Tag Archives: nextplane

NextPlane Enables Unified Communications and Social Media Federation

December 10, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

NextPlane UC Exchange Allows Users on UC Platforms to participate in Twitter, Yammer and Salesforce Chatter from their UC Client.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (December 10, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), now offers federation between UC platforms and public and enterprise social media services such as Twitter, Yammer, and Chatter. Now users on UC platforms can participate in social media feeds, and send private messages directly from their UC client.

The social networking revolution is presenting companies with a new collaboration challenge: how to connect their UC platform, which provides real-time and presence-based communications, with their enterprise social networking services, such as a Yammer, or Chatter.

To overcome this challenge NextPlane UC Exchange federates UC platforms and social media services without requiring plug-ins. UC Exchange UC to Social Media federation service allows end-users to easily authenticate to their enterprise or public social networking accounts from their UC clients to:

– Search for colleagues users and groups;
– Post messages to group discussions and trending topics; and
– Send private messages to one or more colleagues.

UC Exchange social media federation currently supports Microsoft Lync, OCS and LCS, Cisco Jabber XCP, Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and WebEx Messenger, IBM Sametime, Google Apps, Jive OpenFire, Isode M-Link and eJabberd.

“In today’s fast paced business environment the lines between unified communication and enterprise social networks are getting blurred,” said Farzin Shahidi, Founder and CEO of NextPlane. “Employees are expected to stay on top of several social media feeds, and chat with several people at the same time. With UC Exchange, leading edge organizations are enabling their end-users to keep in touch with their colleagues and contribute to group discussions on the corporate social network right from their UC clients.”

Organizations can sign up for a free UC Exchange Directory Membership that includes free federation with Twitter and a one-month free trial of Yammer and Chatter federation. This membership also includes free federation with Google and a listing in the UC Exchange Members Directory, enabling other UC Exchange members to find and connect with them.

Organizations can also upgrade to a paid Community Membership to UC Exchange, which provides members with further benefits including UC to UC federation services, federation with enterprise social media services, Skype federation, and XMPP Group Chat Federation. Community Members can make federation requests to other UC Exchange members using NextPlane’s unique federation management portal, plus benefit from guaranteed service levels and support.

For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net/get-started.php or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

About NextPlane
NextPlane Inc., is the provider of ‘UC Exchange,’ a cloud based community focused federation service for unified communications (UC). UC Exchange enables member organizations to find, connect, and collaborate with business partners across a wide range of UC platforms and includes powerful features such as UC Federation Services, centralized Members Directory, Social Media Federation, and Skype Federation. Using a unique federation management portal, organizations can search a member’s directory for federation-ready partners; manage federation requests and access reporting and analytic tools.

UC Exchange Federation Services enable seamless federation across Microsoft Lync, OCS and LCS, Cisco Jabber XCP, Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and WebEx Messenger (formerly Cisco WebEx Connect), IBM Sametime, Google Apps, Jive OpenFire, Isode M-Link and eJabberd. Organizations can connect users from different companies regardless of their underlying UC platform – with enhanced presence, instant messaging, multi-user chat, voice and video – all as if they are on the same UC platform. Moreover, UC Exchange enables its member organizations to federate their UC platforms with social business communities such as Yammer, Salesforce.com’s Chatter, Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, and XMPP hosted chat rooms.

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

Technology

NextPlane Now Offers Free Google Federation

November 16, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

NextPlane Takes the Pain out of Federating Microsoft OCS/Lync and IBM Sametime platforms with Google.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (November 16, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), is now offering free Google federation to organizations using Microsoft OCS, Microsoft Lync, or IBM Sametime. NextPlane shortens the time it takes to setup federation with Google to less than a day, and eliminates the hassle of installing and configuring an XMPP gateway. NextPlane’s cloud-based service does not require any on-premise hardware or software component.

Unlike using XMPP gateways from Microsoft or IBM, end-users benefit from a richer feature set, such as presence, and enhanced presence (custom presence states and activity-based presence). Moreover, IT organizations benefit from greater reliability and scalability, access to usage reports, and 24/7 service availability with no hidden costs. Google federation is being offered as part of free membership in UC Exchange, a cloud-based UC federation service that allows members to find, connect, and collaborate with other federation-ready organizations. Companies who upgrade to a paid subscription to the NextPlane UC Exchange federation service can access additional features including voice and video federation with Google (a feature unique to NextPlane), and federation with other UC platforms, social media, and Skype.

“Our free Google federation for organizations with a Microsoft or IBM unified communications platform gives users a significantly better real time collaboration experience.” said Farzin Shahidi, founder and CEO of NextPlane. “By using NextPlane UC Exchange IT departments can go beyond the serious limitations of Inter-vendor UC interoperability solutions which are not being addressed by UC vendors.”

