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Avaya and Intermedia recently rolled out contact center platforms.
Contact center continues to be a hot commodity for customers and their channel partners, and vendors are taking notice. Intermedia this year joined a list of communications providers that bought contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) companies in order to eventually launch an offering.
But CCaaS isn’t the only wildly popular channel buzzword. Its close cousin, UCaaS (unified communications as a service), continues to flourish, and SD-WAN (software-defined wide area networking) is making big money. And convergence between next-gen technologies continues to grow, as evidenced by the cybersecurity vendor Fortinet adding a new firewall to its SD-WAN solution.
Scroll through the gallery below to see 12 attractive new products and services available through the indirect sales channel. We also include offerings available to a new group of partners via new master-agent and distribution agreements.
Missed last month’s new services roundup? Check that out here.
The self-styled B2B SaaS company launched a video collaboration offering.
Vonage Meetings enhances the Vonage Business Cloud (VBC) unified communications solution. The vendor also unveiled Conversation API, which lets customers customize multichannel, real-time interactions.
Vonage announced these offerings as part of a major rebrand.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
Windstream made its unified communications offering available to SMB customers.
The carrier introduced OfficeSuite UC to the Kinetic Business by Windstream unit. Partners can now sell a holistic and flexible solution to business of all sizes, according to Windstream’s executive vice president of Kinetic sales and marketing.
Read more about the solution expansion.
Avaya will launch a cloud contact center as a service (CCaaS) platform next year.
SMBs and enterprises will use Avaya IX-CC, which will start with voice capability and expand to an omnichannel experience. Avaya already delivers private cloud unified communications and contact center offerings under the ReadyNow banner.
Edward Gately wrote about the platform.
TBI signed Jive Communications as a supplier partner.
The Chicago-based master agent announced the addition of the LogMeIn-owned Jive UCaaS offer early last month. TBI solution engineers will support subagents that sell the Jive portfolio.
View TBI’s announcement.
The service provider‘s Cloud Connect Dynamic Connections now has a Google Cloud Platform option.
The expansion allows partners to provision and reconfigure private circuits into Google Cloud. Partners had been asking for a Google option, as it had “really gained momentum in the cloud marketplace,” according to CenturyLink’s vice president of core network services.
Read about what CenturyLink‘s vice president of core network services told us.
A new partnership helps Comcast Business bring managed broadband support to its customers’ locations in Canada.
Comcast teamed up with Canada-based iTel Networks to create custom network connectivity solutions. A Comcast executive said the company’s enterprise solutions team has “uncovered a wealth of opportunities” in Canada.
Learn more about the partnership.
Chinese SD-WAN is back on the map for Teridion partners.
The provider of SaaS acceleration and public cloud-based SD-WAN services unveiled a cloud-based network that’s fully compliant with the three authorized Chinese internet service providers. The announcement gives partners the green light to sell Teridion at their customers’ Chinese locations. Deployments had been put on hold due to a VPN crackdown that affected site-to-site connections.
Read more about the Chinese VPN problem.
Samsung increased the size of its Galaxy Tab Active2 tablet.
The vendor also added a replaceable battery to the device, which is available through the indirect channel. Samsung’s vice president of mobile channels said his company used partner feedback to make the changes
“It’s part of Samsung building a mobility practice in the channel,” he said.
Read Todd Weiss’ story.
Intermedia launched a contact center solution not long after acquiring Telax.
Intermedia Contact Center comes in three tiers and bills itself as cost-effective and feature-rich. Intermedia can give sales, training and billing support partners that sell the platform.
“We are confident that businesses will realize more efficient, responsive and informed customer interactions, which translates to greater customer satisfaction and more loyal customers,” an Intermedia executive said.
Learn about the contact center platform.
Riverbed Technology scaled up its software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) portfolio to accommodate the enterprise.
SteelConnect EX can accelerate applications 33 times and makes SD-WAN integration with legacy networks easier, according to Riverbed. The vendor announced a partnership with Versa networks earlier this year.
Read about the SD-WAN update.
The networking company rebranded and enhanced the cloud management application it got by buying Aerohive Networks.
The company renamed HiveManager to ExtremeCloud IQ and gave it a new automation capability. The Co-Pilot feature executives time-intensive tasks, “akin to an extra team member,” according to the company’s vice president of product marketing.
Extreme also rolled out a partner specialization for the tool.
Read the updates from Extreme Networks.
The security vendor said its new firewall helps consolidate “SD-WAN, advanced routing and advanced security capabilities” on its FortiGate Secure SD-WAN solution.
Fortinet, which has been rising in recent SD-WAN rankings, announced the FortiGate 60F two weeks ago. An SoC4 security processor powers the firewall. Fortinet gears the platform toward distributed enterprises and businesses that have numerous branches.
Read more about what Fortinet is doing with SD-WAN.