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UC blogs: Kollective, Panopto form video platform partnership
In this week's UC blogs, analysts discuss Panopto and Kollective's potential enterprise streaming video platform partnership, as well as the innovative features of Enghouse's contact center platforms.
Wainhouse Research LLC analyst Steve Vonder Haar discusses the new integration partnership between streaming video platform developer Panopto Inc. and networking solution provider Kollective, adding that the partnership indicates the directions the two companies are headed.
Kollective changed its name from Kontiki earlier this year in an effort to separate its networking services from its streaming video platform products. The partnership with Panopto indicates that Kollective's strategy to offer standalone networking services to potential platform-provider partners is viable, according to Vonder Haar.
For Panopto, the partnership indicates the company may be pushing into the enterprise streaming video market. Panopto made its name in the education industry, but hasn't been able to meet the needs of enterprise networks. With Kollective as a partner, Panopto may be able to address enterprise networking needs for streaming.
Read more about the potential challenges facing the partnership.
Enghouse contact center products align with UC
Nemertes analyst Lisa Durant discusses her experience with Phoenix-based Enghouse Interactive's contact center products at an analyst event. While the contact center market has traditionally aligned with the private branch exchange (PBX)market, Enghouse is aligning itself with the unified communications (UC) market by providing products that work with Skype for Business and multiple voice vendors to be PBX-agnostic. Enghouse's strategy mirrors Nemertes' research, which found Microsoft is becoming the top choice for UC and voice.
Durant writes that Enghouse's contact center products are innovative, particularly its enterprise service. Her favorite feature was a multi-node architecture that offers immediate failover protection for server and wide area network failures. In the event of a failure, IT is notified, but does not have to act because the failover protection is automatic. Agents on calls at the time of a failure remain connected, provided voice infrastructure is not impacted, she writes.
Read more about the other features of Enghouse's contact center platforms.
Not just millenials want new enterprise apps
Gartner Inc. analyst Carol Rozwell writes about the corporate mind-set on enterprise applications, writing that most organizations that look at enterprise applications largely need to appeal to a younger generations. She writes that this mind-set ignores the current workforce that could also benefit from new applications.
She writes that changing workplace expectations for productivity and efficiency apply to workers of all ages. Organizations make the mistake of assuming that the older generation of workers is satisfied with the applications they have been using for years. Employees of any age are open to new applications that promise ease of use, while improving workflows, Rozwell writes.
Read more about the features workers want from enterprise applications.