Liquid showcases platform
PAN-AFRICAN technology group, Liquid Intelligent Technology (Liquid) Zimbabwe on Friday hosted a Cloud and Cybersecurity event in the capital to officially launch OneVoice for Operator Connect, a videoconferencing platform.
Introduced in November 2021 as a pilot project, OneVoice for Operator Connect aims to enhance collaboration in the remote/hybrid work environment by integrating traditional telephony calling within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.
Through the OneVoice for Operator Connect platform, Liquid will allow Microsoft customers around the world to integrate telephone plans piloted in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda and Uganda initiated from Microsoft Teams.
Speaking at the event, Cloud and Cybersecurity for Liquid southern African region executive head Munyaradzi Stanley Choto said the platform was a revolutionary solution to maintain human connections in a digital world.
Choto said businesses should switch to the platform for better business cost accountability.
“As voices matter, human interaction and idea cohesion are at the core of business productivity. Liquid Intelligent Technologies is proud to pioneer a seamless solution for voice call integration into Microsoft Teams called OneVoice for Operator Connect,” he said.
“The product OneVoice for Operator Connect effortlessly automates Public Switched Telephony Network calling to the Microsoft Teams platform, providing Liquid Intelligent Technologies’ customers centralised access and control of traditional voice calling on their Microsoft 365 suite.”
Choto noted that in the digital age, the in-office corridors chats, the desk-to-desk quick catch-ups and informal customer conversation that many used to maintain person-to-person connections now need to happen virtually.
“The offering gives businesses better control over voice minutes at the client’s IT departments which will give unprecedented access to monitoring and managing calls according to their needs,” he said.
Choto also pointed out that Liquid offers a flat-rate calling for domestic plans and competitive rates for international plans that will give customers great budget management for their calls.
“With OneVoice for Operator Connect, a customer can now have the option of getting phone numbers integrated into your teams, Microsoft teams application. At the same time, customers also have the capability of having a PBX integrated in the cloud without actually getting physical infrastructure to offer that service,” he said, noting that business in Africa could entrust Liquid to manage this contemporary integration solution because Liquid is Microsoft’s only OneVoice for Operator Connect distributor on the continent.
“Liquid will manage the services on the back end for its clients. Customers’ IT departments need not concern themselves with the services’ administration as they will provide a fully operational service team to assist with set up and maintenance.
“This will reduce the clients’ time and effort spent internally administering the services. Thus, businesses can focus on being viable and productive, and their IT departments can repurpose resources to identify revenue generation streams for their organisations, among other areas to explore,” Choto added.
Liquid is currently running a promotion which started on July 1, whereby if a customer subscribes on their Microsoft basic business standard or the basic business premier package, they get two months free for a year in advance.
Part of business mogul Strive Masiyiwa’s empire, Liquid has built Africa’s largest independent fibre network, stretching more than 100 000km, and operates data centres in five African countries with plans to expand to 10 more countries in the next two years.
In the past few months, Liquid has partnered multinational technology giants such as Google and Unitas Global as part of its strategic evolution to become Africa’s leading digital solutions provider, offering superior data centre, Cloud, Cyber Security and Managed IT services.-newsday
