8x8 Raises the Bar on Cloud Communications; New Release Delivers Work From Anywhere Insights and Improved Administrator and User Experience

Rhea-AI Summary

8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) announced enhancements to its 8x8 Open Communications Platform, improving cloud communications and collaboration for organizations. Key updates include a frictionless user experience, expanded global presence, effortless administration capabilities, and deeper analytics. New features support integration with Google and Microsoft calendars, enhanced security, and accessibility for businesses in 42 countries. 8x8's recent recognition as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant further solidifies its market position.

Positive

• Enhanced user experience leading to increased employee productivity and reduced IT costs.
• Expanded global telephony solutions now available in 42 countries.
• Improved security with end-to-end encryption for the 8x8 Work app.
• Recognition as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for nine consecutive years.

Negative

• None.

CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT), a leading integrated cloud communications platform, today announced new 8x8 Open Communications Platform™ enhancements, improving how organizations manage and use communications and collaboration. These new innovations are helping organizations accelerate digital workplace initiatives and optimize employee productivity and customer experiences from anywhere on any device.

“A modern, seamless platform matters. Owning the fully integrated cloud technology stack, from voice, team chat and meetings to contact center, enterprise APIs and programmable applications, enables us to rapidly inject new, innovative capabilities across the 8x8 Open Communications Platform via our microservices architecture,” said Dejan Deklich, Chief Product Officer at 8x8, Inc. “This benefits organizations significantly as it removes friction for both administrators and users, allowing them to easily mix-and-match, manage and use the communications, collaboration and customer engagement features they need in a fast-evolving, operate-from-anywhere business environment.”

The latest 8x8 Open Communications Platform updates empower organizations of all sizes and levels with new, global cloud communications and collaboration features that provide:

Frictionless User Experience: improved, intuitive user experience facilitates employee adoption of mobile-first capabilities and increases engagement and productivity while reducing overall IT support and training costs.

	8x8 Work, a single, integrated app for voice, team chat and video meetings now features:
		•	Automatic presence status sync with Google and Microsoft Office 365 Calendars sets user presence based on calendar events, eliminating manual steps to prevent interruptions while on calls or video meetings.
		•	Dark mode, the ability to mute chat and SMS notifications, and block spam calls and numbers, keeps users focused and productive while working from anywhere.
		•	Amazon Fire OS support and available in the Amazon app store. Users of select Amazon Fire Tablet models can now enjoy the same best-in-class end-user experience and features available on iOS and Android devices, including seamlessly moving from a chat or SMS to a voice call or video meeting at the tap of the finger.

	8x8 Meet is included in the 8x8 Work app or available as a standalone meetings solution, and now includes:
		•	Enhanced security with end-to-end (E2E) encryption for 8x8 Work app users and guests joining via a web browser.
		•	Improved collaboration for large groups with support for up to 100 active participants per meeting.
		•	Optimization of upstream and downstream video quality to adjust for bandwidth consumption or network quality.
		•	In-meeting YouTube video sharing with automatic audio source prioritization for participants.

Expanded Global Presence

• 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams is generally available for users based in 42 countries and successfully delivers an enterprise-class, easy-to-administer global telephony direct routing solution for businesses and organizations while keeping the Microsoft Teams experience unchanged for end users.
• 8x8 X Series is now available for organizations headquartered in the Republic of Ireland, providing full PSTN replacement, localized service plans with domestic and international calling, local direct inward dial (DID) and toll-free numbers and support for billing in Euros. Full service plan details for the Republic of Ireland are available at X Series Ireland.
• Full PSTN replacement providing access to services such as emergency, local and toll free numbers and short code calling were added for South Africa, Greece, Kazakhstan and Peru. This advanced level of support provides faster, simpler implementations for multinational organizations as well as simplified ongoing administration. With the addition of these four countries, 8x8 now provides full PSTN replacement in 42 countries across six continents allowing multinational organizations to consolidate their communications infrastructure globally.

Effortless Administration: resource-constrained IT teams can quickly and easily manage the full communications requirements of a geographically dispersed mobile and remote workforce. New capabilities include:

• New Role-based access controls provide predefined roles, the ability to specify site administrators and granular controls for billing and ordering administrators.
• Easy compliance is now available with emergency services regulatory requirements. The 8x8 Admin Console now allows administrators to send automatic emergency notifications, determine target recipients and customize the notification content.
• Integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enables User Single Sign-On (SSO) configuration, allowing users to authenticate into any 8x8 application using their Azure AD credentials.
• The ability to customize an organizations' video meeting branding by adding a custom background, logo and vanity meeting URLs.

Deeper Insights: new highly scalable analytics platform enables fast, easy analysis of user adoption, system performance, data sharing and organization-wide call and meeting metrics. New features include:

• Detailed meetings analytics enable admins to track product usage and user adoption and to identify and manage audio and video quality issues.
• The enhanced Ring Groups Summary report benefits from 8x8's latest generation analytics platform, which provides administrators faster, easier reporting, more flexible metric comparisons and the ability to rapidly filter and access call detail records. For example, if a ring group shows several abandoned calls, admins can simply sort and find the call detail records of abandoned calls and with one click access call summary information as well as the details such as the call legs, etc.
• The addition of scheduling and API options make it easier than ever to propagate and share reports to aid faster decision making.
• Navigation and display options have also been improved, with new dynamic filtering options that enable users to prioritize and focus upon the data fields that are most relevant to their business needs.

Customer Webinar

Register for the upcoming customer webinar on December 16, 2020, at 8 am PT / 11 am ET to learn about the latest 8x8 Open Communications Platform enhancements.

Gartner Magic Quadrant

Recently, 8x8 was named a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide¹. This is the ninth consecutive year 8x8 has been recognized as a Leader in this report. 8x8 was also recognized as a Challenger in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service².

[1] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide, Rafael Benitez, Megan Fernandez, Daniel O'Connell, Christopher Trueman, Pankil Sheith, November 12, 2020. This Magic Quadrant report name has changed from 2015 onwards- 2015-2020: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide, 2014: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America With Additional Regional Presence, 2012-2013: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America.

[2] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service, Steve Blood, Drew Kraus, Pri Rathnayake, November 9, 2020.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. Readers are directed to 8x8’s periodic and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a description of such risks and uncertainties. 8x8 undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

About 8x8, Inc.

8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact center, and API solutions powered by one global cloud communications platform. 8x8 empowers workforces worldwide to connect individuals and teams so they can collaborate faster and work smarter. Real-time business analytics and intelligence provide businesses unique insights across all interactions and channels so they can delight end-customers and accelerate their business. For additional information, visit www.8x8.com, or follow 8x8 on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

8x8® and 8x8 X Series™ are trademarks of 8x8, Inc.