Broadsoft and TANDBERG team up on hosted UC video services

BroadSoft announced a partnership with TANDBERG to bundle the BroadWorks Hosted UC applications platform with TANDBERG's portfolio of video solutions. It is good timing with video as The Next Big Thing since voice has matured.

TANDBERG and Broadsoft are proposing that service providers offer a hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to business customers, combining BroadSoft's hosted UC platform with TANDBERG's set of video phones and hardware, including the company's newly announced E20 video phone

Video uses the two companies suggest include a video receptionist with a virtual front desk, video training, video customer care/call center, video mail, and even video ringback greetings for incoming calls. However, most enterprises will want to master the basics of straight videoconferencing before they get into video mail and video customer care.  

There's also the chicken-and-egg problem with video applications; end-users have to make calls in using a compatible video phone to access a video call center, leave video mail, or see a video ringback greeting. Who's footing the bill for the video phone outside of the organizational footprint?

Ironically or prophetically, BroadSoft's former VP of Marketing Scott Wharton left the company to move to Silicon Valley and start up a video venture to work on interoperability and videophone proliferation.

For more:
- Broadsoft announces TANDBERG partnership. Release

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