Tag Archives: cloud service

Business

NextPlane Releases XMPP-Hosted Group Chat Federation for Microsoft OCS 2007 and Lync 2010

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Expanded Features for NextPlane Federation Cloud Service Allows Microsoft Office Communicator and Lync Users to Participate in Chat Rooms Hosted on XMPP UC Platforms.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (August 1, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), today announced the addition of XMPP group chat federation to the NextPlane Federation Cloud service. Now end users with Microsoft Office Communicator (MOC) and Lync clients can easily add chat rooms hosted on XMPP-based UCs, such as OpenFire, to their contact lists without requiring specialized Microsoft Group Chat servers or clients. With these new features, Microsoft users can now take advantage of the NextPlane Federation Cloud services as a central exchange to extend their reach and connect with other UC platforms to create collaborative business communities.

Now Microsoft OCS and Lync users can easily participate in chat rooms hosted on XMPP UC platforms see the other participants, view chat room history, and engage in live chat conversations. Chat rooms can be added to the MOC or Lync client contact list as if they were federated users. Moreover, NextPlane supports the restrictions imposed by members-only rooms.

“Enabling group chat federation is an important component in building federated communities, a strategy that more and more competitive organizations are adopting with the aid of the NextPlane Federation Cloud service to connect to suppliers, partners, and customers in real time,” said Farzin Shahidi, Founder and CEO of NextPlane. “For the first time, Microsoft users can participate in XMPP hosted chat rooms.”

The NextPlane Federation Cloud service accelerates building federated business communities by eliminating the need to set up and maintain separate federation to multiple partners. NextPlane Federation Cloud service subscribers enjoy unprecedented control over which types of traffic (IM, presence, voice, video, and file transfer) are allowed or denied to any of their federated partners. Finally, using NextPlane’s unique analytics and reporting tools, companies are gaining valuable insight into how collaboration with their federated partner community is boosting their business.

To demonstrate the value of the NextPlane Federation Cloud to build collaborative business communities, NextPlane is offering a 30-day trial to qualifying organizations. For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net.

About NextPlane, Inc.

NextPlane offers the NextPlane Federation Could service for unified communications (UC) platforms, seamlessly federating Microsoft LCS, OCS, OCS R2 and Lync, Cisco Jabber XCP, CUPS and Webex Connect, IBM Sametime, Google Apps, Jive OpenFire, ISODE M-Link and eJabberd. Using the NextPlane Federation Cloud service, organizations can connect users from different companies regardless of underlying UC platforms – with shared presence, instant messaging, multi-user chat, voice and video – as if they are on the same UC platform.

NextPlane offers an ideal solution for companies migrating from one UC platform to another, or to integrate different legacy platforms following a company merger or a new contract or partnership. NextPlane even supports domain sharing, allowing two or more UC platforms to federate internally and externally using the same domain name.

For more information please visit http://www.nextplane.net, or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

Contact:
Farzin Shahidi
NextPlane, Inc.
(650) 305-7404
farzin@nextplane.net

Tom Woolf
Woolf Media & Marketing
(415) 259-5638
tomw@woolfmedia.com

Business

NextPlane Reports Record Adoption of the NextPlane Federation Cloud Service as More Businesses Shift to External Collaboration

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NextPlane Federation Cloud Accommodates More than 127, 000 Users and 280 million Messages across Multiple UC Platforms over 30-day Period.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (June 27, 2012) — In May, NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), posted a record month connecting more businesses than ever into federated business communities through the NextPlane Federation Cloud service. NextPlane federated UC traffic exceeded a quarter of a billion messages during the month, illustrating the growing demand for federation between disparate UC platforms to enable real-time, collaborative business communities using cloud computing.

Forward-looking global organizations in a number of industries, including manufacturing, automotive, oil and gas, media, pharmaceuticals and financial services, are integrating the NextPlane Federation Cloud into their enterprise business strategy. During the month, the NextPlane Federation Cloud service federated a total of:

– 1,090 unique domains, connecting more than
– 127,925 unique users, and more than
– 280 million IM, multi-user chat and presence messages transited the NextPlane service.

This highlights the increase in demand for a solution that brings users locked in siloed unified communications platforms together in a collaborative business community. NextPlane offers the only cloud-based presence, IM, multi-user chat, voice and video federation service. The NextPlane Federation Cloud service provides the ability to federate with the widest reach of business partners – supporting all major UC platforms including Microsoft LCS, OCS, OCS R2 and Lync, Cisco Jabber XCP, CUPS and Webex Connect, IBM Sametime, Google Apps, Jive OpenFire, ISODE M-Link and eJabberd. In addition, NextPlane Federation Cloud members benefit from enhanced services such as guaranteed service levels, policies, and a wide variety of reporting and analytics tools.

“Unified communications speeds time-to-market with real-time collaboration, and our cloud-based solution breaks down the interoperability barriers between UC platforms,” said Farzin Shahidi, Founder and CEO of NextPlane. “More businesses are realizing that building federated partner communities using presence, chat, voice, and video has a competitive advantage and saves them time and money.”

