From acquisitions to voice deployment and a partner program, here are extracts from popular stories this week.
HP to acquire Poly
HP is set to acquire Poly in a deal worth $3.3bn to “drive growth and scale” in its peripherals business.
Enrique Lores, President and CEO of HP, said: “The rise of the hybrid office creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine the way work gets done.
“Combining HP and Poly creates a leading portfolio of hybrid work solutions across large and growing markets. Poly’s strong technology, complementary go-to-market, and talented team will help to drive long-term profitable growth as we continue building a stronger HP.”
HP was itself the subject of a hostile takeover bid from Xerox in 2019, only for Xerox to scrap the plans amid the start of the pandemic and resistance from HP’s leadership. HP has a market cap of around $40bn.
The vendor said it expects to realise “substantial revenue synergies”, pegging the figure at $500m by full year 2025.
Dstny Acquires Teams Specialist Qunifi
Dstny has acquired Qunifi, the holding company for Call2Teams and Carrier Automate.
Qunifi is a Microsoft Teams specialist, with Call2Teams specialising in adding voice to the collaboration platform, while Carrier Automate helps carriers on their journey to Microsoft’s Operator Connect.
Daan De Wever, CEO of the Dstny Group, said: “We are always looking for talented companies that fit with our strategy and company culture and which we can help grow faster at the same time.
“This acquisition of Qunifi is a perfect example of that.
“The Call2Teams platform was ‘born in the cloud,’ just like us, and it’s a state of the art technology with a native integration which means an incredible user experience.”
Qunifi will become part of the Dstny for Service Provider organisation, and Dstny said the existing Qunifi team and management will also be integrated into the business.
The firm claims to support more than two million Microsoft Teams users in more than 100 countries.
AudioCodes Launches Live Express for Quick Teams Voice Deployment
AudioCodes has launched a new service that enables channel partners to efficiently plug voice into their customers’ Teams environment.
AudioCodes Live Express, announced at Enterprise Connect, is a SaaS product fully hosted and managed by AudioCodes.
The service is built on Direct Routing and gives partners management operation tools to onboard and manage their customers’ PSTN connectivity.
Andy Elliot, Vice President of Marketing at AudioCodes, said the service would be particularly beneficial to Microsoft partners that aren’t especially versed in the world of voice.
“Live Express is ideally suited for Microsoft 365 partners who are experts in Microsoft Teams as a collaboration platform and selling Microsoft licenses and need to connect their customers’ Teams environment to telephony services,” he said.
