Optical and 5G Leader DZS Makes Waves

DZS is a company you may not have heard of but they are worth noting. Formerly Zhone Technologies and DASAN Zhone Solutions, is a provider of telecommunications networking equipment founded in September 1999 by former executives of Ascend Communications Jeanette Symons, Mory Ejabat and Robert Dahl.

Now headed up by Charlie Vogt, formerly of GENBAND/RIBBON communications, the company is a broad solutions provider of optical and broadband solutions for carriers. Three people from their executive management team come from Ribbon and others have worked for ADTRAN, IBM, Commscope and others.

Charlie is a well-known quantity in tech and telecom having led digital transformation for decades – even before the acronym DX became sexy.

They have built broad-based solutions company in-part by acquiring a broad range of organizations over the past few decades:

• Paradyne Networks, September 2005, Internet access
• Sorrento Networks, July 2004, Metro optical access
• Gluon Networks, February 2004, Switching and signaling gateways
• Tellium, November 2003, Metro optical transport
• Eluminant, February 2003, Access and transmission products
• vpacket, July 2002, VoIP
• Nortel Networks Access Node, August 2001, Digital loop carrier (DLC)
• xybridge, February 2001, Softswitch
• Optaphone Systems, February 2000, Wireless
• Roundview February 2000, IP and derived voice
• Premisys, December 1999, Integrated access solutions
• CAG Technologies, November 1999, Manufacturing

The broad base of solutions puts them up against ZTE, Huawei, Nokia and a few other major telecom providers. We recently had an exclusive interview with President and CEO of DZS, Charlie Vogt. Our conversation with Charlie and CMO Geoff Burke reminded us of the 2010 GENBAND Perspectives event where we said Charlie was assembling a small Alcatel-Lucent.

DZS reminds us of a small AlcaLu as well.

They are a top-five fiber access supplier, have 1,200 customers are in 120 customers and perhaps most intriguing, a strategic supplier to the world’s first 5G O-RAN system via Rakuten. According to Omdia they are the top U.S.-based fiber access vendor, the number one access vendor in South Korea and Japan and the number 2 PON vendor outside of China.

Where the company differentiates is in its breadth of solutions: cloud management, analytics, SDN, NFV Wi-Fi 6, O-RAN, AnyPON, optical LAN, ultra-low-latency AnyHaul transport, etc.

This is what makes them so interesting … They aren’t well-known but boy, do they play and lead in a number of spaces.

Their 2022 goals include an end-to-end QoS network, cloud NFV/SDN data center virtualization and Wi-Fi/5G, local computing, secure IoT.

They are aligning with virtually all the important trends in the market.

The company plays in the data center, central office and all the way to the tower and customer’s home.

5G is becoming an important sweet spot for the company.

Charlie exclaimed, “We’re kind of telecoms best-kept secret in that, we’re a $350 million startup.” He continued, “We’ve got about 20 million products deployed around the world, but most people in this part of the globe (basically the Americas), have never really heard of the company.

He said he thinks they have a great opportunity – especially at a time when broadband access and 5G transport are growing and so are connected homes, smart cities and smart buildings.

He said, “We are lighting up next-generation fiber access networks. We’re doing some pretty innovative things on the 5G, optical transport network architectures.” Continuing, “We ship about three-and-a-half-million OMTs and CPE devices a year around the world.” Charlie explained the U.S. carriers are excited to see DZS might help them.

The company continues to align its products to the important megatrends in the market – Open everything (NFV, O-RAN), smart everything, the need for more and faster fiber connectivity and of course the latest wireless standards – WiFi 6 and 5G.

DZS is looking to grow in the U.S. as evidenced by its latest news: RDOF Amplify, a program designed to sponsor and assist Rural Digital Opportunity Fund recipients who want to achieve the maximum financial and strategic value of their awards. With an extensive portfolio of broadband access and connected home and business solutions complemented by U.S.-based manufacturing, DZS is looking to assist RDOF recipients who are looking to exploit award funds as a transformational opportunity for their businesses, their communities and their country.

How does RDOF work? Through a two-phase reverse auction mechanism, the FCC will direct up to $20.4 billion over ten years to finance up to gigabit speed broadband networks in unserved rural areas, connecting millions of American homes and businesses to digital opportunity. 

“Through an innovative portfolio of next generation fiber-based access technologies and a new state-of-the-art product development and QA lab at our headquarters in Plano, Texas, DZS is uniquely positioned and best prepared to partner and support our RDOF recipients for years to come,” said Jay Hilbert, DZS executive vice president of Americas Sales. “With our U.S.-based manufacturing facility near Tampa, Florida, RDOF recipients will be buying products made in the USA and a broadband access portfolio that includes 10Gig, 5G MVNO transport and market-leading enterprise optical LAN (FiberLAN) capabilities to support indoor coverage for hospitals, campuses, hotels, arenas, and other commercial environments.”

We are looking forward to seeing how the company leverages its International success in the U.S. markets.

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See the ONLY networking, UCaaS, SD-WAN and Tech companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

Join 8K others with $25B+ in IT buying power who plan 2021 budgets! Including 3,500+ resellers!

A unique experience with a collocated Future of Work Expo, SD-WAN Expo, and MSP Expo…

New Dates! June 22-25, 2021, Miami, FL. Register now.

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The Perfect Storm for Contact Center Operators: Cloud, Automation, Personalization and AI Driving Data Sky High

While the global pandemic has hit every vertical industry hard this year, there is no other horizontal industry than contact centers being challenged to transform – or die. With the move from often massive physical locations with tight quarters to moving agents and managers to a virtual model, and the rapid adoption of cloud-based communications, CRM, security and other platform and application, the amount of data being generated is surging.

All that data is good, right?

Data is a blessing and a curse – not enough data means less information needed to run contact centers efficiently, but too much data can create confusion when it is not orchestrated or converted into consumable business intelligence. Too much data – oceans of data – can create so much blurring that it leads to anxiety for managers, who may just ignore it altogether.

With all the additional stress on contact centers, with COVID-19 causing increases not only in call volume, but in questions that may not have answers in this uncertain time, which is causing longer interactions and wait times that are making headlines especially when it comes to health insurance coverage, unemployment insurance, travel arrangements, new retail return policies, and more.

