Growing With Gusto  

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of employees and students globally to work remotely and distance-learn from their homes, which in turn, has prompted extraordinary video usage. Cloud communications and contact center specialist 8x8 has been on the receiving end of some of that unprecedented growth. The firm now has 11.5 million active monthly users on its video meeting platform across 165 countries-- a whopping 50x increase since before the outbreak.

Perhaps now more than ever, businesses and individuals are looking for communication tools that are easy to use, but not at the expense of security, John DeLozier, senior vice president of global channel, told CRN.

8x8 has always been a channel-led company and the firm, along with its partners, are coming to the rescue of customers, including hospitals and educational organizations, with a secure communication platform. Best of all, 8x8 didn't have to scramble to ready its services for the influx of users thanks to the pandemic -- the firm's cloud-based solution is ready for whatever comes next, DeLozier said.

Here are excerpts from the conversation about unified communications as a service adoption, the importance of security, and 8x8's thriving channel program, Elev8.