Node4 evolves as a business delivering more cloud-led transformation services, risual represents a perfect fit given its track record, consultancy skills and managed services in the public cloud.  

“With complementary Microsoft skill sets, Node4 and risual are ideally suited to deliver the change that matters for clients and the transformation outcomes they need.”  

Now Node4 plans to create a Microsoft Centre of Excellence to further enhance the group’s credibility and expertise in delivering Microsoft solutions with the hope of establishing itself as the most capable customer-focused MSP in the UK.  

Having been Microsoft Experts for 17 years, risual has a vast product knowledge of Microsoft technologies and can offer a broad range of experience across the industry to Node4.  

June has seen a number of Microsoft Teams updates, releases, and events news from within Teams and its broader ecosystem.    

Empowering.Cloud has  launched to provide regular and up-to-date Microsoft Teams insights , advice and training resources for IT professionals.    

Microsoft updates surround Teams’ meetings, calling, meeting room devices, collaboration and approvals, frontline workers, and government.    

UC Today discussed the latest Teams updates with Tom Arbuthnot, Microsoft MVP.  

Arbuthnot mentions some updates not included in Microsoft’s monthly updates post, including Teams chat with self in preview, AI-based speech enhancements and noise reduction for Mac and iOS, and a new Viva module for Viva Sales.   

A multi-language meeting invite control has been added to allow admins to show the information in meeting invitations in one or two languages for all email platforms.     

A multitasking panel has been added to the Teams mobile experience for iPad users. There is now a collapsible panel on the right-hand side, allowing for chats during meetings, quicker roster views, and other capabilities.    

Meeting chat bubbles are available on iOS and Android. The chat bubbles appear on the mobile screen and enable the user to preview the last two messages. They can be turned off by clicking on the snooze button.    

The Zoom Phone Provider Exchange can now provide customers with a choice of global voice service providers in more than 70 countries.    

Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) connectivity can now include more regions without Zoom-based calling plans, allowing Zoom Phone users to add their preferred PSTN provider partners while keeping their existing contracts, phone numbers, and calling rates.    

Zoom’s Provider Exchange program was first revealed at its Zoomtopia 2021 partner event. The program grew out of its Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) Cloud Peering Partner Program to provide customers with greater choice in terms of PSTN providers.    

Ryan Perry, Strategic Business Development at Zoom , said: “Migrating to a cloud phone system can benefit any organisation, helping you access the most up-to-date features, better support remote and hybrid teams, more quickly scale to meet your business needs, and help reduce the total cost of ownership of your communications platform.    

“While full of advantages, cloud phone systems still require connectivity to a PSTN network to make calls outside of a business. For companies with multiple sites in different geographies, this can be challenging, as it requires the ability to pick the right connectivity option and provision callers.     

“While Zoom Phone offers pre-packaged service plans across the globe, customers with more complex calling plans, coverage, and managed services can turn to our vast partner network to help address their needs.”

Zoom lists 48 “ZP Native Countries”, which include Argentina, Costa Rica, Estonia, and France. There are also 28 “Non-Native Countries”, such as Albania, Georgia, Kenya, and Malta. Finally, Zoom has shared six “Non-Native in progress” countries: Brunei, Iceland, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Saint Martin, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  

The Western District of Oklahoma has indicted three individuals for selling $88m of pirated Avaya licenses.   

Avaya Direct International (ADI) software licenses were purportedly stolen and used to unlock telephone system features used by small and medium-sized businesses in the US and abroad.    

The grand jury charged three people with 13 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and two of the three received further charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.    

The United States Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs , announced:  

“Brad Pearce, a long-time customer service employee at Avaya, allegedly used his system administrator privileges to generate tens of millions of dollars of ADI software license keys that he sold to Hines and other customers, who in turn sold them to resellers and end-users around the globe.

“The retail value of each Avaya software license ranged from under $100 to thousands of dollars.    

“The Pearces and Hines’ operation not only prevented Avaya from making any money on its stolen intellectual property but also undercut the global market in Avaya ADI software licenses because the Pearces and Hines were selling licenses for significantly below the wholesale price.”    

Avaya’s ‘IP Office’ was at the centre of the piracy operation. In order to use IP Office functionality such as voicemail or other telephony services, customers were required to purchase software licenses, which were generated by resellers and distributors.  

Salesforce has replaced its own chat app and deployed Slack to its 80,000 employees after  acquiring the collaboration firm .  

Employees had previously used Salesforce Chatter, but a Slack director told  UC Today  that Slack is transforming the way Salesforce operates internally.  

Karl Nicholson, Director, EMEA Executive Programs at Slack , explained that since the acquisition, there has been a learning curve for both companies.  

He said: “It is pretty amazing to be part of Salesforce, we’ve moved from a smaller organisation to a much larger one, and I think Salesforce has around 80,000 employees currently.   

“We’ve had to learn how to work better with Salesforce, but in terms of Slack specifically, it has been rolled out wall-to-wall at Salesforce, so we at Slack are helping to influence how Salesforce does its day-to-day operations.  

“Salesforce internally has turned off Chatter, the chat tool which was part of the Salesforce platform, and replaced it with Slack not only for the Salesforce core functions but also for higher business.

“We have seen a reduction in emails at Salesforce specifically, down 46% across the board, and we at Slack don’t do internal emails, so there is a ton of learning going on.   

“It’s huge because of the scale of Salesforce; we are marrying up roles internally, so we’ve changed the way that Salesforce operates, which is incredible.”   

Slack is not just influencing the company internally, but it has also been  integrated into Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) platform .

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