From what we are learning from the many contact center technology vendors, BPOs, and industry experts and analysts, digital transformation to the cloud, and adoption of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation and more was already underway given the natural benefits of moving from old infrastructure to new cloud-based solutions – the COVID-19 crisis just threw those projects into high gear, as many contact centers had to shift to work-from-home in some cases over a weekend.

One CEO of a company working with a Tier One mobile service providers in the U.S. said the urgency was so great – that his team ended up working nights and weekends to rapidly engineer and implement a transformation – leveraging virtual desktop infrastructure, cloud communications as a service, and cloud versions of what had been locally served applications.

He also noted that given the disruption, everything had to be accessible via mobile devices, and everything had to be secured especially given the relaxation of HIPAA standards by the US Government to enable telemedicine and telehealth. “Just because the government allowed contact centers to use new tools, like Zoom and Skype, for example, doesn’t mean companies can risk exposing sensitive and private information including electronic medical records.”

Since March, this same company has been called in to completely transform a large state’s unemployment insurance contact centers, where fraudulent claims were costing the taxpayers millions of dollars a day. “I’ve been part of this industry and a major tech disrupter for three decades,” the CEO said, “and I’ve never seen anything like this. This was a scary time, but things worked out and have led to more business than we ever thought we could handle because it was no longer an option to wait to move to cloud, and as a service approaches. We had to move fast but we also had to move smart because nobody at this time wants any additional stress or pressure so great that it can and will continue to crush businesses that are not prepared.”

Dealing with the surge of data that has been produced in the middle of the crisis is not something contact center providers had time to even think about in the beginning of this great disruption. As the dust started to settle, however, the impact was surprisingly positive. The new work-from-home models were working in most cases, and the fear of leaping into 21^st Century technologies all but disappeared.

What also happened was a completely new view of data, how much can be generated, and how creatively it can be applied.

Technology investments rocketed almost immediately after stay-at-home orders were enacted, and that is only expected to continue. When COVID-19 exploded, Grand View Research issued new research leading to their forecast that the global contact center software market will reach $72.3 billion by 2027, registering a compound annual growth rate of 19.7 percent.

One company, Eventus Group, based in Denver, Colorado, is a hybrid company in that they sell not only managed services (running contact centers for several very large enterprises with multiple well-known brands) but they have invested themselves in a unique data aggregation, management and analytics platform called IntelligenceHub. Necessity was the mother of invention for the company. As a fast-growing business over nearly ten years they got their start in consulting, which advanced to transformation and project management, and without asking their clients if they’d like to turn over their contact centers to them – they were almost pushed into standing up a managed services business unit.

Their managed services business took off, and they were so overwhelmed by business growth that they decided to develop their own software using APIs and connectors into nearly every major contact center vendor’s systems in the world. They branded the platform, but it was mainly used for internal operational improvements and efficiencies but became popular with their clients as a reporting tool.

From there, the platform became an analytics tool, and now a business intelligence tool that sifts through data and generates reports, notifications and alerts. Using an interface they built in partnership with Tableau, and with CRM companies including Salesforce, Eventus organically built increasing integrations and today continue to release a stream of new features, which TMC is proud to help share with the world on a webinar Tuesday, October 20. Our own Erik Linask, a contact center expert in his own right, will be joined by Heather Barrow, who leads the IntelligenceHub development and implementation, and Jon Arnold, an independent industry analyst who has been following and writing about contact center disruption for over a decade.

This is a must-attend, free and interactive webinar – perfectly timed for those who are planning 2021 after a 2020 none of us will ever forget.

Don’t fear data – embrace it! Organize it, tap it, synthesize it, optimize it, and design it to improve outcomes. Faster, friendly, and more efficient service – personalized – protected – and productive. Orchestrate it and, according to what Eventus has proved, save so much in time and effort through automation and more, that there is money to reinvest in creating a CX that contributes to a more competitive offering.

Customers need support now more than ever – and innovations like this, forged in fire, have great potential to help the world return to better than normal.

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The Perfect Storm for Contact Center Operators: Cloud, Automation, Personalization and AI Driving Data Sky High

While the global pandemic has hit every vertical industry hard this year, there is no other horizontal industry than contact centers being challenged to transform – or die. With the move from often massive physical locations with tight quarters to moving agents and managers to a virtual model, and the rapid adoption of cloud-based communications, CRM, security and other platform and application, the amount of data being generated is surging.

All that data is good, right?

Data is a blessing and a curse – not enough data means less information needed to run contact centers efficiently, but too much data can create confusion when it is not orchestrated or converted into consumable business intelligence. Too much data – oceans of data – can create so much blurring that it leads to anxiety for managers, who may just ignore it altogether.

With all the additional stress on contact centers, with COVID-19 causing increases not only in call volume, but in questions that may not have answers in this uncertain time, which is causing longer interactions and wait times that are making headlines especially when it comes to health insurance coverage, unemployment insurance, travel arrangements, new retail return policies, and more.

From what we are learning from the many contact center technology vendors, BPOs, and industry experts and analysts, digital transformation to the cloud, and adoption of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation and more was already underway given the natural benefits of moving from old infrastructure to new cloud-based solutions – the COVID-19 crisis just threw those projects into high gear, as many contact centers had to shift to work-from-home in some cases over a weekend.

One CEO of a company working with a Tier One mobile service providers in the U.S. said the urgency was so great – that his team ended up working nights and weekends to rapidly engineer and implement a transformation – leveraging virtual desktop infrastructure, cloud communications as a service, and cloud versions of what had been locally served applications.

He also noted that given the disruption, everything had to be accessible via mobile devices, and everything had to be secured especially given the relaxation of HIPAA standards by the US Government to enable telemedicine and telehealth. “Just because the government allowed contact centers to use new tools, like Zoom and Skype, for example, doesn’t mean companies can risk exposing sensitive and private information including electronic medical records.”

Since March, this same company has been called in to completely transform a large state’s unemployment insurance contact centers, where fraudulent claims were costing the taxpayers millions of dollars a day. “I’ve been part of this industry and a major tech disrupter for three decades,” the CEO said, “and I’ve never seen anything like this. This was a scary time, but things worked out and have led to more business than we ever thought we could handle because it was no longer an option to wait to move to cloud, and as a service approaches. We had to move fast but we also had to move smart because nobody at this time wants any additional stress or pressure so great that it can and will continue to crush businesses that are not prepared.”

