Tag Archives: uc exchange

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