In addition to the free Google federation service organizations can access to the UC Exchange Management Portal to search the UC Exchange Members Directory of over 100 ‘federation ready’ organizations, accept inbound federation requests at a no additional charge, and get access to usage reports.

For more information, visit http://www.nextplane.net/get-started.php or contact sales at sales@nextplane.net.

About NextPlane

NextPlane Inc., is the provider of ‘UC Exchange,’ a cloud based community focused federation service for unified communications (UC). UC Exchange enables member organizations to find, connect, and collaborate with business partners across a wide range of UC platforms and includes powerful features such as UC Federation Services, centralized Members Directory, Social Media Federation, and Skype Federation. Using a unique federation management portal, organizations can search a member’s directory for federation-ready partners; manage federation requests and access reporting and analytic tools.

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

eZuce and NextPlane Partnership Delivers Seamless UC Federation

November 14, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

eZuce openUC added to NextPlane UC Exchange as a Certified UC Platform.

ANDOVER, Mass. (November 14, 2012) — eZuce Inc., the leading global provider of cloud based communications and collaboration solutions for large enterprises, has recently completed certification testing with NextPlane for its openUCTM solution. eZuce openUC has demonstrated full Instant Messaging (IM) federation with Microsoft Lync during initial Phase I certification in which users are able to share not only standard presence states of either “Available,” “Away,” “Busy” or “DND” on unified communication (UC) clients but also custom status messages, and enhanced presence states with federated colleagues.

NextPlane provides UC Exchange a UC and social media federation service with a searchable directory of over 100 (and growing) federation-ready organizations where companies can easily federate with customers and partners, using a secure management portal to track federation requests to and from business partners. UC Exchange Federation Services accelerates the building of collaborative business communities by eliminating the need to set up and maintain separate federation connections with multiple partners. UC Exchange supports all major UC platforms including Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Google, OpenFire, Isode and eJabberd. UC Exchange enables end-users within the UC Exchange community to easily share presence, exchange instant messages, participate in multi-party chat sessions, make voice calls, share files, and participate in voice conferences.

“We’re glad to include eZuce openUC in our UC Exchange program; in particular its seamless IM federation with Microsoft Lync and OCS enables users to experience collaboration the way it was designed to be- easy and reliable. We look forward to strengthening our technology alliance with eZuce as we continue to expand our federated services to Enterprises through strategic partnerships such as this.” Farzin Shahidi, Founder and CEO, NextPlane Inc.

eZuce provides UC cubed, the transition of unified communications into a software and IT application that is open, standards based, enterprise-grade, and socially-enabled. eZuce openUC™ and Unite solutions are transformational, enabling companies to become social organizations, improve productivity, and lower costs by communications-enabling and integrating business-critical applications and functions across multiple platforms. It enables IT to successfully manage the transition not only to the Cloud and Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS), but also to embrace the even more challenging reality of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD). eZuce openUC™ offers ease of use for the IT team, extreme flexibility, scalability, resiliency, and security, with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO).

“eZuce fully embraces the partnership we have with NextPlane as our collective efforts enable users to have more choice and flexibility in how they communicate and collaborate amongst contacts particularly within their social networks. This approach aligns directly with our overall product strategy as eZuce openUC is the solution of choice for Enterprises in need of open standards-based virtualized communications.” David Grazio, VP of Product Marketing, eZuce Inc.

About NextPlane

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

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

About eZuce, Inc.

eZuce delivers an open source platform designed to provide virtualized communications. For companies looking for an IT and cloud solution to fulfill all their communications and collaboration needs, eZuce provides users the ability to communicate openly and globally in the most cost-effective way available. And, because eZuce is a software solution built for the cloud, IT best practices apply, making this the easiest platform to operate available today. The company also built the largest and most successful open source unified communication community known as the sipXecs solution from SIPfoundry, underlining its commitment to open standards. eZuce counts as its customers some of the largest and innovative Fortune 500 companies as well as leading system integrators and partners. For more information about eZuce please visit our website at http://www.ezuce.com. You can also follow eZuce online through our official corporate social networking sites: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, & Google+.

Contact:
Christina Inge
eZuce, Inc.
+1.978.296.1005 x2073
cinge@ezuce.com

Technology

NextPlane ‘UC Exchange’ Enables Companies to Build Real-Time Collaborative Business Communities Across Unified Communication Platforms

October 18, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

NextPlane Invites Companies to Join the Growing Community of UC Exchange Members with Free Directory Listing and Federation Services.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (October 18, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), today announced UC Exchange, the next step in building real-time collaborative business communities for UC platforms. UC Exchange is a UC federation service with a searchable directory of more than 100 (and growing) federation-ready organizations where companies can easily federate with customers and partners using a secure management portal. Since UC Exchange is a cloud-based service there is no additional hardware or software required to participate.