Dealing with the surge of data that has been produced in the middle of the crisis is not something contact center providers had time to even think about in the beginning of this great disruption. As the dust started to settle, however, the impact was surprisingly positive. The new work-from-home models were working in most cases, and the fear of leaping into 21^st Century technologies all but disappeared.

What also happened was a completely new view of data, how much can be generated, and how creatively it can be applied.

Technology investments rocketed almost immediately after stay-at-home orders were enacted, and that is only expected to continue. When COVID-19 exploded, Grand View Research issued new research leading to their forecast that the global contact center software market will reach $72.3 billion by 2027, registering a compound annual growth rate of 19.7 percent.

One company, Eventus Group, based in Denver, Colorado, is a hybrid company in that they sell not only managed services (running contact centers for several very large enterprises with multiple well-known brands) but they have invested themselves in a unique data aggregation, management and analytics platform called IntelligenceHub. Necessity was the mother of invention for the company. As a fast-growing business over nearly ten years they got their start in consulting, which advanced to transformation and project management, and without asking their clients if they’d like to turn over their contact centers to them – they were almost pushed into standing up a managed services business unit.

Their managed services business took off, and they were so overwhelmed by business growth that they decided to develop their own software using APIs and connectors into nearly every major contact center vendor’s systems in the world. They branded the platform, but it was mainly used for internal operational improvements and efficiencies but became popular with their clients as a reporting tool.

From there, the platform became an analytics tool, and now a business intelligence tool that sifts through data and generates reports, notifications and alerts. Using an interface they built in partnership with Tableau, and with CRM companies including Salesforce, Eventus organically built increasing integrations and today continue to release a stream of new features, which TMC is proud to help share with the world on a webinar Tuesday, October 20. Our own Erik Linask, a contact center expert in his own right, will be joined by Heather Barrow, who leads the IntelligenceHub development and implementation, and Jon Arnold, an independent industry analyst who has been following and writing about contact center disruption for over a decade.

This is a must-attend, free and interactive webinar – perfectly timed for those who are planning 2021 after a 2020 none of us will ever forget.

Don’t fear data – embrace it! Organize it, tap it, synthesize it, optimize it, and design it to improve outcomes. Faster, friendly, and more efficient service – personalized – protected – and productive. Orchestrate it and, according to what Eventus has proved, save so much in time and effort through automation and more, that there is money to reinvest in creating a CX that contributes to a more competitive offering.

Customers need support now more than ever – and innovations like this, forged in fire, have great potential to help the world return to better than normal.

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Nuvia Raises $240 for Hyperscale Data Center Chips Which Could be 8x More Efficient than Current Competitors

This past June we gave our opinion on why the Intel-Apple split is a disaster for Intel. That post focused primarily on the desktop – arguing that the computing power of Apple desktop systems will soon be so much greater than those based on Intel that PCs will lose share. We didn’t mention that Windows machine makers will need to adopt ARM architectures as well to stay competitive but that will happen.

This leads us to the data center which we touched on when we wrote about Nuvia and their initial funding in November of last year.

What Apple and others have shown possible is the power per watt of computing of the ARM design is superior to Intel-based on reduced instruction sets versus more complex instruction sets.

Classic disruption theory says the more inexpensive, mass-produced product will often evolve to the point where it takes out the more specialized high-end competitor.

The hard disk market is the classic case – where RAID technology allowed smaller, lower-capacity, cheaper disks to take out the more specialized large disk competitors.

Nuvia just raised $240 million dollars and this shift is the reason…

They believe and obviously, their investors agree that the data center will be a winner-take-all area thanks to the history of the market and our shared experience of looking at the search market, e-commerce and others where a single vendor dominates.

What Nuvia has done is take the people with chip design experience at Apple, Google and others and have them apply similar principles of maximizing power per watt in the data center.

Two trends make the company unstoppable if no other serious competitor emerges. Let’s leave NVIDIA out of the discussion for this post.

Hyperscale data center growth is astronomical and they have serious heat dissipation and power constraints. The former is often the bigger issue. According to Nuvia, the maximum power a CPU can be allocated is between 1W-4.5W in such a center. They believe the NUVIA Phoenix CPU core has the potential to reset the bar for the market.

As they make their case, they show what Apple has done – see the grey line to the left. The performance Cupertino achieves at 4W is similar to what an Intel Core i7 does at 16W.

Their specialized chip will have twice the performance of its competitors – based on modeling techniques they employ. They are being a bit coy right now about the details but that makes sense because they likely don’t want to be wrong about the end-result of what their chip will be able to accomplish when it is released in 2022.

The server chip market is obviously huge – around $10 billion today and greater than $15 billion by 2025. If there is one winner or even a major player, this is a tremendous return on investment for the investors.

Of course, we know with so much at stake, Intel itself is going to ensure they don’t lose their lead, doing everything they can. The company has had some stumbles lately but decades of success tell us we shouldn’t count them out. In addition, there are a lot of talented ARM chip designers out there who could start a competitor and existing companies with ARM chip designers in-house who are paying close attention to what is happening here.

The good news is that the industry is working towards maximizing the power per watt of a hyperscale data center. This in turn means the data center becomes more efficient. In this case – using today’s numbers of the performance of current CPUs compared to Nuvia’s projections, a hyperscale data center will be able to increase its total compute power by 8x without increasing its heat generation. This is a huge jump for the industry if their estimates are accurate.

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See the ONLY networking, UCaaS, SD-WAN and Tech companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

Join 8K others with $25B+ in IT buying power who plan 2021 budgets! Including 3,500+ resellers!

A unique experience with a collocated Future of Work Expo, SD-WAN Expo, and MSP Expo…

New Dates! June 22-25, 2021, Miami, FL. Register now.

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Windstream Restructure Complete

Windstream has been saddled with a massive amount of debt for many years and as it struggled to pay it down, it faced declining revenues and margins in its legacy businesses. To offset this challenge, they focused on high-value and higher-margin solutions. We told you about this last April when we reported on their one billion in DIP funding from CIT global.

To boost sales of the higher-margin solutions they announced at the time that resellers would receive a 5% premium on certain services such as UCaaS, SD-WAN call center and security.

Since that time, the company continued to innovate – boosting its SD-WAN business with better analytics, visibility, etc. They added Slack integration and Office UC upgrades as well. Finally, this past June, they added live chat to their OfficeSuite UC Contact Center solution.

