Seattle, Sep 24 (IANS): In an effort to help customers connect better with businesses in the remote working times, Microsoft has announced Azure Communication Services which is the first fully managed communication platform offering from a major Cloud provider.

With the Azure Communication Services, businesses can build and deploy on the same low latency global communication network used by Microsoft Teams to support over 5 billion meeting minutes in a single day.

It also enables developers to easily tap into other Azure services, such as Azure Cognitive Services for translation, sentiment analysis and more.

"Additionally, companies benefit from all communications being encrypted to meet privacy and compliance needs, such as US HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and GDPR (in the EU)," Microsoft said in a statement on Wednesday.

Azure Communication Services makes it easy to add voice and video calling, chat, and SMS text message capabilities to mobile apps, desktop applications, and websites with just a few lines of code.

Developer friendly APIs and SDKs make it easy to create personalized communication experiences quickly, without having to worry about complex integrations.

These capabilities can be used on virtually any platform and device, Microsoft said.

"In this remote-first world, businesses are looking to quickly adapt to customers' needs and connect with them through engaging communication experiences. Building new communication solutions or integrating them into existing applications can be complex and time-consuming," said Scott Van Vliet Corporate Vice President, Intelligent Communications.

Azure Communication Services brings together the best of communication technology, development efficiency, cloud scale, and enterprise-grade security so "businesses can start creating more meaningful customer interactions on a secure, global platform in days, not months", he added.