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Several UC brands have stepped up to offer free services for the newfound influx of remote workers around the planet. Companies like Avaya, BlueJeans, and Microsoft, normally play more of a background role when it comes to workplace communications. Rarely are these companies spoken about in the mainstream, but once in a while, an event so pivotal occurs, it pretty much catapults them into the society at large.

We have seen that happen over the past few weeks, companies that typically see adaption in the enterprise space now have millions of additional users who work from home for the foreseeable future. The software these companies develop costs thousands of dollars for a commercial license, but today, companies are giving away the popular unified communications and collaboration software because it is simply the right thing to do setting profit aside in many cases.

Weve put together a list of companies that decided safety was more important than making a buck. And this is what companies should do to protect some of the most vulnerable workers such as contact center employees who work in a center with hundreds, sometimes thousands of other agents.

We know it is a challenge maintaining high levels of customer service while making moves to keep employees safe in the face of this global health challenge. This is why, she added, Avayas providing complimentary 90-day licenses for Avaya contact center solutions an Avaya spokesperson told UC Today News.

Avaya also recently announced it would give its Spaces collaboration software for free for those at educational institutions along with eligible non-profits worldwide. We know there is an immediate need in the education sector as school and university administrators consider the safety of their students while ensuring continuity of classes, engagement with students, and delivering on educational objectives, she added.

Avayas also activated a 24-7 COVID-19 helpdesk to answer questions about the free solution and on how to convert agents into remote workers. According to the same spokesperson, since January, Avayas seen a 500 percent increase in video collaboration traffic on the Avaya Spaces platform, which only further stresses the importance of these systems, especially during a pandemic.

In one of the hardest-hit regions in the world, Italians now use Avaya Spaces to communicate with parents, students, and each other to minimize learning disruption amid school closures. They can do things such as securely share documents, coordinate work across teams, assign and track coursework. In conjunction with Avaya, the Italian Regione Liguria government also introduced unified communication solutions to enable employee communication, collaboration, and the exchange of content remotely via chat, multimedia messages, video calls, audio-conferences, as well as collaboration.

Users also gain access to internal office telephone numbers which get diverted to their mobile other devices. Getting a bit more creative, the University of Milan used Avaya solutions for virtual graduation ceremonies. And Johannesburg-based Charter College International High School, moved its classrooms online with Avaya Spaces after schools shut down in South Africa. In another hard-hit area, Spains University of the Balearic Islands used Avaya collaboration technology to deliver courses and training over the internet, enable the continuation of its education programs.

CPaaS giant Twilio already has a non-profit organization Twilio.org. It does a lot to support non-profits in enhancing internal and external communications. The organization announced it will donate $1.5 million to global and local relief efforts for organizations Driving the medical response to COVID-19 which support low-income, at-risk populations. Heres a breakdown of how the money Twilio plans to divide the funds:

According to Twilios Chief Social Impact Officer, Erin Reilly, the company will match employee donations 2:1 for charitable organizations focused on COVID-19 response, including the CDC Foundation, Global Relief International, Give2Asia, and International Medical Corps. She added, Weve engaged employees with virtual volunteer activities, including remote mentoring, too.

Networking giant Ciscos also been hard at work, supporting an increase in users and the number of remote workers it now has. Cisco CEO, Chuck Robbins, wrote in a blog post, This is why Ciscos committed $225 million to support both the global and local response to COVID-19.

Also, we are rallying our 77,000 employees and encouraging them to give what they can to help our community partners on the front lines bolster their operations in this time of need, Robbins added. Eight million dollars will appear in cash donations, with $210 million in the form of products to support healthcare, education, government response, as well as critical technology.

Through Ciscos Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, Cisco said it provides funding for heads of state, government agencies, and businesses to deploy COVID-19-related technology solutions. We also want to empower those on the front lines with access to our critical technologies with our free Webex and security offers. To date, we have helped secure over 2.2 million people online. Ciscos Webex offering facilitated virtual response meetings for the French, Canadian, German, Colombian, and other governments around the world.

Microsoft made its flagship Teams collaboration app free of charge for everyone and released some tools for IT professionals so they can roll out Teams organization-wide with little-to-no hiccups. Microsoft said its seen a 500 percent increase in Teams meetings, calling, and conferences. A 200 percent occurred in Teams usage on mobile devices.

The freemium version of Teams gives users access to unlimited chat, built-in group, and one-on-one audio/video calls. Theres also 10GB of team file storage and 2GB of personal file storage per user along with real-time collaboration. On March 10, 2020, Microsoft rolled out updates to the free version of Teams, lifting restrictions on user limits.

BlueJeans even offered up free access to its video conferencing service for first responders and non-government-organizations helping communities manage outbreaks and protect citizens from further exposure for 90 days with extension available on a need basis.

Mio said its giving anyone who wants a free universal channel to chat with external contacts no matter the collaboration platform they use. Any business deploying work-at-home can gain 30 SBC sessions along with 300 registrations free of charge for 90 days with UC pioneer AudioCodes, the company shared with UC Today.

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COVID-19 Causes UC and Collab Industry to Step Up - UC Today