AVST, collab9 Collaborate for Government-Ready UCaaS

Unified communications vendor Applied Voice & Speech Technologies Inc. (AVST) and collab9, a UCaaS leader with UCaaS FedRAMP authorization, today announced that the two companies are partnering to develop and deploy secure, cloud-based unified communications that meet federal, state and local government requirements.

Each company brings to the table its own unique technology. A joint solution will combine AVST’s CX-E, a UC platform, with collab9’s secure, hosted UC solutions.

Executives from both companies expect the partnership to accelerate the transformation to the cloud for the government sector.

collab9’s Steve Boberski

“We believe that a multivendor UC solution set is essential to an organization’s transformation to a secure cloud environment,” said Steve Boberski, vice president of business development for collab9, contending that the introduction of new technology in the public sector has been hampered by the limited availability of proprietary, OEM-driven solutions.

“collab9’s partnership with AVST enables us to offer an accelerated migration path through a secure integration to legacy TDM, hybrid and VoIP telephony solutions. By removing proprietary application instances from the cloud, we are introducing a new level of agility, flexibility and scalability that has, until now, been unavailable to the public sector,” he added.

AVST offers two CX-E products: CX-E Premise and CX-E Cloud. CX-E Cloud offers secure voice messaging, automated attendant, unified messaging, mobile client, speech-enabled personal assistant, call center, IVR and notification. The platform interoperates with existing solutions such as Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft, among others, according to the vendor.

collab9’s UCaaS components include voice, messaging, presence, mobility and conferencing. The vendor serves the SLED, commercial and federal business sectors.

The secure hosted UC vendor was the first UCaaS provider to be authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) receiving its Authority to Operate (ATO) from the FCC in 2016.

Today, collab9’s FedRAMP-authorized UCaaS solution integrates the following communication services: unified messaging integrating voicemail and email; video calls; mobility, IM and presence (Jabber); customer care applications (contact center); integration with Microsoft O365, Skype for Business and Gmail; and, E911 functionality, according to the company.