Anyone who has worked in an organisation, or spent time in a healthcare or education facility, understands how critical it is to get everyone on the same page — sometimes quite literally.
Once everyone is in the room, either physically or virtually, we want to reduce the amount of time that is spent on getting the presentation up on the screen or connecting in the UC video conference from other team members.
In speaking with Brian Cockrell, Intel Unite’s Product Owner and Co-founder, he tells UC Today that his team was spending nearly half of the time at their daily standup meetings getting their content up and the UC calls with their other teams running.
“It wasn’t going to scale, having 15 minutes to talk and having half your time being cut off,” he says. Out of this frustration, a team of Intel engineers did what they do best. They built something to deal with the problem.
What emerged was the early model for Intel Unite’s solution, which Cockrell says helped them to get their entire setup running in under a minute.
Introducing Intel Unite
On a basic level, the Intel Unite solution is a fast way to wirelessly connect users to a presentation hub or with each other.
It is used by enterprises, medical, education, and other types of organisations to save time and securely share content with others. All types of PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux devices can wirelessly connect to any hub running an Intel i5 processor or higher. No need to retrofit the office or classrooms with new gear.
“Within the Intel Unite solution, you have the capability to then extend out to someone that might not be in the office,” explains Cockrell.
“They might be on Webex and they’re remote and you can then pull them into a meeting as well. So you have this flexibility in how you have your collaboration spaces set up”
But beyond the basic feature set of streamlining collaboration, the Intel Unite solution is an ecosystem that includes UC integrations like Webex that they may already be using within their organisation. Adding these features can be done by an admin for their web console, reducing the need to send out someone from IT to make your next Webex call from the conference room. If the API isn’t out there, then your team can use Intel Unite’s SDK to write your own add-on or plug-in.
Just What the Doctor Ordered
One of the primary user bases for the Intel Unite solution according to Cockrell is the healthcare operations field.
“A primary use case that we are seeing is in clinic rooms where patients meet with their doctors,” says Cockrell. Doctors can easily connect their devices to a screen in the room to share information with their patient.
“This might be outpatient instructions or charts,” he says, adding that sharing on the screen is as simple as entering a pin from the screen or using what they call ultrasonic join that utilizes proximity technology to recognise that a user is in the room.
Built with Security in Mind
A key point that customers in sensitive industries like healthcare have valued is that all of the data being transmitted to the hubs stays on the same local network. Which is a plus for dealing with compliance concerns.
“All that data is encrypted end-to-end and stays on that hospital network,” says Cockrell, adding that data never goes out to an external cloud. Though he notes that if someone connects to the platform from Zoom or Webex, then that data does go through their network. Otherwise, everything normally stays on the LAN.
Preparing for a Hybrid Transition
Brian Cockrell
In the months ahead, organisations across the world are planning out their return to the office.
How exactly this return will come about is still a question, but most experts agree that it will likely be some kind of hybrid model where employees show up one or two days a week for meetings and focus on their individual tasks from home.
While every organisation will likely find its own course, everyone is looking to better spend their time collaborating when they are at the office, and connecting with those team members who are still remote.
With its open architecture, publicly available SDK, the growing list of off-the-shelf apps, and compatibility with a wide range of devices, the Intel Unite solution offers teams a faster way to connect and make the most out of their valuable time.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/3wtZw9O
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