EarthLink, Broadview Unveil New IT, Cloud-Based Services

It’s been a busy week for product and service debuts that will generate interest in the channel.

EarthLink announced its new Secure Storefront at the National Retail Federation Show in New York. Available for sale through partners, the Storefront consists of managed security, network and IT services tailored for the retail vertical. It’s designed to help keep retailers safe from threats, maintain PCI compliance, connect with mobile customers and capture business intelligence to support growth.

“Retail IT leaders are challenged with meeting radically changing customer buying behaviors and security threats,” said Peter Chronis, EarthLink’s chief security officer. “Secure Storefront helps them keep up with evolving threats, connect with customers in ways that increase store revenue and provide their executive and marketing teams with actionable, valuable customer insights and business intelligence not previously available.”

Broadview Networks launched MyOfficeSuite, the cloud and IT provider’s online portal that centralizes all of its communications and hosted services into a single website. Broadview says the portal integrates seamlessly with its OfficeSuire products.

The new portal is designed to help employers maintain total control of cloud services from the Web, including managing employee permissions, settings and storage. In addition, Broadview offers ‘round-the-clock tech support.

With MyOfficeSuite, “Broadview … [delivers] a unique, user-friendly platform for both administrators and end-user customers,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst, Infonetics Research. “The portal brings together all of the customer’s hosted services as ‘widgets’ in a highly customizable dashboard that is responsive to Web or mobile access, combined with the ability to manage access control based on user personas.”

Businesses in Detroit and Evansville, Indiana, now have access to WOW!’s high-speed Internet service. The Colorado-based communications and cloud service provider this week said that it is more than doubling its Internet speeds for businesses, up to 110Mbps downstream and 15Mbps upstream. Detroit and Evansville join Chicago, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, as markets in the Midwest where the company serves business customers. WOW! said it’s starting to roll out access in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Kansas as well.

Lifesize has enhanced its cloud video-conferencing service and introduced a pair of new conferencing systems, aimed to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes.

New updates to Lifesize Cloud include the ability to connect directly from a Web browser; seamless integration into existing workflow tools via an Outlook plug-in and Chrome Extension; and interoperability with Microsoft Lync. The new capabilities will be available next month; annual subscription plans start at $25 per month.

Lifesize Icon 400, a new conferencing system, is designed for a very small “huddle room.” It’s easily installed without IT support, Lifesize says, available now starting at $2,500. The new Icon Flex is aimed at businesses that already have a collaboration application such as Microsoft Lync or Skype as a primary meeting option. Icon Flex turns that small meeting room environment into a complete conference-room solution, available in March, starting at $2,000.

They’re all available through Lifesize partners worldwide.

Glowpoint, a Lifesize competitor, debuted its next-generation video service platform for enterprise customers this week. It gives them a cloud-based system for managing video collaboration.

Available now to sell by Glowpoint’s channel partners, the service automates and streamlines incident management, change management and reporting/analytics for IT organizations. It is Web-based and accessible from any device. The video service platform leverages ServiceNow, the SaaS provider.

Business-phone systems provider Fonality has introduced the mobile version of its Heads Up Display (HUD) offering.

Available on iPhones and Android smartphones, HUD Mobile gives users access to the same features they get on the HUD Web application – such as live company director with presence, real-time chat and instant messaging, conference call control and call-center queues. It’s available in two editions – Fonality Professional and Fonality Ultimate – for free in the iTunes App Store or on Google Play. More information on which is right for you or your customer is available here.

LogicNow unveiled an updated version of ControlNow, its integrated IT infrastructure management platform. It now gives personalize alerts for individual users and includes the ability for remote support staff to start, stop and restart Windows Services.  

“This release of ControlNow enables us to further improve our support for larger and more sophisticated organizations and gives those organizations more flexibility in how they deploy the solution,” said Alistair Forbes, general manager of LogicNow

LogicNow was created last fall when GFI Software restructured. The new business unit includes not only ControlNow, but also MAXfocus (formerly GFI MAX) and IASO cloud backup.

For partners selling to vertical markets, Oracle released its new Financial Services Cloud, aimed at financial-services companies that have very specific needs related to security, privacy, compliance and regulation.

The new cloud, available now in the U.S., offers data privacy, compliance services and enterprise-level support. It’s designed to help companies maintain their back-office processes, streamline operations and work efficiently. It’s part of the Oracle Industry Applications Cloud portfolio.

“Designed to address the unique security concerns of the financial services industry, Oracle Financial Services Cloud is a dedicated community cloud with world-class security to empower financial services companies to adopt cloud applications,” said Thomas Kurian, president, Oracle Product Development.

Follow senior online managing editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.