Dialpad Acquires Highfive for Enhanced Video Capabilities

Dialpad has acquired Highfive, a video conferencing company, to unify voice, text and video conferencing on a single platform.

The acquisition grows the Dialpad team and product portfolio, adding enhancements to video capabilities across its business communications platform. Dialpad didn’t release financial details of the acquisition.

Craig Walker is Dialpad‘s CEO. He said businesses are supporting a more flexible, work-from-anywhere environment for their employees; therefore, the need for high-quality video is crucial to keep their employees feeling connected.

Dialpad’s Craig Walker

“When workers do head back into the office, the meeting room experience will have a higher priority to support participants both inside and outside the office,” he said. “This acquisition means Dialpad partners can offer a greater number of work-from-anywhere solutions … from a single trusted vendor.”

Using Highfive’s technology, Dialpad will improve its capabilities to transform any home office, huddle room or office space into a smart meeting room experience. And it will work with existing hardware and SIP-enabled conferencing providers, the company said.

“Better supporting hybrid work environments will be a requirement for partners,” Walker said. “Being able to meet this need together with a vendor they’ve worked with in the past and already trust, whether that be Dialpad or Highfive, makes life easier in many ways. Having an expanded product portfolio translates to partners having more ways to provide value to their new or existing customers, which in turn means more revenue.”

Expansion Opportunities for Partners

A partner that has only worked with either Dialpad or Highfive can revisit satisfied customers, Walker said. They can explore whether there is an expansion opportunity. That could include adding phone lines to a room conference system or adding conference room equipment to a phone system.

“As the product road maps come together longer term, partners will have the opportunity to sell unified collaboration tools featuring seamless integration,” Walker said. “What’s more, these will be available from a single vendor, allowing for easier administration and partner support even better than what they have today.”

Dialpad’s Joe Manuele

Joe Manuele now is a full-time adviser and previously Highfive‘s CEO.

“For Highfive partners, it means they’ll have an opportunity to sell not only video conferencing solutions. But also, the cloud-based business phone and contact center solutions that Dialpad offers,” he said. “We will be providing more details soon.”

The best of both companies’ channel programs will be integrated, but there’s no timeline for that yet, Manuele said.