Windstream President & CEO Tony Thomas (Photo Credit: Karen E. Segrave)

The company has successfully completed its financial restructuring process as a privately held company and has reduced its debt by more than $4 billion, or approximately two-thirds, and now has access to approximately $2 billion in new capital. With an enhanced capital structure, Windstream is now well-positioned to continue making substantial network and software investments, fuel sustainable growth and drive value for all its stakeholders.

“Today marks the start of a new era for Windstream as an even stronger, more competitive company,” said Tony Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Windstream. “With the completion of our financial restructuring, we now have an enhanced balance sheet and a robust capital investment program to expand 1 Gig Internet service in rural America and maintain our product and software leadership in SD-WAN and UCaaS for enterprise customers. We are also pleased to continue our strategic partnership with Uniti Group and expand our mutually beneficial relationship. With the support of our new owners and current operational momentum, Windstream will continue advancing our long-term growth objectives while providing our customers with quality and reliable services.”

Thomas continued, “I would like to thank our customers, vendors and business partners for their ongoing support throughout this process. I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to the Windstream team for their dedication to our customers and continued commitment to delivering essential telecommunications services during this unprecedented healthcare crisis.”

Paul Sunu, chairman of the new Windstream Board of Directors, said, “Tony and the Windstream team have made significant strides in the last 18 months to better position the company to compete for the long term. The new Board and I are confident that we have the right management team and right strategy to accelerate Windstream’s transformation, return to growth and drive sustainable value creation.”

Windstream also today unveiled a new corporate logo, marking the next chapter in the company’s transformative journey.

Windstream also today unveiled a new corporate logo and will continue to support its customers across the U.S. with:

• Windstream Enterprise: Windstream’s nationwide, cloud-optimized network and software solutions – such as SD-WAN, UCaaS and OfficeSuite UC.
• Kinetic by Windstream: Consumers can experience robust high-speed internet with speeds up to 1 Gig, extensive TV & entertainment options, home network security, optimal Wi-Fi control and reliable voice services through a fiber-based network and 5G fixed wireless service. Small and midsize businesses can choose from cloud-based collaboration and communication tools along with wireless internet backup.
• Windstream Wholesale: Digital transformation in optical transmission, providing flexible and customized high-capacity bandwidth and transport services to content and media providers, cloud and data center operators, international carriers, cable operators, wireless carriers, traditional network service providers and more.

It’s been a long process and we wish the company well as they continue to innovate and proceed to grow their sales and profits.

---

See the ONLY networking, UCaaS, SD-WAN and Tech companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

Join 8K others with $25B+ in IT buying power who plan 2021 budgets! Including 3,500+ resellers!

A unique experience with a collocated Future of Work Expo, SD-WAN Expo, and MSP Expo…

New Dates! June 22-25, 2021, Miami, FL. Register now.

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Amazon Takes on Peloton with Connected Bike Offering

Timing is everything it seems. Just yesterday we told you we have been surprisingly accurate with our predictions but when we get it wrong we seem to do so spectacularly.

Case in point was Peloton. We thought the idea was good when the company started but we were at the start of a wearable tech revolution and we thought it would be easy for a slew of competitors to come out with cheaper and better products using IoT and commodity tablets like an iPad attached to a bike.

Just last night we wrote about the Stealth Core Trainer which is an exercise device that uses the phone you have. For $99, it gives you much of what Peloton does – it is interactive, fun, and works many of your muscles. We actually thanked the company for making our prediction come partially true – better late than never :-).

This morning, Echelon launched its new EX-Prime Smart Connect Bike—also known as the Prime Bike. It officially hit the online market as Amazon’s first-ever connected fitness product. The bike is said to be high-quality and costs only $499. Customers can access hundreds of live and on-demand classes, enabling them to enjoy a variety of workouts from home.

“We were built on the idea of attainable fitness for everyone. The Prime Bike was developed in collaboration with Amazon, aiming to create an amazing, connected bike for less than $500 and it’s proven to be a phenomenal match,” said Lou Lentine, President and CEO of Echelon Fitness. “Amazon looking to us to partner on their first-ever connected fitness product is recognition of our commitment to deliver quality at a reasonable price-point as reflected in our explosive growth over the last year.”

Echelon offers an Echelon United Membership 30-day free trial with the purchase of a Prime Bike, giving riders access to thousands of live and on-demand classes led by world-class trainers, as well as a number of scenic rides. Whether someone wants to bring an in-studio fitness experience into their home or immerse themselves in nature, there is a workout for any and every preference.

The Echelon EX-Prime Smart Connect Bike joins a family of Echelon Fitness products, including the Connect EX bike series, Echelon Row and Reflect Fitness Mirrors, as well as a commercial product portfolio.

Competition finally came and costs finally came down but admittedly, Peloton has been an amazing success. In-part because it had the market to itself for many years. Amazon’s entry will likely be successful based on its scale and ability to market for free via its home page. In addition, Bezos makes absolutely solid products for an incredible price. Take the sound quality of an Echo Dot as an example.

Even though this is a joint offering between Amazon and Echelon, the brand loyalty of Amazon will stick to this new offering.

The entry of Amazon into the connected fitness space absolutely hurts Peloton but the connected bike company has a cult following at this point and will occupy the high-end of the market for many years to come.

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The Stealth Core Trainer May be the Perfect Workout Device

We’ve made a lot of tech predictions in our career and we are proud to say we have been greater than 90% correct.

What was perhaps the worse one we made in the last decade was regarding Peloton. We thought competitors would put together an iPad and a cheap IoT sensor that attaches to your leg and make a superior or cheaper solution.

But were we wrong – Peloton had the market to itself for so long, they were able to cement their leadership position and no one seemed to come up with the idea of using the device you have in conjunction with a piece of excecise equipment.

Finally, someone invented the solution we thought would arrive eight years ago.

The Stealth Core Trainer is a wonderful addition to any workout routine. It’s quite an innovative concept which adds games to your excercise routine via your cell phone. 

If you have a relatively strong core and are familiar with planks you will probably share the opinion that:
 
A mere plank is not very challenging in itself. In order to feel the plank is working, you may need to hold it for a longer period of time. which becomes tedious and boring.

By introducing the Stealth into your workout, these issues disappear. 

