Neat Devices Now Offer Direct Guest Join

Unified communications and collaboration hardware manufacturer Neat says its devices now deliver Direct Guest Join, which allows users to connect to Zoom and Webex meetings on Neat devices deployed as Microsoft Teams Rooms, or join Teams meetings on Neat devices deployed as Zoom Rooms.

This move taps into the growing interoperability movement as major videoconferencing players Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco and others are making it easier to join meetings on other platforms and help customers who invested in platform-specific room hardware take meetings on other conferencing platforms.

According to Neat, users can connect to a Cisco Webex or Zoom meeting from a Microsoft Teams Room by forwarding the meeting request to the Microsoft Teams Room.

Users can also connect directly to a Teams meeting from a Zoom Room by forwarding the meeting request to the Zoom Room.

Direct Guest Join is a native feature, which means organization’s don’t need additional licenses or subscriptions outside of their existing meeting room license.

“As always, Neat is excited to provide the simplest, most reliable and desirable video experiences possible for you and is delighted that Direct Guest Join makes connecting to third-party meetings more accessible than ever,” the company said in a post on its website.

The Direct Guest Join feature is available eon all Neat devices—with the exception of Neat Frame on Microsoft Teams—and includes the latest Neat firmware release, the latest Microsoft Teams application and Zoom Rooms version 5.10.3.

Microsoft and other UCC software providers announced Direct Guest Join in June to make it easier to join third-party meeting platforms.

While first available for interoperability between Teams and Zoom, Microsoft said at the time it was also working on interoperability with Webex, GoToMeeting and BlueJeans.

“Third-party providers like Zoom provide an embedded web experience that temporarily allows Teams Rooms users to join third-party meetings and collaborate more freely,” Microsoft said in a blog at the time. “This web experience provides up-to-date software as well as enterprise-grade privacy and security.”

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