Kordia has introduced Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams, allowing its customers to access voice and video calling built into the popular Microsoft Office 365 suite.
The development makes Kordia the first telecommunications provider in New Zealand to enable this functionality.
“This is a great development for all New Zealand companies who want to leverage the incredible collaborative power of Teams and Office 365,” says Mark Walton, Microsoft Cloud Productivity Business Leader.
“The challenge organisations face today is how to implement new ways to foster a modern culture of work to better empower workers, enable secure remote access across multiple devices, fuel team work and unlock employees’ creativity. And with Kordia now on board, the Teams and Office 365 tool kit has been truly optimised to empower Kiwi companies,” Walton notes.
Microsoft Teams combines workplace chat, meetings, notes and attachments. It also provides voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and video conference calling functionality. The service is integral to Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription office productivity suite and features extensions that can integrate with non-Microsoft products. Microsoft Teams now has ‘feature parity’ with Skype for Business online; it is intended to replace Skype for Business as a more integrated communication solution within the Office 365 suite.
Murray Goodman, Head of Product at Kordia, explains that while Teams is incorporated in Microsoft Office 365 Premium and Enterprise 3 (and higher) licenses as standard, accessing the service depends on access to the appropriate infrastructure and configuration from your voice provider.
“Teams rolled out in 2017, but until now, its full feature set couldn’t be accessed by local subscribers. By introducing Direct Routing, we can unlock Teams and get our customers more value from their Microsoft licensing spend.”
Goodman explains that the new service allows clients to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Teams allowing them to take full advantage of Microsoft’s Modern Workspace, including its voice capabilities, while using the proven capability and quality of Kordia’s voice services.
“Whether using Skype for Business on-premises, Cloud Connector Edition or for those customers looking to transition directly to Teams, we’ve developed a solution that allows for rapid migration of voice services to create integrated collaboration solutions.”
Kordia’s Microsoft Teams Direct Routing allows for multiple encrypted and dedicated connections into Office 365 for every customer. Features include toll-free numbers from 80+ countries, high quality cost-effective local PSTN conference numbers from 65 countries and secure communication via dedicated voice circuits.
The solution is built on cloud infrastructure with failover to geo-redundant Session Border Controllers, with end-to-end encryption, delivering the reliability and security expected of enterprise communications services.
Goodman notes that Kordia has a lengthy track record in providing voice services on the Microsoft platform, having been a certified Microsoft Voice Partner since 2010. The company paved the way for Microsoft-certified SIP trunking in New Zealand for Lync, which subsequently evolved into Skype for Business, and which is being superseded by Microsoft Teams.
“This has allowed our customers to take advantage of carrier grade call switching with geographically diverse core and multiple national and international routes for quality and value.”
The Kordia-provided Teams direct routing solution is supported 24/7 by Kordia’s team of experts.
Goodman says Kordia’s clients are welcoming the development.
“There’s big demand for the integrated Teams experience. It reduces communications costs and drives collaboration efficiency and convenience. Already, two major customers have signed on for Teams, with plenty of additional interest.”
