From a partnership and acquisition to a new whiteboard and workspace reservation solution, here are extracts from popular stories this week.

Zoom Workspace Reservation Launches this Month   

Zoom Workspace Reservation will be generally available at the end of this month to facilitate office workspace management and bookings within organisations.   

The new workspace reservation tool is designed to improve the hotdesking and hoteling experience for hybrid teams and system administrators.   

As well as managing and reserving office workspaces, workers will also be able to see who is coming in and get seating recommendations. Beta customers have also used the software to book parking spaces in advance.   

Jeff Smith, Group Product Manager, Head of Zoom Rooms and Whiteboard, said: “Employers continue to prioritise hybrid office management as they seek a secure, easy-to-use, and comprehensive solution to help connect in-office and remote workers.   

“Workspace Reservation expands on Zoom’s already robust hybrid work offerings and helps employees have access to the tools they need to do their best work on a given day.”   

Zoom Workspace Reservation is available as a Zoom app on a desktop or through a web browser.

Google Partners With Miro to Bring Whiteboards to Meet 

Google has teamed up with Miro to bring the online collaborative whiteboarding app to the Meet platform. 

Miro boards is integrated into the Meet Activities panel, with the app designed to allow for brainstorming, planning, and forming ideas during a meeting. 

Once a board is selected, Miro will launch, and all existing Meet features will be available in a side panel, along with the meeting participants. 

Miro boards is the latest in a long list of features added to Meet over the last two years, with others including polls, Q&A, translated captions, hand-raising, and more. 

Jennifer Shen, Group Product Manager, Google Workspace, said: “Miro is another step in extending the power of Google Meet with third-party solutions. 

“Over the coming quarters, we will bring Meet into many of the collaboration and productivity tools that you already use every day. 

“Our goal is to bring powerful collaboration experiences into the places your teams are already working together — reducing context switching — so they can create and achieve more together.” 

Users will be able to create a new Miro board before a meeting and attach it to the invite or use the feature during an ongoing meeting. 

Ericsson Gets Go-Ahead For Vonage Acquisition 

Ericsson has bagged regulatory approval for its $6.2bn acquisition of Vonage. 

The Swedish telecoms giant now exists to complete the deal before the end of this month. 

The final clearance came from Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States after Ericcson revealed it had achieved all other approval at the end of last month. 

In November last year, Ericsson first announced the takeover in a move that would see its 4G and 5G technology combined with Vonage’s CPaaS credentials. 

The vendor released its quarterly numbers yesterday, before the acquisition’s completion. 

Borje Ekholm, Chief Executive Officer at Vonage, said: “The intended acquisition of Vonage is an important building block to execute on the global network platform, and we are working to secure approval and close the transaction before the end of July. 

RingCentral Introduces SMS and Fax for Microsoft Teams 

RingCentral has announced the release of integrated SMS and fax for the RingCentral for Microsoft Teams platform. 

The integration means users can now send and receive SMS messages and faxes without leaving the Teams app. 

The SMS and eFax features are available on both RingCentral’s embedded dialer and direct routing solutions. 

Eric Kenney, Director of Product Marketing at RingCentral, spoke about the implications for Microsoft Teams: “At RingCentral, we’ve seen a 500% increase as a best-in-class telephony complement to Microsoft Teams, with 15 straight quarters of Five9’s reliability, a broad set of phone integrations, best-in-class analytics, and much more. 

“And we’re excited to announce the release of integrated fax and SMS in RingCentral for Microsoft Teams.

“This adds broader functionality to a Teams deployment, making it a complete communications tool.” 

Users can now send and receive messages to contacts in the company directory or to an external number.

What’s New at Workplace? July 2022 Update

Workplace from Meta has released several new features to improve the user experience on its platform.   

Highlights this month include integrating Workplace Chat onto the Workplace application, plugin updates, and access to post insights.   

Last month, the collaboration software company made headlines by securing a 1.9 million-user deal with McDonald’s.   

Mobile App Adds Messaging   

Workplace Chat is being made available via the Workplace mobile app, making it easier to keep up-to-date with company news and chat simultaneously.   

Previously, workers would have needed to download Workplace Chat separately. Workplace from Meta believes that this update will be particularly welcomed by frontline workers who generally prefer to minimise the number of apps on their phones.   

Voice and video calls are not currently an option in the mobile app, but these can still be performed using the Workplace Chat mobile app.

 

 



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