It is challenging: The plank sits on a ball base which immediately adds balancing into the mix and your core will notice immediately!
It’s fun:  As you are playing, you forget that you are actually exercising and may go on for longer as you eliminate the boredom factor, 
It’s effective: Since your arms are hovering above floor level, you engage many more stabilizing muscles immediately.

Its vibrant yellow color is inviting. It’s super light since it’s just a plastic surface on which you will rest your cellphone with no attachments whatsoever. The phone just stays in place. You don’t even need to remove the phone case.

The solution comes with many games that are fun and very easy to download, once you set up your free account. Two of the games are also free and there are a lot more games that you can pay for if you so choose. 

It involves your complete upper body. If you use your hands for a better grip you will feel it in your forearms and sides, as you swerve sideways during your game.

You can opt for the endurance mode or the timed mode, where you will set how long you want the game to last, one minute, two minutes, etc. 

The “personal log” keeps track of your scores and times. Another interesting feature is that you can join public or private challenges and compete with other players. 

This is the best exercise value out there because it leverages the device you already have to make exercise fun. It is just $99. At some point, we had a gym membership that cost more than that per month! Just one minute on the device can leave you short of breath with your muscles aching. In fact, an amazing addition to your HIIT or high-intensity-interval-training workout would be adding the Stealth into the mix.

@fitsara

30 min HIIT workout ##HIIT ##workout ##foryoupage ##foryou ##fyp ##fitness ##hiit ##healthy ##fitnesspage

♬ Go Crazy – Chris Brown & Young Thug

It is also something we would suggest you do a few times a day for about a minute or more. It will increase your pulse and tone many of your muscles at once.

One room for improvement is for beginners. It is easy to forget to breathe when you start because you are tensing your whole body. If the games would have a breathing reminder every 20 seconds or so, it would make a great workout solution even better!

Lastly, we’d like the company for making our prediction at least partially come true. It took a while but we love what Stealth has come up with!

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Extreme Consolidates Switching and Wireless Infrastructure, adds Free Apps

Companies are looking to do more with less and often burden IT with more responsibility with the same or smaller budgets. Meanwhile, CIOs and others, need to manage digital transformation while dealing with the challenges of ever-growing complexity.

None of this was lost on Extreme Networks who has announced universal platforms for its switching and wireless portfolios which enable simplified ordering, licensing and warranty processes, as well as reduced complexity and flexible operations. This creates a more effortless experience for customers.

Customers of the new ExtremeSwitching 5520 Series and ExtremeWireless AP300C and AP400C Series APs can choose the appropriate OS for their business needs and activate it via automated, zero-touch deployment. They can do this through ExtremeCloud IQ or manually through customized on-premises deployment. The good news is there is only a single hardware/software SKU to order and that hardware can be applied to multiple use cases.

We broke the news on the Extreme purchase of Aerohive back in June of last year and told you it was done in-part for the cloud management the company offered to Extreme customers. Today’s news validates our analysis and goes further by taking the simplification of central management and adding simplified ordering, licencing, warranty and more.

This is a solid way to differentiate your switching company from the pack.

The 5520 Series is a family of high-performance, feature-rich universal edge and aggregation switches designed for organizations seeking greater operational efficiency and capability. It provides end-to-end secure network segmentation, includes 24- and 48-port 1 Gigabit models, 1/2.5/5 Gigabit multi-rate models, as well as a 24-port 10 Gigabit model.

A nice bonus – multi-watt PoE makes it an ideal wired backend for wireless APs or support for next-gen powered Ethernet devices, such as digital signage, pan-tilt-zoom cameras, smart lighting, or point-of-sale terminals. The 5520 further supports 10G and 25G modular uplinks for flexible linkage to other switches or devices over a range of media.

Extreme Networks AP305C

The AP300C and AP400C series universal access points are high-performance, high-efficiency, and deliver next-generation connectivity through Wi-Fi 6. The AP300C series are indoor enterprise APs based on a new system-on-chip (SoC) featuring two built-in dual-band radios, with options for models with either internal or external antennas. Advanced radio technology delivers Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) data rates up to 2.4 Gbps concurrently on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios. The AP400C series provides 802.11ax data rates up to 4.8 Gbps in the 5 GHz band and concurrent 2.4 Gbps in the 2.4 GHz band.

Expect the Extreme Switching 5520 Series family in November 2020, and the AP300 and AP400 series will be available in January 2021. The universal hardware will come with a limited lifetime warranty, providing platform replacement and access to publicly available software for the lifetime of the products.

In addition, the company has added five applications to ExtremeCloud IQ Pilot Subscription at no additional cost.

• Essential applications available within the platform enable Pilot subscribers to do more for their organizations at no additional cost, while potentially retiring overlay applications used to deliver these services. Applications include:
  • Extreme AirDefense delivers 55+ threat vectors for Wireless Intrusion Prevention (WIPS) and adds Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy or BIPS as an Essential Service.
  • ExtremeLocation delivers proximity, presence, and location-based services for advanced contact tracing in support of the location-intelligent enterprise.
  • ExtremeGuest delivers exceptional guest Wi-Fi access capabilities coupled with advanced network analytics for retail, hospitality, and large event venues.
  • ExtremeIoT delivers simple and secure onboarding, profiling, segmentation, and filtering of IoT devices on a production network.
  • ExtremeCompliance delivers automated and comprehensive compliance testing for PCI, HIPAA, and GDPR.

There is great news for techs as the new ExtremeCloud IQ mobile app, available October 1, 2020 in mainstream app stores, allows IT to quickly onboard new devices using just a serial number or leverage a smartphone or tablet to scan barcodes or QR tags. They can also manage and troubleshoot issues remotely, providing a simplified, flexible experience. This feature is a particular asset to those IT teams tasked with managing networks stretching across wide geographic areas or hundreds of buildings.

ExtremeCloud IQ platform licenses come in multiple tiers. The Connect tier provides basic device management and is free with the purchase of any supported Extreme hardware platform. The Navigator tier now enables Extreme’s established WiNG wireless solution to interface directly with the cloud and provides visibility and management features. The Pilot tier offers advanced infrastructure management, reporting, and remediation tools, including ML and AI-driven insights and analytics. Pilot tier subscriptions are $150/year regardless of device under management, and offers public, private, or on-premises deployment methods.

