New AT&T Service Connects Business Teams in Real Time Across Different Networks
22 JANUARY 2015
AT&T UC Federation Makes Collaboration Easier
DALLAS, Jan 22, 2015 – AT&T* now helps make business collaboration simpler with the launch of AT&T UC Federation. The service allows suppliers, partners and customers to communicate in real time across different networks.
Disparate unified communications (UC) systems have made this kind of seamless collaboration problematic in the past. Now AT&T UC Federation can enable internal and external teams to collaborate freely across supported UC platforms.
Employees benefit from being able to instant message and view the online presence of other users as if they are all on the same UC platform.
AT&T UC Federation, created in AT&T Labs, supports a range of UC platforms, including Microsoft® Lync® and Cisco Jabber®. Organizations have the flexibility and security to :
- Connect to supported UC platforms of partners, suppliers and vendors
- Control which organizations can communicate at the company, group or user level
- Allow communication methods (like instant messaging) and block others (such as online presence).
Businesses that are merging or creating joint ventures with other businesses can benefit from AT&T UC Federation. It gives customers the flexibility to grow and coexist without being limited to a single UC platform. It also helps support seamless collaboration when a company switches to a new communications platform.
“Companies that try to set up UC platforms on their own can face challenges when creating scalable, secure connectivity that meets compliance and support requirements,” said Vishy Gopalakrishnan, AVP Big Data and Advanced Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. “UC Federation from AT&T provides tools to help overcome this challenge by removing the hassle and allowing business teams to connect easily and over a highly securely platform.”
Sonus, a leader in communications, has deployed and trialed AT&T UC Federation. The company is in the process of a full service rollout.
“With AT&T UC Federation, our sales team can connect with key contacts on the spot, in less time than an email would take,” said Michael Swade, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Sonus. “It makes collaboration easy, and it truly functions as if each user is communicating on the same platform. We can IM and check presence all within a secure connection.”
AT&T plans to extend UC Federation beyond IM and presence to include calendar integration and video and voice capabilities later this year. Additional UC platforms may also be supported in the future.**
AT&T is currently offering a free 90-day trial for UC Federation for up to 25 users.
For more information about AT&T UC Federation and how to connect your company to collaborative business, please visit https://www.business.att.com/categories/collaboration-and-conferencing.html.
For a behind-the-scenes look at how this technology was developed at AT&T Labs, visit about.att.com/innovationblog/12115borninattlabs.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
**Specifics concerning the vision for future development are subject to change. This is not a timeline or a commitment to deploy any specific product, technology or feature.