Category: MENA

Zoom Phone Appliances Provide an All-In-One Desk Phone Solution for Calls and Meetings, with Hardware Solutions from Poly and Yealink

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) today announced the launch of Zoom Phone Appliances, a new category of hardware optimized for the hybrid workforce, from home offices to shared huddle spaces, addressing use cases across industries. Zoom Phone Appliances combine Zoom technology with hardware from Poly and Yealink to provide video and audio capabilities and touch display, in an all-in-one desk phone solution for HD video meetings, phone calls, and interactive whiteboarding.

“Zoom continues to demonstrate fast pace of innovation and ability to scale globally with its robust cloud phone offering, Zoom Phone,” said Elka Popova, VP of Connected Work Research at Frost & Sullivan. “Zoom Phone has always been a disruptive alternative to legacy phone solutions and the new appliance program further enhances its value proposition by enabling businesses to video-enable workspaces with purpose-built appliances that are easy to procure, deploy, and manage.”

“The traditional workplace is evolving and adapting, and our goal is to empower the workforce to accomplish more by blurring the lines between voice and video,” said Graeme Geddes, Head of Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms at Zoom. “The new Zoom Phone Appliance program boasts a selection of purpose-built Zoom Phone hardware from Poly and Yealink, streamlining communications, removing friction, and enabling a powerful communications experience.”

Zoom Phone Appliances simplify licensing, installation, use, and management, benefitting both the end users and IT departments. Additional highlights of Zoom Phone Appliances include:

• A full-featured desk phone with powerful Zoom capabilities. Zoom Phone Appliances are always on, and always ready for instant communication and collaboration. Easily start ad-hoc or scheduled meetings, make and receive phone calls, check voicemail, and virtually collaborate with content sharing and annotation
• Centralized management through Zoom Admin Portal: Simplified, scalable, centralized management with remote provisioning and updates
• No additional licensing required: Login to a Zoom Phone Appliance with your Zoom account and create an instant office experience
• Personalized for the user: Syncs with the user calendar, status, meeting settings, and phone for an integrated video-first unified communications experience
• Simplified onboarding with Zero-touch provisioning: Minimizes need for IT support with a simplified set-up and user experience
• Touch display with interactive whiteboarding: Collaborate with colleagues with interactive whiteboarding that can easily be exported and shared
• Zoom Certified: Zoom Phone Appliances are introducing a new certified hardware category, ensuring these devices are purpose-built for an optimal Zoom Phone and meetings experience. More devices will be added to this category over time

The inaugural class of Zoom Phone Appliances features innovative solutions from two Zoom hardware partners — Poly and Yealink — with others to follow.

Poly CCX 600 Desk Phone and CCX 700 Desk Phone with integrated video camera

“We are excited to be among the first to integrate a native Zoom experience into our Poly CCX family, as Zoom Phone Appliances,” said John Lamarque, Vice President and General Manager, Voice Collaboration, Poly. “This brings the Zoom platform that we all know and love front and center on the device’s touch display, providing a powerful and immersive experience.”

Yealink VP59 Smart Video Phone

“We are delighted to unveil the new, reliable, and cutting-edge VP59 video phone, a Zoom Phone Appliance,” said Alvin Liao, Vice President of Product, at Yealink. “The VP59 video phone’s touch display will be powered by Zoom’s industry-leading video communications platform, providing customers with a user-friendly interface and intuitive experience.”

Zoom Phone Appliances are available through the Zoom Hardware-as-a-Service program as well as from authorized Poly and Yealink resellers. To learn more about Zoom Phone Appliances, visit the Zoom Phone Appliances website and read our blog.

About Zoom
Zoom is for you. We help you express ideas, connect to others, and build toward a future limited only by your imagination. Our frictionless communications platform is the only one that started with video as its foundation, and we have set the standard for innovation ever since. That is why we are an intuitive, scalable, and secure choice for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ:ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Visit zoom.com and follow @zoom.

Zoom Public Relations
Farshad Hashmatulla
Product PR Manager
press@zoom.us

The fully integrated, easy, and secure payments solution is now available in the US, Canada, Europe and United Kingdom, to save Hoteliers time and money.

SAN DIEGO, June 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cloudbeds, the fastest growing hospitality management platform, announced the launch of a fully integrated payments solution and a new Financial Services division in the US, Canada, UK, and EU. Cloudbeds Payments is a robust payment solution that provides hoteliers an affordable and efficient method of managing all types of payments. Cloudbeds Payments features a state-of-the-art terminal, transparent fees, built-in reporting, analytics, security, and world-class (in-house) support that hoteliers need to focus on their guests rather than time-consuming payments acceptance and reconciliation.