Mike Leibovitz, Head of Americas, Office of CTO at Extreme Networks

In an exclusive interview with Mike Leibovitz, Head of Americas, Office of CTO, we discussed a range of intriguing topics. For example, 802.11ax WiFi is a highly-efficient network optimized for many devices and dense networks. Corporate offices, mass events, outdoor hotspots, shopping malls, airports, exhibition halls, dense residential apartments, stadiums, and so on, are all examples of dense environments.

He said some of it has been delivered in the real-world and some is coming and the WiFi Alliance decided to call it WiFi 6 instead of 802.11x Wave 1 and Wave 2. We think this was a great branding move by the way and aligns nicely with DECT 6.0 that was named somewhat randomly (in terms of numeric designation) as well.

“It absolutely takes WiFi to the next level,” he exclaimed. The result is there is a great deal more spectrum in which to transmit and receive data which is great for everyone.

He said, “Every customer out there has a journey, a path where there existing infrastructure can come into the cloud; how it can be cloud enabled, as we would suggest, and different tiers. Some we’re offering to customers, just at a base level for free.”

The net result of the news from Extreme Networks and the interview we had with Mike is, WiFi is going to get even better in the near future as we take advantage of newly available frequencies. In addition, Extreme is continuing to differentiate itself by making solutions that are easier to use, easier to try, easier to deploy and easier to fix in case of issues.

At a time when the world is on edge, not knowing if an invisible microbe will cause clots in our bodies, it is nice to know Extreme Networks is focusing on reducing the stress level of IT in terms of doing more with less and doing more remotely… They also take the burden off enterprises, allowing them to try new and innovating applications without paying. If they like them, they can upgrade, choose to pay, etc.

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See the ONLY networking, UCaaS, SD-WAN and Tech companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

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Clearly IP Adds Fax CPaaS and Mobile Softphone Solutions

Covid-19 has caused a tremendous acceleration in the growth curve of many tech companies such as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft. As a result, these companies are innovating to keep up with customer demand and needs. With so much news focused on these and other public companies, you may not have given much thought to the open-source community and what they are doing to help users as they increasingly work from home and other places where they can effectively social distance.

Trailblazing company Clearly IP has been on an absolute tear lately making strategic acquisitions and while we were covering this news, they were also putting their heads down, trying to make the lives of open source users far better. At the beginning of last week, in fact, they released the SendFax.to platform to allow for modernized faxing via email.

The benefits of this solution include allowing companies to eliminate costly POTs lines which they have kept around because faxing over SIP trunks can be problematic according to Preston McNair, CRO.

According to CEO, Tony Lewis, the goal was to modernize faxing. They do this by allowing you to send a fax by putting the fax destination phone number @sendfax.to as your destination email address. You must have an email with an attachment to make this happen. They then convert your email to fax and securely deliver it via their highly resilient cloud platform. Inbound faxes are automatically delivered directly to your inbox or email distribution groups. They can even work with modern Multi-Function Printers to enable scan-to-fax and fax-to-print.” 

In addition, Clearly Anywhere is the open-source solution you’ve been waiting for. It adds a mobile softphone for FreePBX phone systems.

It is a robust solution that is easy to set up while allowing recording, call transfer, voicemail access, SMS/MMS, push integrations, private time and DND options.

Both of these solutions are fantastic for boosting productivity. The first – allows Clearly IP to get into an area where CPaaS players like Twilio currently live while the latter seems aimed at Counterpath, with the benefit being, tighter integration with open source communications servers.

Yes, Clearly IP is relatively small and amazingly, they are only one-year old. In that time though they have completed three acquisitions. The first was announced as they launched a year ago. The next, Modulis.ca took place three months later. The latest was this past July. Now they are innovating in two important spaces – CPaaS and mobile soft clients. We can’t wait to see how much further they go to help customers in their second year of life!

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This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

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What The Heck Happened to Japan?

It is with a great of sadness that we report the End-of-Life for OKI-Branded Hardware Effective March 31, 2021.

“This year OKI embarked on a new three-year mid-term plan that would reposition our company for sustained growth and long-term profitability by shifting our focus from a transactional selling approach to value-added sales and service delivery,” said Sergio Horikawa, President & CEO, OKI Data Americas, Inc. “Although we made significant progress in the execution of this plan, considerable shifts in printer market demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to reevaluate our ability to achieve the mid-term plan. After assessment by our management teams in the Americas and Japan, it has been determined that a new path forward is required resulting in today’s announcement.”

In the 1980s and 1990s OKI printers were the best there was. They were built like absolute tanks. They were in many offices that were early computer adopters. The world was theirs for the taking. They did establish a line of VoIP solutions and extended into a few other areas but didn’t gain much traction in the U.S.

Iwatsu had bulletproof phone systems in the 1980s and 1990s. They dropped out of the business some years ago. Toshiba had great phone systems and laptops. They are out of both markets.

Sony made the must-have TV but now Samsung has taken that honor.

Not all Japanese companies have abandoned their leadership positions but these companies went from being great to gone in a few decades.

We have written before that U.S. CEOs of these and other Japanese companies have often complained that Japan has too much control while not understanding the U.S. market. Certainly, this is a big part of the problem as Japanese CEOs think their strong domestic brands translate into the U.S. but they are generally incorrect. This leaves an opportunity for others to out-market them and put them out of business.

This is likely a big part of the problem but so is an obvious lack of innovation and vision to design products that are competitive in an evolving market. Where are the Japanese UCaaS solutions and collaboration solutions for example? What about other software categories?

The situation is a real shame and the world is worse off with less solid competitors in the tech market.

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Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation SD-WAN Solution Enhances Security and Simplifies Network Operations

Many of the latest SD-WAN solutions integrate with next-generation firewalls (NGFW) ensuring network traffic is secure. NGFWs maintain features of stateful firewalls such as packet filtering, VPN support, network monitoring, and IP mapping features and also possess deeper inspection capabilities that give them a superior ability to identify attacks, malware, and other threats. NGFWs provide the enterprise with application control, intrusion prevention, and advanced visibility across the network. NGFWs more thorough inspection style allows for checking packet payloads and matching signatures for harmful activities such as exploitable attacks and malware.

The CloudGenix ION 1000 (top) and the CloudGenix ION 9000 (bottom) expand Palo Alto Networks CloudGenix SD-WAN solution’s reach down to the smallest branches and up to multi-gigabit campuses.

