Enterprise Communications

Fuze for Enterprise

by Dave Michels

If you haven’t checked out Fuze lately, they are worth another look.  It’s a video/WebEx type service with a very compelling freemium model. Besides the pricing, there’s a few things that make this service extremely enticing.

  • Enterprise Integration: Fuze plays with Outlook, Google Calendar, Microsoft Lync, Box, Okta, and Dropbox.
  • Works phone desktops, phones, and tablets
  • HD Video, screen sharing, documents, and file transfer
  • Because it integrates with Okta’s identity management, it can be deployed and managed centrally across teams or organizations fairly rapidly
  • Fuze was known as Fuzebox. The company re-branded in April 2014. At that time it also began shifting its marketing focus from consumer to also include enterprise.
  • Fuze does not look at video as a destination, but as an enabler to integrate video into workflow.
  • Fuze enables multiple types of collaboration
    • Peer to Peer: ad-hoc, Remote Supervision, …
    • External one to one: Interviews, sales, telemed, …
    • Internal Group: Team meetings, presentations, All hands, training…
    • External one to many & many to many: presentations, webinars, training….
  • The Freemium model invites testing and pilots
    Free: up to 25 participants (12 HD), free VoIP, screen and content sharing, 1GB storage.
    Pro: Adds Unlimited free PSTN, expands to 125 participants, recording.
    Enterprise: Adds corporate directory integration, SSO, mgmt and analytics console, custom branding.
  • Pro is billed $8 per user per month, enterprise is annual.
  • International PSTN services are available through BT partnership
  • For room systems you can do something like the Logitech BCC3000e and your own computer,  or connect to Blue Jeans or use other on-premises gear via H.264. There is also Fuze for Rooms – a DIY solution that runs on a Mac Mini.
  • Fuze for Rooms is optimized for shared meeting spaces/rooms (with a few new features). It is a new license type for the service that combines with off-the-shelf hardware (Mac Mini w/ keyboard & mouse, camera, microphone, etc.). It looks similar in concept as the Chromebox for Meetings room system approach. It offers a few new features including the ability to join or launch instant meetings from a welcome screen and optimizing the visual layout across two monitors. A user can see a room’s availability via presence and instantly add it to a discussion from the Fuze application. I don’t see high end enterprise features such as remote PTZ controls, but its price is fairly compelling at $240 per year, per room (requires a minimum of 25 Fuze Enterprise licenses).
  • The underlying technology is powered by Vidyo. It’s a good example of what you can do with the Vidyo Toolkit – build your own video systems or any type of application that utilizes video technologies. Vidyo is just the toolkit. Other Vidyo-based applications will be completely different.
  • The current CEO, David Obrand, came to Fuze in late 2013. Brings direct cloud experience from Yammer and Salesforce.

I like freemium. I also think cloud-based video makes a lot of sense.  There is no shortage of Video as a Service options, but not many that have enterprise class features.

You can try out Fuze at https://www.fuze.com.