Developers vie for $7.5K prize for best IoT enabled notification services app built on Zang Cloud

Brooklyn, New York – June 20, 2017 – In addition to its exciting sponsorship of the DeveloperWeek NY 2017 Hackathon, Zang, an Avaya company, today unveiled four eagerly anticipated updates to its robust communication platform-as-a-service, Zang Cloud, adding Automatic Speech Recognition, SIP Registration, Multimedia Messages Service (MMS) and Text to Speech enhancements.

In celebration of DeveloperWeek, New York City’s largest developer conference & expo, Zang is a proud sponsor of the DeveloperWeek Hackathon, the nation’s largest challenge-driven hackathon. With $7,500 in prizes up for grabs, the Zang Challenge asks developers to build a notification services app that leverages IoT (Internet of Things) to drive proactive communications and workflows with the Zang Cloud API.

By providing dramatically simple tools and APIs that enable businesses to embed communications directly into mobile and cloud-based applications, Zang Cloud is changing the way companies engage and communicate with customers and collaborate with each other.

With its recent introduction of Zang Workflow, Zang Cloud became the first in the industry to integrate an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop development tool into an all-in-one cloud communications platform, enabling almost anyone to create smart communication apps and workflows – with no coding required.

Zang Cloud continued its momentum at DeveloperWeek, releasing the following rich, new features:

• Automatic Speech Recognition - One of the most requested Zang Cloud features, the introduction of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) will be a differentiating service for Zang Cloud in the market. It allows computers to recognize human speech and interact with callers by interpreting questions/comments. It is ideal for customers that are contact center and/or IVR centric.
• SIP Registration - An exciting new way to use the Zang Cloud voice API, with SIP Registration you can connect your SIP-enabled devices or softphones directly to Zang Cloud and use Zang APIs to build call-handling logic. For example, you can get multiple phone numbers from different locations, then decide if your phones ring sequentially or simultaneously. You can control call routing from your code, based on day of the week, time of day, or Caller ID.
• Multimedia Messages Service (MMS) - Similar in API signature to our SMS service, you can embed the ability to send MMS messages in your apps. The developer will need to provide a URL in the API call that points to the appropriate picture or audio file that is to be sent in the message. Likewise, if an MMS message is sent to Zang Cloud, the developer will be provided a URL in the response of the message to the location of the associated picture or audio file to process. In addition to US and Canadian local Zang Cloud phone numbers, the MMS feature set will be applicable to related toll-free and message-enabled landlines that are configured for Zang Cloud.
• Text-to-Speech enhancements - Text-to-speech capabilities have greatly improved, making for a better customer experience when interacting with Zang Cloud. At the core of the enhancements are more natural- and pleasant-sounding male and female voices. Additionally, better translation-handling of words like “API” or “XML” are now in place, and more languages are now supported in both male and female voices.

With Zang Cloud, it’s free to sign up and build workflows or apps. All fees are based on usage, so businesses only pay for what they use. Companies can scale up or down as needed while easily anticipating costs, based on a simple pricing model.

Quotes

“Zang is proud to be a part of DeveloperWeek NY 2017 and excited to celebrate the event with updates that will only make life easier for developers to embed rich communication features directly into mobile and cloud-based applications. By providing dramatically simple tools and APIs, Zang is dedicated to enabling developers and businesses to change the game of smart customer communications and collaboration.”

Mo Nezarati, GM, Zang, Inc.

About Zang, Inc.

Zang, an Avaya company, provides digitally-native communications solutions for organizations and individuals. Zang solutions are the culmination of decades of communication innovation on a pure cloud platform and include Zang Cloud, a communications development platform and API used to embed voice and messaging capabilities into applications; Zang Office, a cloud phone system for businesses; and Zang Spaces, a meeting and team collaboration-as-a-service application.