8×8, Inc., a Sunnyvale, CA provider of business communications and managed hosting solutions, now offers small and medium businesses (SMBs) a set of affordable cloud based video conferencing services that enable these organizations to benefit from visual collaboration. This new service is based on 8×8’s voice and video IP service platform and UC (unified communications) solutions and technology provided by Polycom, Inc.
This new video conferencing offering combines the 8×8 SIP-based communications services with the Polycom® UC Intelligent Core™ in a new “8×8 Virtual Room” service offering that lets customers add HD video conferencing as another extension to their regular hosted business communications from 8×8. The Polycom UC Intelligent Core enables high quality, reliable collaboration to help SMBs improve productivity and reduce costs.
This new cloud based model offers SMBs the opportunity to access video conferencing technology that is designed to be affordable, easy to operate, and not dependent on on-site IT resources to manage.
Using 8×8’s UC technologies, the service makes scheduling, initiating, and managing continuous presence visual and high definition audio collaboration across multiple endpoints possible by clicking on a web page or dialing into a conference bridge. The service calls for a monthly fee for unlimited use. The 8×8 service also eliminates the need for the customer to configure firewalls, open ports or use public IP addresses due to its built-in NAT/firewall traversal technologies. The offering supports multi-party continuous presence video conferencing services on a hosted, ad-hoc basis in a highly available and redundant manner, eliminating the need to purchase, maintain, and operate a video bridging system.
