8×8, Inc.†(NYSE: EGHT), a leading cloud provider of voice, video, chat and contact center solutions for over one million users worldwide, announced its new Meetings experience that provides compelling, friction-free video communication with voice, chat and one-touch conferencing.
The new 8×8 Meetings solution provides a state-of-the-art video collaboration platform supporting voice and video on any device on the proven 8×8 cloud-first environment, which is globally scalable with a modern media server architecture built for WebRTC. Unique to 8×8 Meetings, users can start a video meeting with one click and can also easily move from a chat or phone call to a video meeting. This capability is possible because of 8×8’s purpose-built, integrated SaaS platform that does not rely on third-party applications but instead leverages standard communication technologies built into web browsers and mobile operating systems.
“We use†8×8 Meetings†on mobile phones for real-time debugging of robots on the production floor. Being able to share, in real time, photos and screenshots with the vendor’s technical support has cut in half the time it takes to get those robots and production back online,” said Matt Baker, Corporate IT Project Manager of Mold-Rite Plastics. “Having all of our communications on one platform, integrated into our key systems like Salesforce, is empowering our teams with the right communication tools and the right information. Most importantly, we have this information at the right time to drive faster, more relevant collaboration. We’re looking forward to the many enhancements that are coming to Meetings which we anticipate will bring even greater productivity and collaboration benefits.”
Recent market research highlights the importance of a well-integrated meetings solution. According to the Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Meetings Solutions,” in the Strategic Planning Assumptions, “By 2022, 65% of meeting solutions users will take advantage of SIP/VoIP-based audio conferencing options embedded in those meeting platforms, up from 20% in 2017.” In addition, according to the Gartner “Digital Workplace Applications Primer for 2019″†report, “Forward-thinking organizations are preferring UCC solutions that foster team-based collaboration through persistent messaging and video meeting services, in addition to baseline enterprise voice services.”
“The recent Jitsi acquisition added some of the world’s leading experts in video communications to 8×8’s already deep technical expertise. We are fine-tuning our product integration and are working to ensure the 8×8 Meetings solution offers a feature set that will challenge even the perceived market leaders today,” said Dejan Deklich, EVP and Chief Product Officer at 8×8. “We have accelerated our pace of innovation to make certain 8×8 customers always have the best and latest video collaboration capabilities as part of the X Series platform.”
The new 8×8 Meetings will include more than 25 additional features for the desktop and mobile application. To further enable collaboration, 8×8 Meetings will also offer an easy to use integrated conference room experience that combines hardware and Meetings software.
These new capabilities are expected to be available in the third quarter of the calendar year 2019.