Today, more than ever, companies need to put customers and partners at the heart of their business. With the NextPlane UC Exchange service, enterprises are able to break their organizational boundaries and connect with their business partner ecosystem in real time to increase efficiency, productivity, and gain a competitive advantage. UC Exchange improves real-time collaboration with such features as searchable directories, UC-to-Skype federation, UC-to-social media federation, and a secure management portal.

UC Exchange already serves more than several hundred thousand users from global organizations spanning education, manufacturing, supply chain, pharmaceuticals and health services, telecommunications, transportation, and technology. UC Exchange users currently exchange billions of presence, chat, voice and video messages per month with business colleagues within their ecosystems.

“The benefits of unified and social communications are maximized within those enterprises that extend their solutions across their end users, partners, customers, and suppliers. However, in many organizations, UC and social media platforms remain isolated islands of communication with an inward focus,” said Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst with Wainhouse Research. “NextPlane’s UC Exchange marks a major step in breaking down communication barriers between organizations, and enabling users of UC and social media to participate in secure, federated, and collaborative business communities.”

Key features of UC Exchange include:

– UC Federation Services – enables any organization to seamlessly federate across Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Google, OpenFire, Isode, and eJabberd platforms.

– Secure Management Portal – allows searching the Members Directory for federation-ready partners, managing federation requests, and accessing usage reports.

– Directory Services (Available December 2012) – provides a searchable “phone book” of validated contact information based on employee profiles received from contributing members.

– Microsoft Lync and OCS to Skype Federation – enables end-users to call users on Skype from their Microsoft Lync or OCS client.

– Google to Skype Federation (Available December 2012) – enables end-users to call users on Skype from their Google client.

– Voice Conferencing Federation – enables end-users on Microsoft Lync or OCS, to initiate conference calls and add colleagues on Google or vice versa.

– UC to Social Media Federation – enables end-users of Yammer, Chatter and Twitter to authenticate with their social media accounts and post to social media feeds, send private messages and participate in group discussions, all from their UC client.

– Microsoft Lync and OCS to XMPP Hosted Group Chat Federation – enables Lync and OCS end-users to participate in group chat rooms hosted on XMPP-based UC platforms.

“UC Exchange accelerates building real-time collaborative business communities, irrespective of the underlying UC and social media solution being used,” said Farzin Shahidi, founder and CEO of NextPlane. “UC Exchange does this in two ways: First, we provide a free directory service to allow organizations to easily find and federate with their ‘federation-ready’ partners. Second, we offer subscribing customers access to federation services and a searchable directory where their end-users can search for the contact information of their colleagues in partner organizations, directly from their UC clients.”

NextPlane is offering UC Exchange membership at two levels:

Directory Membership – Free membership that gives member organizations access to the Management Portal, a listing in the Members Directory, the ability to search for Federation-Ready partners, the ability to accept inbound federation requests, free federation with Gmail.com, and basic usage reports.

Community Membership – Fee-based membership, which includes the ability to make directory-driven outbound UC to UC federation requests, user-level Directory Search, plus additional federation services such as federation with Skype, Social Media federation (Yammer, Twitter and Chatter) and XMPP Group Chat Federation. Community Members also receive additional benefits such as policy enforcement, advanced federation analytics and reporting, and 24/7 support with guaranteed service levels. Annual subscription fees for Community Membership are based on the number of users, domains, and federation features required.

For more information, 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

Anglo American School of Moscow Extends Video Conferencing and Unified Communications with NextPlane’s Federation Cloud Service

September 6, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

Adding Cloud-based Federation Connects School’s Microsoft Lync Users to Google Talk and Other UC Platforms for Faculty Meetings, Parent-Teacher Conferences, and More.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (September 6, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), today announced that the Anglo American School of Moscow (AAS) is the latest educational institution to subscribe to the NextPlane Federation Cloud service. Using NextPlane, AAS Moscow now can federate its Microsoft Lync to Google other UC platforms to facilitate faculty meetings, parent/teacher conferences, and collaborative study.

AAS Moscow has more than 2,000 students and faculty that currently are using Microsoft Lync 2010 for internal collaborative communications, with plans to upgrade the school’s network to add more bandwidth in the near future and to integrate its Lync clients with its telecom system. Even though AAS has deployed Microsoft Lync for internal school communication AAS early on recognized that in order to be truly effective in communicating with parents, colleagues, and friends around the world it had to federate its Lync platform with Google and other UC systems. That’s why AAS selected NextPlane as its Federation Cloud service provider.

