technologyreseller.co.uk 09 PARTNERSHIPS this is not an aggressive, forced migration or an aggressive, forced end of life. It's very much about demonstrating the additional value and encouraging people to move. It's much more carrot than stick.” User benefits So what are some of the benefits of Horizon for Webex for customers and how impactful will they really be? “First, there’s the general-purpose use case of people wanting to expand their use of the platform, for example being able to take their telephone number home with them, as it were, on a mobile or laptop. That's a general thing, and the overall experience of that is better. The video experience is better. The IM is better,” said Wade. “Then, there are specific use cases concerning things people may not particularly think about today, things like audio processing. If you're on a call with someone in a busy train station, it can be difficult to separate what’s being said from background noise. The audio processing in Webex means that both ends of that call benefit from AI processing to make the call clearer. That may sound a bit abstract and techie, but if you’re a small business and you're trying to take down details over the phone, it's easy to get an email address wrong. Suddenly, you've not just missed the business, you've created a bad experience for that customer. The technology in Horizon for Webex will level up everyone's ability to have productive conversations. "Then, there are benefits for specific industries, like professional services where you might bill in 15-minute increments. After a half-hour phone call, you might take 30 minutes to write up your notes, document actions and distribute them. AI and some of the SKUs in the Webex client can transcribe that conversation and summarise action points automatically, saving time that can be spent on billable work. Only by working with one of the global hyperscalers are we able to deliver that sort of capability through to every organisation in the UK.” Growing partnership The launch of Horizon for Webex is the latest initiative in Gamma’s strategic partnership with Cisco. This received a boost at the end of July with Gamma’s acquisition of BrightCloud Group, Cisco’s leading European Enterprise partner for CCaaS, and is due to be strengthened further at Gammaverse 2024 on October 10 when Gamma will announce the addition of Cisco’s Webex Calling cloud-based phone system to its enterprise offering. “We want to make sure that we are moving ahead of the market, and we can't do that with self-developed platforms,” explained Wade. “We made that decision some time ago, and Cisco has the attributes you want from a partner – it’s global, partner-centric and has sensible commercials and good products.” www.gammagroup.co On September 16 Gamma is improving the communications and collaboration experience for users of its Horizon phone system with the launch of Horizon for Webex. Leveraging its long relationship with Cisco and before that BroadSoft (acquired by Cisco in 2018), Gamma is layering the Cisco Webex client over the BroadSoft platform used by Gamma Horizon, effectively bringing together Gamma’s experience in connectivity and voice services with Cisco’s technological expertise. Horizon for Webex will replace all versions of Horizon Collaborate, the previous client developed by Gamma, and give users a single point of contact for all their communication and collaboration needs. “Bringing the Webex client over the BroadSoft platform means people can continue to leverage the investment they've made in Gamma Horizon but start to benefit from the investment Cisco is making in its platform, in things like AI, in noise reduction, in collaboration capability, in video, so that they get the best of both worlds,” explained Gamma Chief Marketing and Product Officer Chris Wade. Gamma plans to migrate all Horizon users onto Horizon for Webex and, following a number of pilots, has already developed tools and guidance to help partners and customers through that process. “What we've seen in the first instance is that that move was far from painless, and in certain use cases was quite painful, but we've been able to learn from that experience and develop tooling to support that migration so that everybody should be able to see a much richer experience and a much smoother experience of moving from one to the other. Over time we'll obviously turn those old services off,” said Wade. There is no timescale for doing this, but Wade is confident that the benefits of the new client will motivate users to make the switch sooner rather than later. “Initial feedback from partners who've been part of our early adopter program has been very positive, and that gives us reason to be relatively bullish, but you never really know until you run a reasonable volume of people through that migration experience how good, bad or indifferent it is going to be. At this stage, More carrot than stick Gamma strengthens Cisco partnership with launch of Horizon for Webex Chris Wade
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