One of the major players in the NGFW space is Palo Alto Networks. Last November we broke the news that they entered the SD-WAN space. In March of this year, Palo Alto announced they are acquiring SD-WAN leader CloudGenix. This news came a few weeks after Cloudgenix enhanced its partner program – for partners who are more cloud-savvy and can install the latest AIOps-based solutions for branch offices.

Palo Alto has now said they are offering the first next-generation SD-WAN solution which is a nice play on its sister NGFW product line. These are some of its characteristics:

• App Defined – Providing application layer visibility enabling network teams to create app-based policies and deliver SLAs for all apps, improving the end-user experience.
• Autonomous – Automated operations and problem avoidance using machine learning and data science, eliminating up to 99% of WAN and application access trouble tickets.
• Cloud-delivered – Enabling all branch services to be delivered from the cloud, including networking and security, simplifying WAN management and enabling branches to be rolled out in minutes instead of months.

Additions to the platform include:

Today, Palo Alto Networks is introducing a number of new additions to it’s Next-Generation SD-WAN solution:

• Machine learning-based capabilities to further simplify network operations
• A small form factor SD-WAN appliance designed for retail and small offices/home offices (SOHO)
• A high-performance SD-WAN appliance suited for large campus locations
• Seamless integration of Prisma Access cloud-delivered security

Palo Alto Networks has added machine learning (ML) and analytics features to CloudGenix SD-WAN to simplify network operations and improve capacity planning. For instance, the system automatically identifies common root cause events when there are multiple event alarms. This dramatically reduces the time to problem resoltion and increases the availability of applications. Where possible, the system automates problem resolution as well, freeing up operators to focus on higher value activities. New analytics features make capacity planning simpler by allowing operators to easily understand what WAN connections they are using, when they are using them, and what applications are driving that use. Palo Alto Networks plans to expand the use of ML to other use cases in the future.

ION 1000
The CloudGenix ION 1000 is a powerful small form factor SD-WAN appliance designed for retail and SOHO use cases. The ION 1000 is fanless, small and quiet enough to be placed in a work environment when no equipment room is available. As organizations re-architect their teleworking approaches to support remote workforces post-pandemic, the ION 1000 enables performance controls, availability and security for the home office that is consistent with enterprise policies.

ION 9000
The CloudGenix ION 9000 is the largest and most high-performance CloudGenix SD-WAN appliance to date, delivering twice the performance of the current flagship device. It is ideal for large branches and campus locations, supporting multi-gigabit throughput and a “fail to wire” high availability capability designed to mitigate the effects of physical WAN outages.

Kumar Ramachandran, senior vice president of product management for firewall as a platform at Palo Alto Networks

Prisma Access Security Integration
CloudGenix SD-WAN seamlessly integrates with Prisma Access, the industry’s most comprehensive secure access service edge (SASE) platform. With the integration of CloudGenix SD-WAN and Prisma Access, customers can secure intra- and inter-branch traffic as well as traffic from the branch to any applications hosted in public or private clouds. Customers can take advantage of the integration without the need to upgrade branch appliance hardware or software through the unique CloudGenix CloudBlades platform. CloudBlades enable the integration of cloud services, such as Prisma Access, using a cloud-hosted API architecture that eliminates the need for additional branch hardware or software in the branch.

“With cloud and multi-cloud adoption on the rise, end-user applications like videoconferencing and office productivity solutions are increasingly delivered as cloud services. Legacy WAN architectures have severe limitations, especially when organizations migrate to the cloud. First-generation SD-WAN falls significantly short in changing the economics of branch WAN infrastructure and services,” said Kumar Ramachandran, senior vice president of product management for firewall as a platform at Palo Alto Networks. “Enterprises are now demanding an autonomous SD-WAN solution that eliminates the need for manual operational tasks. Enterprises also need a cloud-delivered model for security and other branch services to gain cloud-scale economics. CloudGenix SD-WAN is the industry’s first next-generation SD-WAN solution that is app-defined, autonomous and cloud-delivered. With powerful ML-based capabilities, we deliver dramatic reductions in “day two” operational costs. A customer recently told us they reduced their WAN costs by 82%.”

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Learn about the latest in SASE (secure access service edge) and SD-WAN at the SASE Summit Summer Series with multiple event dates in August and September, 2020. Learn why SASE matters about how SASE and SD-WAN work together, how SASE is essential to your digital transformation, the importance of self-healing networks and much more.

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See the ONLY SD-WAN, Contact Center, Tech and Communications companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

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RapidDeploy Enters into Agreements with Google, OnStar, ADT to Transform U.S. Emergency Response Systems

Open and integrated emergency response platform, RapidDeploy announced it will directly integrate supplemental emergency data from some of the largest and most influential companies in technology and public safety. Google, OnStar, ADT, Priority Dispatch and Rave Mobile Safety are the most recent additions to RapidDeploy’s Unified Critical Response (UCR) ecosystem, which already has partnerships with AT&T, Microsoft, AT&T FirstNet, and Esri, among others.

RapidDeploy gives 9-1-1 telecommunicators and first responders with only a few employees access to the same analytics, mapping, dispatch and First Responder applications enjoyed by bigger, better-funded cities and populous states.

This is great news as communications technology is evolving rapidly but the nation’s 911 infrastructure hasn’t kept pace.

“In order for our industry to thrive and evolve, we need to establish and grow an open and collaborative partner ecosystem,” stated Steven Raucher, CEO and Co-Founder of RapidDeploy. “By joining forces with these tech and innovation power houses, we are one step closer to unifying the end-to-end public safety workflow. This ecosystem is pivotal to transforming voice-centric 9-1-1 centers into data-driven organizations.”

Also, RapidDeploy unveiled the latest version of its RadiusPlus tactical mapping solution, available now to all agencies using RapidDeploy products. This enhanced cloud-native software solution includes a direct data integration with Google. RapidDeploy users will now receive supplemental data faster than before, with richer data, for more 9-1-1 calls. This new directly integrated data from the Android Emergency Location Service will enhance situational awareness, which can improve the speed and effectiveness of emergency response.

OnStar – OnStar’s 150 Emergency-Certified Advisors respond to more than 10,000 emergencies every month, including 3,500 cases of Automatic Crash Response notifications. Timing is everything in the moments after a collision, and Automatic Crash Response uses sensors in the vehicle to automatically connect an OnStar Advisor to a vehicle, even when a customer is not able to call for help. By teaming up with OnStar, RapidDeploy solutions will display crash data directly on the 9-1-1 map screen, without having to rely on verbal relaying of information.