A video accompanying this announcement is available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8a6b2363-8d1b-4e56-9a1c-44eeda1b9bfb

Typically, hospitality payment solutions are complicated and are time-consuming, which impacts guest relations with inconsistent and slow customer service while consuming too much hoteliers’ time with management and reconciliation. Hoteliers can now avoid manual card entry and lengthy verification processes with third-party vendors. Instead, payments are quick, easy, and completely integrated into the Cloudbeds platform.

“The best part about Cloudbeds Payments is that it’s fully integrated into their existing interface,” says Tarek, Finance Manager, Convo 212 in Athens, Greece. “My guests pay directly on my website and it’s immediately reflected in their reservation and on our reports. It accepts all credit card payments, handles the verification process and makes reconciliation a breeze.”

“Our previous payments process was very lengthy – manual card entry, the verification process, reconciliation, chargebacks, disputes – it took too much time and effort. Cloudbeds Payments helped us speed up every aspect of the customer payment process. It’s easy and efficient for guests to book and for us to manage,” remarks Austin, Property Manager at Rancho Caymus Inn in Napa Valley, California. “Cloudbeds Payments saves our staff so much time.”

In keeping with its focus of innovating to help hoteliers build revenue, save time, and increase guest satisfaction, the Cloudbeds’ Financial Services division has built a next-generation solution that will save properties 10 to 15 hours per month in reconciliations. In addition to its world-class support team, Cloudbeds Payments offers an in-house dispute management team composed of industry experts who intimately understand the hospitality business to better support hoteliers and guests. Cloudbeds expects to roll out Payments to additional countries in the upcoming months, including Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand.

“Cloudbeds is on a mission to empower lodging businesses with every tool they need to emerge from the pandemic successfully,” says Richard Castle, Co-Founder, and COO. “Cloudbeds creates a seamless experience that elevates every aspect of their business – from how their staff operates to their guest experience. Our payments solution is the first of several upcoming financial services designed to help lodging businesses spend more time with their guests and less time managing their property.”

About Cloudbeds

Founded in 2012, Cloudbeds is the fastest growing hospitality management platform in the world. Its SaaS platform provides tools to manage better properties of all types and sizes, allowing property managers/owners more time to focus on their guests while building revenue, driving bookings, and increasing operational efficiencies. Trusted by more than 20,000 hotels, hostels, inns, and alternative accommodations in more than 155 countries, the Cloudbeds suite is a fully integrated platform of capabilities designed to help properties unify their management, reservations, and booking systems, grow revenue, and automate workflows with confidence and ease. For more information, visit www.cloudbeds.com.

Media Contact:

Austin Edgington
austin@austinedgecomms.com

Portfolio Includes 734 multifamily apartments, 1,264 planned multifamily units, and 117 luxury condominium residences

NEW YORK, June 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Madison Realty Capital, a fully integrated real estate private equity firm focused on debt and equity investment strategies, today announced it has provided a $278.5 million construction loan for a portfolio of four assets located in Austin, Texas to Reger Holdings, LLC, a New York-based real estate investment and development company led by CEO Gordon Reger, a third-generation member of the Reger/Mader family who founded the company.

The portfolio is comprised of two mixed-use multifamily properties and 317 acres of entitled land with plans to develop 1,264 multifamily residential units, known as the EastVillage, located along the Parmer Lane tech corridor in northeast Austin and a luxury condominium in downtown Austin known as The Linden Residences. Reger Holdings contributed significant cash equity for the construction.

Josh Zegen, Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Madison Realty Capital, said, “This transaction highlights Madison Realty Capital’s solutions-oriented approach and unique ability to serve as a single source financing provider to a highly reputable borrower. Austin is a rapidly growing, vibrant city experiencing exceptional economic growth but faces high barriers to entry. The Parmer Lane tech corridor is home to some of the most prominent Austin employers and some of the nation’s most innovative companies, including Tesla, Apple, Samsung, Oracle, Dell, Facebook, and 3M. However, the city is facing an undersupply of the high-quality housing options that employees in the Parmer Lane tech corridor demand. We look forward to working with Reger, a best-in-class developer with a strong balance sheet, to complete future phases of development in Austin and continue to identify attractive opportunities for our investors and partners throughout Texas and the Southwest.”

“Madison Realty Capital’s senior financing for the EastVillage and the Linden marks an exciting milestone for both projects,” said Gordon Reger.  “We are pleased to work with a single capital source that has the flexibility to finance these diverse projects.”

The mixed-use residences are comprised of two development sites across 29 acres within the over 400-acre master site planned for the EastVillage. The first EastVillage development will offer 312 luxury apartment units across six garden-style apartment buildings with top-tier amenities, including a fitness center, courtyard, dog grooming station and swimming pool. The second EastVillage development will consist of an additional 422 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment units with state-of-the-art finishes, fitness center, game room, yoga studio, and 143,000 square feet of commercial space. Future phases of development for EastVillage involve 317 acres of land approved for 1,264 multifamily units, 240 hotel keys and over one million square feet of commercial space. The EastVillage is adjacent to Samsung’s Semiconductor chipmaking plant, one of Austin’s largest employers, which recently announced plans to expand with a $17 billion chipmaking facility.