According to a study by Fonality, using unified communications saves workers 75 percent of the time they normally waste trying to track down associates and information, and 50 percent of the time wasted trying to contact customers. The same study indicates that if you calculate the value of unified communications for 50 workers, each earning an average salary of $40,000 per year, the savings in productivity would be $942,000 annually. When you calculate the value of those UC efficiencies by expanding collaboration with federation to business partners, the savings in time and money multiply exponentially.

The NextPlane Federation Cloud service accelerates building federated business communities by eliminating the need to set up and maintain separate federation to multiple partners. In addition, NextPlane Federation Cloud subscribers enjoy unprecedented control over which types of traffic (IM, presence, voice, video, and file transfer) are allowed or denied across any of their federated partners. Finally, using NextPlane’s unique analytics and reporting tools, companies are gaining valuable insight into how collaboration with their federated partner community is driving their business.

To demonstrate the value of the NextPlane Federation Cloud to build collaborative business communities, NextPlane is offering a 30-day trial to qualifying organizations. For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net.

About NextPlane, Inc.
NextPlane offers the NextPlane Federation Could service for unified communications (UC) platforms, seamlessly federating Microsoft LCS, OCS, OCS R2 and Lync, Cisco Jabber XCP, CUPS and Webex Connect, IBM Sametime, Google Apps, Jive OpenFire, ISODE M-Link and eJabberd. Using the NextPlane Federation Cloud service, organizations can connect users from different companies regardless of underlying UC platforms – with shared presence, instant messaging, multi-user chat, voice and video – as if they are on the same UC platform.

NextPlane offers an ideal solution for companies migrating from one UC platform to another, or to integrate different legacy platforms following a company merger or a new contract or partnership. NextPlane even supports domain sharing, allowing two or more UC platforms to federate internally and externally using the same domain name.

For more information please visit http://www.nextplane.net, or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

Contact:
Farzin Shahidi
NextPlane, Inc.
(650) 305-7404
farzin@nextplane.net

Tom Woolf
Woolf Media & Marketing
(415) 259-5638
tomw@woolfmedia.com

Business, Technology

NextPlane Announces First Federated Voice/Video Cloud Service for Disparate Unified Communications Platforms

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New voice and video service addition to NextPlane Federation Cloud Service expands seamless UC connectivity between different enterprise networks.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (May 12, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), has just launched a new service to federate video and voice across disparate enterprise UC networks. The first stage of the new voice/video Federation-as-a-Service (FaaS) solution will provide voice and video federation between Microsoft (Lync and OCS) and Google Apps.

With the launch of this new service, NextPlane now can interconnect enterprises with voice and video without requiring additional hardware or software and without impacting the end-users’ native UC experience.

Federation of a voice or video call between Microsoft OCS or Lync and Google Apps was previously not possible, but with the NextPlane Federation Cloud providing hi-fidelity federation between the different UC platforms, users get the same features and functions as if they were on the same platform. In addition to adding video support between Microsoft OCS and Lync and Google Apps, the NextPlane Federation Cloud allows users on Microsoft Lync, OCS, and LCS; Cisco Unified Presence Server (CUPS), Jabber XCP, and WebEx Connect; IBM Sametime; Google Apps, and Jive OpenFire to share presence, chat, instant messages, and participate in multi-user chat.

“Enterprise UC users are starting to look beyond their corporate boundaries to enable rich collaboration with customers, partners and suppliers regardless of underlying UC platforms, and taking advantage of a cloud-based service is the best way to establish fast, seamless federation,” said Farzin Shahidi, CEO of NextPlane. “We already support federation between Microsoft Lync or OCS and Google Apps for IM, presence, and multi-user chat, but this new service marks the first time we offering video as well as voice federation. Our long-term objective is to eliminate the UC Tower of Babel and make it possible to federate any service from any UC platform through a cloud-based service.”

Even with open standards such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), seamless federation of multi-vendor UC platforms that give users all the rich features of presence, multi-user chat, and other UC functions remains an elusive challenge for enterprises and service providers. NextPlane overcomes this challenge by providing a common, integrated platform so enterprise customers can allow users to work together as if they were served by a common UC platform, sharing presence, exchanging IM, and participating in multiparty chat, voice, and video. Furthermore, NextPlane Federation Cloud service allows enterprises to set policies that allow or deny federated voice and video traffic by domains and/or users.

For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net.

About NextPlane, Inc.
NextPlane offers enterprise-class Federation as a Service (FaaS) solutions for unified communications (UC) platforms, seamlessly federating Microsoft Lync 2010, OCS 2007 R2, OCS 2007 and LCS 2005, IBM Sametime, Cisco Jabber XCP, Cisco Unified Presence Server 8.x, Cisco WebEx Connect, Jive OpenFire, and Google Apps. Using NextPlane Federation Cloud service, organizations can connect users from different companies regardless of underlying UC platforms – with shared presence, instant messaging, multi-user chat, voice, video, and other features – as if they are on the same platform.