AAS selected the NextPlane Federation Cloud service because it provides hi-fidelity federation between Microsoft Lync and other key UC platforms, such as Google, as well as IBM Sametime, Cisco Jabber XCP, Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and WebEx Messenger (formerly Cisco WebEx Connect), Jive OpenFire, Isode M-Link and eJabberd. When connecting via the NextPlane Federation Cloud service, Lync and Google users can see each other’s presence (including custom and activity-based presence), engage in one-to-one chat, participate in multi-user chat sessions, and make voice and video calls. In fact, the NextPlane Federation Cloud is the only service with presence-aware voice and video communications between Microsoft Lync and Google.

“With transportation in Moscow being a challenge, our current plan is to use NextPlane to support Google video conferencing for parent-teacher meetings, and enable more virtual meetings for our faculty,” said Ilya Pekshev, Head of Systems and Network Operation for AAS of Moscow. “And our faculty and students have a lot of friends overseas, so access to Google with zero cost is a real convenience for the entire school. It’s this kind of technology that keeps AAS Moscow on the leading edge.”

Pekshev also notes that his mission is to not only create a real-time collaborative system, but also to provide a safe working environment for all his users. Part of the reason for choosing NextPlane was that the Federation Cloud service offers integrated security including central federation management and provisioning, support for TLS encryption over XMPP and the ability to control communications through policies.

The NextPlane Federation Cloud service accelerates building federated collaborative communities by eliminating the need to set up and maintain separate federation to multiple parties. 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 connections. Finally, using NextPlane’s unique analytics and reporting tools to provide valuable insight into how collaboration is affecting network operations.

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, Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and WebEx Messenger (formerly Cisco 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 building collaborative communities around regardless of underlying UC platforms. NextPlane supports domain sharing, allowing two or more UC platforms to share the same domain name and federate internally and externally.

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 Announces Support for Isode M-Link to Deliver Secure Federation

August 26, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

NextPlane Enables Isode M-Link to Seamlessly Federate with SIP-based UC Platforms.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (August 26, 2012) — NextPlane, Inc., (http://www.nextplane.net), the market leader in cloud-based federation services for unified communications (UC), and Isode, Ltd. (http://www.isode.com), developers of highly secure, high-performance messaging and directory server software, today announced support for Isode’s M-Link instant messaging (IM) platform on the NextPlane Federation Cloud service. Isode’s M-Link customers now can federate with Microsoft Lync 2010, OCS 2007 R2 and OCS 2007 R1, and IBM Sametime 8.5.x using the NextPlane federation service.

With new federation support for Isode’s M-Link XMPP presence and IM server, M-Link IM customer can now exchange presence, exchange instant messages with colleagues on OCS, Lync and Sametime, and initiate and invite those colleagues into multi-user chats and group chat sessions. Isode M-Link is noted for providing secure messaging in highly secure environments, including military and government enterprises, and is approved for use by the United States Defense Information Systems Agency. With support for the NextPlane Federation Cloud service, those customers can now collaborate in real time with partners on a wide range of corporate and commercial entities that are on SIP-based UC platforms. And by using NextPlane as a central federation exchange, M-Link customers can expand their reach without sacrificing security with NextPlane’s patent-pending TLS over XMPP encryption for federated communications.

“Our mission is to interconnect the widest range of commercial UC platforms, creating a central exchange so UC users can be connected into real-time business communities without having to add hardware and software to their UC infrastructure,” said Nick Sears, Vice President, EMEA for NextPlane. “With proven compatibility with NextPlane, Isode M-Link customers now can securely collaborate with other government departments, suppliers, and other organizations through NextPlane’s growing collaboration exchange.”

“Support for NextPlane’s Federation Cloud Service gives M-Link customers secure access to a larger federated community, making it easier for our government and military customers to communicate with other departments, plus vendors and partners in the private sector, “said Will Sheward, Vice President of Marketing for Isode, Ltd. “With tightening budgets and increased demands on government agencies to increase efficiency, federation with other UC platforms to form real-time, collaborative communities is more important than ever to streamline communications and operations.”

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 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 boosting their productivity.

About NextPlane, Inc.

NextPlane offers the NextPlane Federation Could service for unified communications (UC) platforms, seamlessly federating Microsoft Lync, OCS R2, OCS and LCS, 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.

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

August 2, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

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.

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

June 27, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

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.

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.

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

May 12, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

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.

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

April 20, 2012 staronepr Leave a comment

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.

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