The last few months within UC and C have certainly been eventful. Publisher of UC Today Rob Scott joins Patrick for a review and round up of all the news. From last week's breaking story of Plantronic's Polycom acquisition to the confirmation of the Cisco BroadSoft deal's ratification we review all of the goings on and what might be to come in the next few months.

Collaboration technology and tools are often lorded as the best way for organisations to increase efficiencies for their end users, quantifying that efficiency is often more difficult. Realising those productivity gains is critical to proving value and providing accurate information in relation to ROI. With companies using a variety of different collaboration and communication mediums the issue of data analysis is made even more complex. We look at the correlation between accurate data analysis and providing great customer services

Often one of the lowest priority mediums within collaboration and meeting technology, sound is sometimes overlooked. Enhanced video capability and a simple user interfaces seem to be the number one targets with little attention paid to the quality of the audio. We spoke to Andrew Border from Dolby and he explains why this should not be the case and that sound and audio quality should be the number one priority for enabling functional and effective remote collaboration.

One of the most interesting angles at EC 2018 last week was the potential disruption caused by the new big players entering the market such as Amazon. The success of Alexa within the consumer world has driven a real desire for professional organisations to be able to leverage this technology in the workplace. We were lucky enough to be able to secure some time with General Manager for Alexa for Business Collin Davis so he could explain how they are looking to change the existing market.

Last Thursday during Enterprise Connect 2018 we conducted our review of the week's action with analysts David Danto and Tim Banting. Both previous guests on the Out Loud podcast and veterans of previous Enterprise Connect Events David and Tim take us through the week and give us their highlights. We compare this event to previous years and analyse the changing trends that have shaped the event in 2018.

On Monday during Enterprise Connect 2018 we were lucky enough to speak to RingCentral's John Finch, AVP for Product Marketing, and Jose Pastor VP of Product Management. John and Jose take us through the latest RingCentral news and provide some insight on the current market. As well as updates we find out what an event like EC 2018 means to them and their main drivers for sponsorship.

Earlier this week during Mitel Next 2018 in Munich we were lucky enough to speak to a host of senior Mitel Executives to hear their thoughts and opinions on the technology world and how Mitel fit into it. VP for UK & I and EMEA Channels Richard Roberts, CMO Wes Durow and EVP of Mitel Solutions Bob Agnes were all guests on Out Loud live giving us their opinions on all the latest trends.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Koldo Loidi, Avaya’s Global Data Privacy Officer, to discuss upcoming GDPR implementation. A specialist in the field Koldo explains some of the steps that Avaya have taken already to ensure their internal processes are up to the new legislation and how that will protect their customers.

Kira Makagon is on the pod today. Kira is the Executive Vice President of Innovation at RingCentral so has a great insight into the UC marketplace. Kira looks ahead into the rest of 2018 to examine some of the emerging technologies that are shaping the industry. We also discuss their focus on simplicity for users and their development plans for the rest of the year.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Vishal Brown from Yorktel to discuss the potential workplaces of the future and how they can be achieved with Unified Comms and collaboration. Vishal explains that to achieve the agile and mobile workplaces organisations demand, work is required from all factions from end users to systems integrators.