RingCentral has broadened its collaboration platform through the acquisition of select assets from Hopin, an online audience engagement technology provider.
This acquisition includes Hopin’s flagship Events platform and Session product, signaling a strategic move by RingCentral to bring customers more dynamic, interactive video solutions through virtual events.
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Hopin Provides a Single Solution for Hybrid Events
Hopin Events is a one-stop shop for managing all aspects of an event. Using the platform, companies can easily set up and run events that are completely online, or a mix of online and in-person events like conferences, training sessions, or even virtual expos with sponsor booths.
The platform provides unique features, such as the ability to host multiple sessions at once, tools for networking, and options to sign up and register for events. While many collaboration vendors offer a virtual event platform, few have a hybrid solution where the in-person and digital events can be managed simultaneously.
Hopin Session makes meetings more interactive and personalized. With Session, companies can customize the user experience through things like breakout rooms for smaller group discussions, polls to gauge attendees’ opinions, and much more. The idea is to make meetings feel less like a one-sided presentation and more like a group conversation.
RingCentral Rounds out Its Portfolio with Hybrid Events
With Hopin’s technology, RingCentral can offer a more rounded service portfolio. However, the acquisition wasn’t only about technology, as it brings nearly 100 Hopin employees, many of them technical experts, into the RingCentral fold.
This is a significant injection of new talent into RingCentral’s operations, which already covers video meetings, webinars, and digital conference rooms, said Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral’s founder and CEO, during a news briefing with analysts.
“The acquisition of Hopin brings fresh energy and innovation to RingCentral’s video services. We now have a complete solution—meetings, rooms, webinars, and events—enhanced by the unmatched customization capabilities of Hopin’s Session portfolio. This will offer a superior experience for hosting a meeting or an event.”
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Bringing Simplicity to Hybrid Events
RingCentral has established a reputation for simplifying business communications with its video tool suite. The suite includes RingCentral Video, an online platform enabling users to arrange or join meetings from anywhere; RingCentral Rooms, which turns any location into a video conference room; and RingCentral Webinar, capable of hosting large online gatherings of up to 10,000 participants from any computer, web browser, or mobile device.
As RingCentral integrates Hopin’s technology into its core offerings, the user experience is set to undergo significant enhancements, Shmunis added. RingCentral is reinventing itself as an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven company, delivering smartphone solutions, an intelligent contact center, and business solutions for companies of all sizes.
Historically, events have not been considered part of a collaboration suite, but that sentiment is changing. Digital collaboration is about sharing content and ideas, and events do that in a massively scalable way. Businesses can now use RingCentral for one-to-one meetings, one-to-few brainstorming sessions, one-to-many webinars, and company meetings and how one-to-thousands in an event format.
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