After two years of intensive study of people and work and the impact of technology on productivity, Unify today announced from WSJDLIVE, The Wall Street Journal's inaugural technology conference, and an event with design firm frog in Munich, that it has defined and now delivered a completely new category of technology for the way people and companies will work moving forward.
Combining art and science to revolutionize collaboration, Unify has created Circuit, previously known as Project Ansible. Circuit operates from a single-pane-of-glass that brings together voice, video, screen sharing, messaging, and file sharing. Circuit removes the burden of app switching from people so they can focus on connecting, innovating and collaborating. It is a platform that stores and manages information through associations and conversations.
"No other enterprise vendor has approached the challenge of work and productivity like Unify," said Dean Douglas, CEO at Unify. "We thought about people first as we set out to study the problems of work today. How do we help people feel good about their work experience, when do they feel most connected, valued and productive. We created an experience that mimics the brain, and naturally transforms the collaborative process, and teamwork. Simply put, we've enabled a New Way to Work that is about people first—that is our passion. With our focus on making work more enjoyable we know it leads to more productivity, which makes people happier and then enables them to create greater value for our customer—the enterprise."
First debuted to wide acclaim from customers and analysts in June 2013 and designed in collaboration with frog, Circuit empowers teams to engage in rich and meaningful conversations across virtually any communications channel or device resulting in dramatically improved team productivity. Circuit is a completely new and innovative software offering designed to extend beyond the promises of Unified Communications (UC) supporting recognized industry megatrends like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), addressing the role of millennials in the workforce, their requirements of mobility and the rise of the Anywhere Worker.
"Circuit is a great example of how work technology should work and how we as users want it to work," said Stowe Boyd, Research Lead at GigaOm. "Circuit's user experience is based on a deep understanding of how today's teams want to connect, communicate and work together on a daily basis."
Unify conducted customer beta trials over the last five months to gather further feedback on the user experience, with responses from C-Level, line-of-business end user, and IT customers. More than 80% said the unique value proposition that Circuit presents is valuable to their business.
Leveraging the latest technology trends, Circuit is the first enterprise-class communications and collaboration offering to leverage WebRTC standards, providing high-quality video and voice from a browser, PC, tablet or phone, while utilizing bandwidth resources very efficiently. Key capabilities of Circuit today include:
Single-pane of glass. Circuit is one web application that brings together all types of media including voice, video, screen share, textual messaging, and content sharing into a single place. Users can collaborate in whatever modality feels most natural to them in one intuitive, collaborative application.
Powerful and contextual search capabilities. With Circuit, all content is easy to find. The ability to search and filter by search terms and people, enables users to quickly find the things they need, whenever they need them.
Content storage and history. Circuit provides instantaneous access to files and information shared within conversations over time. Everything stays within the context of the conversation, keeping everything that is relevant together in one place.
Social collaboration. Circuit users participate in private one-to-one, group, or company-wide conversations, where all content and communications is shared in an ongoing, free flowing and continuous conversation stream, that moves with them wherever they go.
Natural user experience. Circuit's simplicity takes collaborating to a new level. The intuitive user interface provides a more natural and social collaboration experience that is the same on all Circuit devices—from Chrome web browser, iPhone®, or iPad®. Support for Android™ will be available in January 2015.
