Vonage joins Google Early Access Program to Enhance SMS for Businesses

HOLMDEL, N.J., Feb. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage (NYSE: VG), a leading provider of cloud communications for business, announced that it will collaborate with Google to provide businesses with enhanced features to the standard messaging experience on mobile devices. Through Nexmo, the Vonage API platform, this SMS upgrade enables delivery of improved business messaging to any Android mobile device, via RCS (Rich Communication Services), helping businesses to engage with their customers for deeper relationships and better business outcomes.

Through Google's RCS Early Access Program, Vonage will offer its business customers, such as G2A.com and BlaBlaCar, this upgraded experience. For these, and other, Vonage customers that rely on messaging in their daily operations, the Early Access Program gives them access to all the new features that RCS messaging offers, from group chat, to high-res photo sharing, to read receipts, and more. These enhanced messaging capabilities will be delivered via the Nexmo Chat App API (patent pending), which provides multi-channel access through one simple-to-connect API.

In an increasingly digital age, customers have the expectation that the businesses and brands they engage with will not only provide an "always on" customer service experience, but that they will have the ability to communicate via any device or medium which the customer prefers, whether it is SMS, RCS, chat or voice.

"More and more businesses today rely on contextual communications to engage customers wherever they are for increased loyalty and better business outcomes," said Vonage CEO Alan Masarek. "RCS business messaging is a natural next step in our goal to reinvent how communications applications are built, providing our customers with the ability to streamline communications in an ecosystem where device and operating systems are irrelevant. RCS offers a much richer experience than either SMS or MMS, and it allows us to provide businesses with the ability to give their customers - no matter the device or operating system they use - the exceptional experience they need to stay competitive."

Via Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform, Vonage provides cloud-based APIs that allow organizations to easily embed voice, messaging, phone verification and more into their applications, ensuring effective communications - via text, social media or chat apps - with both consumers and other businesses. Extending those capabilities to Android users through the RCS upgrade streamlines these communications, enabling consistent contextual communications.

Added Tony Jamous, President of Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform, "This Early Access Program increases our reach within the business space. RCS messages are a great complement to existing SMS capabilities for Vonage customers, bringing additional value to businesses that have the need to deliver rich content, such as read receipts, branded inbound support and multimedia messages, to their customers across the globe."

About Vonage

Vonage (NYSE: VG) is a leading provider of cloud communications services for business. Vonage transforms the way people work and businesses operate through a portfolio of cloud-based communications solutions that enable internal collaboration among employees, while also keeping companies closely connected with their customers, across any mode of communication, on any device.

Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform, provides tools for voice, messaging and phone verification services, allowing developers to embed contextual, programmable communications into mobile apps, websites and business systems, enabling enterprises to easily communicate relevant information to their customers in real time, anywhere in the world, through text messaging, chat, social media and voice.

The Company also provides a robust suite of feature-rich residential communication solutions. In 2015 and 2016, Vonage was named a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as-a-Service, Worldwide. Vonage has also earned Frost & Sullivan's 2015 Growth Excellence Leadership Award for Hosted IP and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) Services and the 2016 North American Cloud Communications Product Line Strategy Leadership Award. For more information, visit www.vonage.com.

Vonage Holdings Corp. is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey. Vonage^® is a registered trademark of Vonage Marketing LLC, owned by Vonage America Inc. To follow Vonage on Twitter, please visit www.twitter.com/vonage. To become a fan on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/vonage. To subscribe on YouTube, visit www.youtube.com/vonage.

(vg-a)

SOURCE Vonage

Related Links

http://www.vonage.com