Richard Humphreys |
This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.
When The Record spoke to Anders Løkke this time last year, it was clear that Pexip – the Norwegian firm specialising in video collaboration technology – was on the up. But we didn’t quite realise that it was on the brink of a major transformation.
“It’s been a tremendous year for us,” Løkke says. We kick-started 2019 by merging with Videxio, a provider of video conferencing as a service (VCaaS) solutions, before moving into new joint headquarters in Oslo, in April. Pexip now serves more than 300 partners globally, with users in 195 countries. It is led by the founding teams from both companies.”
This all-new Pexip will benefit from a refreshed brand. “We wanted to create a new face for the firm,” Løkke explains. “A lot of customers know Pexip and Videxio as separate entities, but we wanted to create one umbrella brand that reflects the combined offering.”
The merger puts Pexip in a unique position to offer a product portfolio that will meet the needs of a broader range of users, while continuing to introduce innovative solutions to the market. “We’ve created a one-stop shop for both enterprises and smaller customers,” Løkke says. “For the first time, we can also provide our solutions as a service, which is a major coup for us. We can offer both VCaaS and gateway as a service, allowing Cisco users, for example, to quickly and easily bridge into Skype for Business or Teams meetings. We simply and easily enable companies of any size to use both new and existing video conferencing systems to join Microsoft Teams meetings.”
With new people, new offices, new engineers and new initiatives, Pexip undoubtedly has a lot to offer – and Microsoft is taking note. “We’ve seen a lot of change in how we work with Microsoft,” Løkke explains. “We now provide our Cloud Video Interop (CVI) solution for Microsoft Teams as a globally available service. For a long time, we have provided Microsoft-certified CVI as a dedicated application, but with the new service we have extended our capabilities to an easy-to-consume cloud service.”
The Pexip CVI service for Microsoft Teams enables third-party video conferencing systems to join Microsoft Teams meetings with high-quality audio, video and content sharing capabilities, maintaining the Microsoft Teams workflow and experience. The service is based on Pexip’s Microsoft-certified Infinity platform that already is in use at several Fortune 100 companies worldwide.
“Making these capabilities available as a cloud-native and globally available service simplifies deployment, scale and migration to Microsoft Teams from Skype for Business and ensures better use of customers’ existing video conferencing equipment,” Løkke says. It’s essential for enterprises that can easily integrate their existing video conferencing solutions with Microsoft Teams.”
As a result of these new developments, Løkke believes that Pexip can offer its customers greater flexibility than ever before. “It’s much easier for customers to pick a solution that matches their IT environment – whether it’s a full cloud solution, a bridged solution where they begin on premises and move to the cloud at their own pace, or simplify migration from Skype for Business to Teams with full feature parity and continuity between the two platforms,” he says. “We’ve made it really easy to bridge internal and external communications, as well as business to business and business to consumer communications.”
Always pushing forward, Løkke says that Pexip’s evolution won’t stop here. “We’re strengthening everything we do that is customer facing, getting our full spectrum of customers to where they need to be and adapting to our customers’ meeting environment and IT infrastructure. We’ll continue with this user-centric strategy to become even more adapted to how the IT organisation works.”
And this is just the start. The firm is investing in its partners too, recently launching PexAdvantage – an expanded partner programme.
“By reselling Pexip’s cloud-native video conferencing platform, partners can increase their subscription revenues and help customers collaborate on any device, from any location,” Løkke says. “They can also help customers adapt to the needs to today’s modern workforce by enabling simple, reliable meetings on Pexip.”
In addition to Pexip’s meeting platform, partners have access to Pexip’s interoperability solutions to break down barriers between video conferencing tools and enable more seamless collaboration from anywhere. “The PexAdvantage programme gives partners access to Pexip’s full product portfolio with flexible deployment options to meet organisations’ varied security and architecture needs,” Løkke explains. “Our channel partners have a tremendous opportunity to earn more revenue by reselling cloud video conferencing, and we’re committed to helping them succeed.”