Slack will run its native voice and video calling capabilities on Amazon Web Services’ Chime platform, part of a “multi-year partnership” for collaboration product development. AWS is already Slack’s “preferred” cloud infrastructure provider, and the two companies have a common rival in Microsoft, competing with its Azure and Teams products, respectively. An announcement on Thursday, alongside Slack’s first quarter financial results, explained that Slack will use Amazon’s Chime software development kit as the basis for Slack Calls, which includes audio, video and screen sharing features. Chime ..read more

The days of enterprise security being a separate entity from mobile and desktop endpoint management are coming to an end, which should delight infrastructure and security teams who’ll eventually have more powerful machine learning-enabled tools at their disposal – and a single console through which to control them. Security around mobile and desktop infrastructures has traditionally depended on what's being managed; you purchase one for mobile devices and another for the rest of your endpoints, whether laptop or desktop. While security threats are growing, particularly phishing attacks via ema ..read more

SAN FRANCISCO – Slack has partnered with cloud video communications vendor Zoom in a move designed to bolster video capabilities for Slack users. The tie-up was unveiled at this week’s Slack Frontiers event. Zoom – whose stocks began trading on April 17 – competes with Cisco Webex, Skype for Business (now part of Microsoft Teams), Google Hangouts Meet and others, with its Zoom Meetings software. The company also has offerings for conference rooms and phone systems.  [ Related: How collaboration apps foster digital transformation ]Also like Slack, Zoom has seen swift growth thanks to viral adop ..read more

As more corporate workers rely on mobile devices, enterprises need to adopt mobile unified communications, which is easier to scale and manage than wired UC.(Insider Story ..read more

The booming team collaboration market is likely to continue booming in 2019 as companies roll out chat apps more widely across their operations. With Microsoft leveraging the ubiquity of its Office suite to push Teams, and Slack doubling down on its still-evolving enterprise push, the two leaders in the market are likely to continue to try and one-up each other in the search for new customers. At the same time, a host of other firms, from Facebook to Google, Cisco and more, will continue to build out their own team chat platforms. [ Related: 10 ways to get the most from Facebook’s Workplace ]I ..read more

Voice, video, email, file sharing, collaboration – organizations need a solid strategy to assure more manageable, cost-effective, and secure enterprise communications.(Insider Story ..read more

Cisco has added cloud calling to its Webex Teams messaging app – something the company called a “significant step” in the integration of BroadSoft’s technology stack  following the completion of this year’s $1.9 billion acquisition. The combination is designed to provide an “enterprise-grade” cloud-based PBX [private branch exchange] phone system in addition to existing message and document sharing features. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more

San Jose-based 8x8 has added team chat capabilities to its unified communications platform, touting interoperability with 23 other collaboration as a differentiating factor in a competitive market. Among the chat apps supported are Slack, Google Hangouts Chat, Skype, Twitter, Cisco Webex Teams and Jabber. The Team Messaging function, announced last week, is included in 8x8's existing X Series software, which combines video, voice and contact center applications. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more

IBM today announced the commercial availability of a blockchain-based electronic distributed ledger that can track and trace food supply chain data from farm to store self. In development over the past 18 months, IBM's Food Trust ledger will allow food retailers, suppliers and growers to see supply chain data in near real time, enabling a more transparent and efficient method of determining the origin and safety of produce. [ Further reading: What is blockchain? The most disruptive tech in decades ]Along with announcing the availability of its Food Trust tracking network, IBM said several food ..read more

8 lesser-known videoconferencing options for workImage by Peter Sayer/IDG Services like Microsoft’s Skype for Business or Google Hangouts mean you no longer need to turn to a specialist conferencing provider to collaborate with distant colleagues “face to face.” To read this article in full, please click here ..read more