From Microsoft Teams adding a Pay-As-You-Go PSTN Calling Plan to Vodafone Germany and RingCentral launching a joint venture, here are extracts from popular news stories this week.
RingCentral Doubles Strategic Partner Seats
RingCentral has seen its business with its strategic partners double, according to COO Mo Katibeh.
The vendor’s senior team spoke on an earnings call with investors after announcing a quarterly sales growth of 28 percent year on year in Q2, up to $487m.
“Seats from our strategic partnerships are up almost 100% year over year,” he said.
“Mitel continues to gain traction as endpoint compatibility remains on track, and we continue to onboard their channel partners. Avaya also continues to consistently add seats to our growing base with another sequential growth quarter.
“We continue to believe that there is a meaningful opportunity for ACO as a destination for Avaya’s customers, which represent the world’s largest installed on-premise base.
“Partners remain part of our differentiated go-to-market strategy and are contributing to our $1 million-plus wins in the enterprise market. Last, international continues to be an area of opportunity."
RingCentral has partnerships with Avaya, Mitel, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and Atos, with Katibeh vowing to continue building with their partners.
Microsoft Teams Adds Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan
Microsoft Teams has added a Pay-As-You-Go PSTN Calling Plan which now provides customers with a third calling plan option.
Previously, customers had to choose between a Domestic Calling Plan and an International Calling Plan.
The Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan allows for both domestic and international calling, but outgoing minutes are charged depending on the minutes used and calling credits can be purchased in advance with Communication Credits or after using Post Pay billing.
In an update to its Calling Plans for Microsoft 365 documentation, Microsoft provides a summary definition of the Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan: “Licensed users can call out to numbers located in the country/region where their Microsoft 365 license is assigned to the user based on the user’s location, and to international numbers in 196 countries/regions.
“Unlimited incoming minutes are included. No outgoing minutes are included. All outgoing calls are charged based on the minutes used, either with Communication Credits or Post Pay billing.”
Communication credits are essentially a pre-payment system which translates to a set number of minutes. These credits can be set to automatically top up when they run out.
Microsoft Teams Fully Optimised for Apple Silicon
Microsoft has announced that the Teams platform has been fully optimised for Apple Mac devices with M1 or M2 chips.
The software giant has developed Teams offering for Apple silicon, meaning it will run natively on the entire Mac lineup.
A Microsoft blog post said: “We are rolling out a production-grade universal binary version of Teams, which means it will run natively on the entire Mac lineup, including those with Apple silicon.
“For Mac users, this means a significant boost in performance, ensuring efficient use of device resources and an optimized Teams experience even when using multiple high-resolution monitors during calls or meetings.
“Microsoft is committed to innovation and committed to the Mac, so we’re excited to bring this to our Mac users.