Located at 313 West 17^th Street in downtown Austin near the State Capital and the University of Texas at Austin, The Linden Residences is a 28-story luxury condominium project that will offer 117 one- to three-bedroom units, 5,196 square feet of ground floor retail and 251 parking spaces. The amenity rich units have been substantially sold to date.

Newmark Executive Managing Director David Douvadjian, Senior Managing Director, Brian Butler, and Director, David Douvadjian, Jr., served as advisors to Madison Realty Capital in the deal.

About Madison Realty Capital

Madison Realty Capital is a New York City based real estate private equity firm focused on debt and equity investment strategies with regional offices in key markets including Los Angeles and Dallas. Founded in 2004, MRC has closed on approximately $14 billion of transactions in the multifamily, retail, office, industrial and hotel sectors nationwide. The firm manages investments in the United States on behalf of a global investor base. MRC is a fully integrated firm with over 60 employees across all real estate investment, development, and property management disciplines. Among other industry recognitions, MRC has been named to the Commercial Observer’s prestigious “Power 100” list of New York City real estate players and is consistently cited as one of the industry’s top construction lenders. To learn more, follow us on LinkedIn and visit www.madisonrealtycapital.com.

Attachments

• Linden Residences
• East village 1

Nathaniel Garnick/Grace Cartwright
Gasthalter & Co.
(212) 257-4170
madisonrealty@gasthalter.com

TORONTO, June 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sophi.io, The Globe and Mail’s artificial intelligence-powered optimization and prediction platform, was announced as a winner of the International News Media Association (INMA) Global Media Awards in two categories, Best Use of Data to Automate or Personalize, and Best in Show for North America.

“The INMA Global Media Awards focus on excellence across all areas of the media business,” said Phillip Crawley, Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail. “I’m particularly pleased that Sophi’s fully dynamic, real-time, personalized paywall won in two categories, and that Sophi’s ground-breaking automated print laydown technology was nominated for its use with Naviga and Agderposten.”

Sophi also took second place in the categories of Best Initiative to Acquire Subscribers and Best Use of Data to Drive Subscriptions, Content, or Product Design and was shortlisted as a finalist in the following categories: Best Initiative to Register Users, and Best Product and Tech Innovation.

This year’s competition drew 644 entries from 212 news brands in 37 countries. The judges were 44 global media experts focused on breakthrough results, unique concepts, strong creativity, innovative thinking, and winner synergies across platforms.

“Great use of data with huge impact. Personalizing paywalls is key for success in the digital subscription business for news media. This entry presents more evidence why this is true,” one judge said about the paywall technology. “Their development of user- and content-propensity models is a best practice that others can learn from,” said another judge.

Another judge remarked: “Incredible Artificial Intelligence-driven personalization, and perfect embracing of the need to insert data-science talent into a news organization. Excellent impact and numbers.”

Sophi’s fully dynamic, personalized, real-time paywall uses natural language processing (NLP) to analyze both content and user behaviour to determine when to ask a reader for money or an email address, and when to leave them alone. It can optimize for multiple outcomes simultaneously (such as different bundles or price points) and also works well in cold-start situations.

Sophi is an AI platform that helps publishers identify their most valuable content and leverage it to achieve key business goals, such as maximizing subscriptions. Publishers on four continents now use Sophi’s AI/ML technology to power paywall decisions, website automation and print automation.

Sophi’s automated print laydown solution, which powers Naviga Publisher, earned an honourable mention in the Best Product and Tech Innovation category. An INMA judge commented: “Sophi – as the first of its kind – is a great example of an automated print laydown solution. Amazing to see that the work of the editor is reduced only to the selection of the content. The automation of up to 80% of newspapers’ editorial pages could be a game-changer of the print industry.”

Last year, Sophi also won the Online Journalism Award (OJA) for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism, handed out by the Online News Association (ONA), and both the World Digital Media Award and the North American Digital Media Award awarded by The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in the category of Best Digital News Start-up.

About Sophi.io
Sophi.io (https://www.sophi.io) was developed by The Globe and Mail to help content publishers make important strategic and tactical decisions. It is a suite of AI and ML-powered optimization and prediction tools that includes Sophi Site Automation and Sophi Dynamic Paywall as well as Sophi Analytics, a decision-support system for content publishers. Sophi is designed to improve the metrics that matter most to your business, such as subscriber retention and acquisition, engagement, recency, frequency and volume.

Media Contact  
Jamie Rubenovitch 
Head of Marketing, Sophi 
The Globe and Mail         
416-585-3355  
jrubenovitch@globeandmail.com