Genband tempts IBM with Kandy cloud

Real-time communications company Genband has got involved with IBM to deliver a bunch of cloud-based enterprise comms goodness.

The terms ‘unified communications’ and ‘collaboration platform’ appear with dogged regularity throughout the announcement, such that this appears very much to be a direct attach on Cisco’s enterprise comms domain. Genband is contributing its Kandy Business Solutions which IBM is chipping in with its Connections Cloud.

“The beauty of this platform is that we are collectively delivering a comprehensive cloud-based offering that combines our leadership in carrier-grade voice and UC solutions with IBM’s world-class social collaboration capabilities without compromising functionality,” said David Walsh, CEO of Genband. “We are providing our customers and partners access to ground-breaking collaboration capabilities that include cognitive intelligence and provides our reseller partners a truly differentiated offering.”

“Our customers have made it clear that they want best-in-class collaboration tools that fit their unique environments, but not at the expense of value,” said Katrina Troughton, GM of Social and Smarter Workforce Solutions at IBM. “To prepare for the future of collaboration in the workplace, Genband and IBM are innovating how employees unify their communications and engage with each other based on their location and schedule.”

They also got a couple of channel partners – VanRan Communications and Atlas Communications Technology – to speak up too, but it was essentially more of the same marketing speak so we’ll spare you the gory details.

UC and business collaboration has been a big thing for a while and is a good example of where the comms and IT worlds collide. It is therefore unsurprising to see this area head in a cloudy direction, and to see companies from both sectors combine to serve up solutions. Cisco will be a major competitor for this collaboration, as will Microsoft and ambitious specialist players like Mitel.