Westcon announces expanded partnership with AudioCodes for UCaaS provision

Global technology provider and specialist distributor Westcon-Comstor has announced an expanded collaboration with leading communications software vendor AudioCodes. The partnership seeks to develop unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact centre as a service (CCaaS) offerings, providing partners the tools to grow their recurring revenues.

Under this extended agreement, Westcon becomes the first pan-EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) distributor to provide the AudioCodes Live Platform for Microsoft Teams to its partners. The platform digitally consolidates multiple solutions for Microsoft Teams, offering complete calling, contact centre, and recording functionality.

AudioCodes will host the white-labelled platform, leaving Westcon to manage it in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Teams. The platform will enable partners to elevate their customers' Teams UC experience, providing increased flexibility, compliance, and accessibility. Notable features of this platform offering include Teams direct routing, an AI-powered contact centre solution, and enterprise compliance recording.

A joint technical and implementation support will also be made available by Westcon and AudioCodes as part of this integrated solution. Partners will have the ability to interact with their customers via the Westcon-managed platform, through either a service provider or a managed service provider model.

The agreement commences in the UK and Europe and will broaden to cover other countries within the EMEA region in the coming months.

Antony Byford, Vice President Cloud and Collaboration Europe at Westcon-Comstor, expressed his enthusiasm about the collaboration. He stated, "We're excited to bring the power of the AudioCodes Live Platform for Microsoft Teams to our partners and their customers through this innovative collaboration. End-users can sometimes lack expertise around Microsoft Teams unified communications tools. With the AudioCodes Live Platform for Microsoft Teams, we can overcome this by providing a hosted voice solution that our partners can bring to market."

Byford further emphasised that this tool will enable partners to "grow predictable recurring revenues by building as-a-service capabilities and unleashing the full potential of Microsoft Teams for their customers."

Lior Aldema, Chief Business Officer at AudioCodes, supports this view, stating that the AudioCodes Live Platform for Microsoft Teams "is already a proven gamechanger due to its ability to enable service providers to offer a comprehensive Microsoft Teams portfolio with rapid onboarding for their customers." He further noted, "Through this expanded collaboration with Westcon, we're bringing our complete calling and contact centre experience for Microsoft Teams to a broader audience of enterprises and enabling our channel partners to meet their customers' expectations."