“For over two decades, OnStar has been committed to working with public safety to transform emergency call processing,” said Catherine Bishop, Senior Manager, OnStar Emergency Services. “Our partnership with RapidDeploy will allow us to electronically transmit critical crash data directly into the Emergency Communications Centers’ ecosystems to facilitate more informed dispatch and enhanced patient treatment at crash scenes.”

ADT – ADT is a leading provider of security, automation and smart home solutions serving consumer and business customers through more than 300 locations, 9 owned and operated monitoring centers, and the largest network of security professionals in the United States. Through this partnership, RapidDeploy will enable more efficient and richer data transfer from alarm monitoring centers to 9-1-1 communication centers, ensuring that telecommunicators and first responders have more context for each call that comes in.  

“Working with RapidDeploy to integrate our residential, small business and commercial alarm monitoring data directly into 9-1-1 systems will help improve emergency response efficiencies and effectiveness,” said Donald Young, CIO and EVP of Field Operations at ADT.  “This solution adds to the many ways ADT is innovating enhanced alarm response technology to help protect and connect our customers to what matters most.”

Priority Dispatch – RapidDeploy is one of Priority Dispatch’s only Titanium integration partners, enabling dispatch protocols directly in one unified platform. Now as Priority Dispatch readies its cloud-based ProQA emergency dispatching software, RapidDeploy will also be rendering ProQA directly within RapidDeploy’s RadiusPlus tactical map.

“Our mission for 35+ years has been to lead the creation of meaningful change in public safety and health,” stated Ron McDaniel, Priority Dispatch’s President. “RapidDeploy’s initiative to grow the Unified Critical Response ecosystem directly aligns with this mission. We’re excited about the RadiusPlus integration with ProQA and continuing to expand our partnership with another key leader in this industry.”

Rave Mobile Safety – RapidDeploy and Rave Mobile Safety are working together to connect Rave’s Smart911 emergency profiles, building floor plans, facility information and tools to communicate with populations impacted by emergencies. In addition, Rave’s IoT Panic Button can be connected to the RapidDeploy Unified Communications platform to simplify and speed up the flow of critical life-saving information. The integrated solutions will make communities safer and better connected to its citizens. With millions of citizens registered and tens of thousands of organizations and facilities leveraging Rave’s solutions, RapidDeploy clients will have access to the largest set of emergency response data in the industry.

“We are excited to work with RapidDeploy as part of its Unified Critical Response ecosystem,” said Todd Piett, CEO at Rave. “By providing a seamless experience for call takers and dispatchers to receive Rave emergency data and more effectively communicate with their populations, RapidDeploy is an ideal partner for us to work with on the future integration of public safety communications.”

Expanded Partnership Announcements

Esri – RapidDeploy and Esri are both committed to improving situational awareness for telecommunicators and first responders by leveraging best-of-breed GIS capabilities, real-time mapping, and accurate location data in 9-1-1 systems and in the field. Given this shared vision, RapidDeploy is working with Esri to design a roadmap that provides public safety professionals with the latest GIS capabilities throughout RapidDeploy’s portfolio of products. Through this partnership, RapidDeploy will ensure that public safety professionals in all agencies, regardless of size, can benefit from the latest GIS innovations using locally authoritative GIS data and the latest innovations in cloud computing and location accuracy.

Lightning Partner Program

RapidDeploy is expanding its Lightning Partner Program, recognizing visionary technology partners who are collaborating to democratize public safety utilizing cloud-native technology. Lightning Partners share RapidDeploy’s vision of secure, modern interfaces that are easy to deploy and are focused on enabling the digital transformation for 9-1-1 agencies of all sizes.

RapidDeploy today also announced the addition of several new Lightning Partners, including:

• Archer (Autonomous drone emergency medical supply delivery system)
• ClimaCell (Weather intelligence platform)
• Niche (Records management system for law enforcement)
• PulsePoint (Automatic external defibrillator location data to assist with cardiac arrests)
• Trainfo (Reliable and predictive real-time railroad crossing data)
• what3words (Global standard for communicating location)

“We’re thrilled to be part of the RapidDeploy Lightning Partner Program,” said Chris Bushell, Vice President, Business Operations for Niche Technology. “The seamless integration between NicheRMS and RapidDeploy’s Unified Critical Response ecosystem means that public safety users can focus on their missions with confidence, knowing that the technology they depend on will be available anytime, anywhere.”

“There is a tremendous opportunity for public safety technology companies to transform emergency response with unencumbered collaboration,” said Richard Price, PulsePoint President and Founder. “By connecting with RapidDeploy, the PulsePoint automatic external defibrillator (AED) registry is made available to dispatchers both within ProQA Paramount and spatially as a distinct map layer—showing the exact location of nearby automatic external defibrillators to assist with cardiac arrest response and save lives.”

Existing Lightning Partners include GETAC (in-vehicle and body worn cameras), GeoComm (GIS Hosting), Optimum (records management system (RMS) for law enforcement), and Orion (push-to-talk technology with secure, real-time communication, context, and automation).

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See the ONLY future of work, CRM, Contact Center, Tech and Communications companies that matter at the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW.

This Event has been called the BEST SHOW in 5 YEARS and the Best TECHNOLOGY EVENT of 2020.

2020 participants included: Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, ClearlyIP, Avaya, Vonage, 8×8, Comcast Business, BlueJeans, CoreDial, Dell, Edify, Epygi, FreeSWITCH, Fuze, Grandstream, Granite, Intrado, Frontier Business, Fujitsu, Jenne, West, Konftel, Intelisys, Martello, NetSapiens, OOMA, Oracle, OpenVox, Peerless Network, Phone Sentry, Phone.com, Poly, QuestBlue, RingByName, Sangoma, SingTel, SkySwitch, Spracht, Spectrum, Sprint, Tallac, Tech Data, Telarus, TCG, Teledynamics, Teli, Telinta, Telispire, Telstra, TransNexus, Unified Office, Vital PBX, VoIP Supply, Voxbone, VoIP.MS, Windstream, XCALY, XORCOM, Yealink, Yubox, and ZYCOO. Full List.

Join 8K others with $25B+ in IT buying power who plan 2021 budgets! Including 3,500+ resellers!

A unique experience with a collocated Future of Work Expo, SD-WAN Expo, and MSP Expo…

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