NextPlane offers an ideal solution for companies migrating from one UC platform to another, or to integrate different legacy platforms following a company merger or a new contract or partnership. NextPlane even supports domain sharing, allowing two or more UC platforms to federate internally and externally using the same domain name.

For more information please visit http://www.nextplane.net, or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

Contact:
Farzin Shahidi
NextPlane, Inc.
(650) 305-7404
farzin@nextplane.net

Tom Woolf
Woolf Media & Marketing
(415) 259-5638
tomw@woolfmedia.com

Business

Norton Rose Group Relies on NextPlane Federation Cloud Service to Connect Global Network of Law Offices

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Cloud-based Federation Platform Connects Disparate UC Systems to Deliver Presence, IM, and Multi-User Chat to 38 Law Offices Around the Globe.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (April 20, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., (http://www.nextplane.com) the market leader in cloud-based unified communications (UC) federation services , today announced that Norton Rose Group is now using the NextPlane Federation Cloud Service. Norton Rose, one of the top 10 law firms in the word with 2,500 lawyers and 38 offices, has adopted NextPlane’s Federation-as-a-Service (FaaS) to link UC platforms in London, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. By adopting NextPlane Federation Cloud Service, Norton Rose can maintain disparate UC platforms in regional offices and still support all common UC services including standard presence, custom status, enhanced presence, instant messaging, and multi-user chat.

As part of its global expansion, Norton Rose LLP merged with Deacons, one of the largest law firms in Australia, to form the Norton Rose Group. To facilitate the new integrated law practice, Norton Rose Group had to find a means to connect the WebEx Connect UC service being used in LLP with the Microsoft OCS platform being used in Australia. Rather than forcing the different offices to change to a common platform, Norton Rose Group opted to license NextPlane’s Federation Cloud to federate UC communications between the different systems. Within two weeks of signing NextPlane as its federation provider, Norton Rose had an integrated UC system up and running.

“When managing communications for a global law firm having integrated presence and IM is crucial, particularly given the time differences between offices,” said Jason Berwick, Innovation Analyst for Norton Rose Group. “Adopting NextPlane as our federation partner eliminated the need to find a common UC service. It was like starting with a blank sheet of paper. We made a couple of DNS changes and we were good to go, and the entire process took less than two weeks.”

The NextPlane Federation Cloud Service enables disparate UC platforms to federate without any upfront capital expense. The Federation Cloud solution can federate users on Microsoft Lync 2010, OCS 2007 R2, OCS 2007 R1, and LCS 2005 environments seamlessly and securely with colleagues on IBM Sametime, Cisco CUPS, WebEx Connect, and Jabber XCP, Jive OpenFire, and Google Apps. It also eliminates the need to maintain multiple address domains, since the Federation Cloud Service does the translation so all users appear to be on one UC platform.

“Norton Rose is the ideal proving ground for the benefits of our Federation Cloud solution,” said Farzin Shahidi, CEO of NextPlane. “Our Federation Cloud Service is ideal for companies in transition, providing ongoing UC support during a merger or acquisition, and we support all the core UC capabilities across multiple platforms as though they were native services. Norton Rose has demonstrated that NextPlane’s Federation Cloud is quick to deploy, seamless, reliable, and scalable to meet any requirement.”

As the Norton Rose Group continues to expand, it relies on NextPlane to federate UC services. In addition to establishing Norton Rose Australia, the firm also has merged with Ogilvy Renault and Denys Reitz to form Norton Rose Canada LLP and Norton Rose South Africa. Berwick’s team now has a simple process for federating UC with any organization on almost any UC platform, either from UC connections in the office or from an iPad, iPhone, PC, or Web-connected device.

For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net.

About NextPlane, Inc.

NextPlane offers enterprise-class Federation as a Service (FaaS) solutions for unified communications (UC) platforms, seamlessly federating Microsoft Lync 2010, OCS 2007 R2, OCS 2007 and LCS 2005, IBM Sametime, Cisco Jabber XCP, Cisco Unified Presence Server 8.x, Cisco WebEx Connect, Jive OpenFire, and Google Apps. Using NextPlane Federation Cloud service, organizations can connect users from different companies regardless of underlying UC platforms – with shared presence, instant messaging, multi-user chat, voice, video, and other features – as if they are on the same platform.

NextPlane offers an ideal solution for companies migrating from one UC platform to another, or to integrate different legacy platforms following a company merger or a new contract or partnership. NextPlane even supports domain sharing, allowing two or more UC platforms to federate internally and externally using the same domain name.

For more information please visit http://www.nextplane.net, or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

Contact:
Farzin Shahidi
NextPlane, Inc.
(650) 305-7404
farzin@nextplane.net

Tom Woolf
Woolf Media & Marketing
(415) 259-5638
tomw@woolfmedia.com